Maria Alessandra Bilotta is an art historian, medievalist, researcher – guest professor of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at NOVA University in Lisbon and integrated researcher at the Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM) of the same university. She holds the annual Diploma in Archiving from the Vatican Archives and the Diploma in Library Science from the Vatican School of Library Science; she also holds the European Diploma in Medieval Studies (Diplôme Européen d’Études Médiévales – DEEM) from FIDEM (International Federation of Institutes for Medieval Studies/Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Mediévales). From the academic year 2003-2004 until the academic year 2007-2008 he taught the course of Codicology II (decoration) at the same Diploma. She is a member of the Ménéstrel network. Medievalists on the net: sources, works and online references as editor (she is the editor of the Portugal column and co-editor of the Illuminations and Medieval Lisbon columns). Currently, her research focuses on the medieval illuminated legal manuscripts from the South of France, on illuminated medieval legal manuscripts preserved in Portugal, and on the circulation of foreign legal manuscripts (particularly from southern France) in the Iberian Peninsula. Her research interests also include the study of medieval liturgical manuscripts, the analysis of artistic transfers, and the archaeological aspects of medieval manuscripts. Her doctoral thesis focused on the production of illuminated manuscripts for use of the papacy during the Middle Ages (6th-13th centuries) and was published by the Vatican Library in 2011 (M.A. Bilotta, I Libri dei papi – La Curia, il Laterano e la produzione manoscritta ad uso del papato nel Medioevo (secoli VI-XIII), Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca apostólica Vaticana, 2011 – Studi e Testi, 465). She was scientific curator of the following exhibitions: “Le parement d’autel des Cordeliers de Toulouse: Anatomie d’un chef d’oeuvre du XIVe siècle” (Toulouse, Musée Paul Dupuy, 13 March – 13 June 2012); “A Circulação do Direito na Europa Medieval: Manuscritos Jurídicos Europeus em Bibliotecas portuguesas” (Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 26 of February – 31 of May of 2016). Among the several international workshops and conferences she has organised and coordinated are: “O estudo dos manuscritos iluminados e dos artefactos na Arqueologia da Idade Média: metodologias em comparação” (Lisbon, February 13, 2015); “Circulations juridiques et pratiques artistiques, Intelectuais et culturelles en Europe au Moyen Âge (XIIIe – XVe siècle) – Medieval Europe in Motion 3” (Lisbon, FCSH-UNL – National Library of Portugal, 25-27 February 2016).
Research unit: Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM)