Academic interests
Martina Gatto holds a PhD in Ancient Classics from the University of Rome “Tor Vergata,” with a dissertation titled “Lycurgus of Sparta in Greek and Latin Literature”. During her doctoral studies, she spent a year as a visiting researcher at KU Leuven University in Belgium. In 2022 she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, focussing on imperial and late antique sources related to Lycurgus.
Her research interests include Spartan history and tradition, Greek historiography, and the modern reception of Sparta. Her current research project is entitled “The Heritage of the Spartan Mirage: The Spartan Political Ideal in Early Modern Europe.” It investigates how the political ideal of Sparta evolved beyond antiquity, focusing on its reception in early modern Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries, a crucial phase largely overlooked in scholarly research. The project aims to shed new light on how Sparta was imagined and appropriated during this time, drawing on approaches from the history of ideas, intellectual history, ancient history, and modern literature. It examines various forms of reception, including translations and reinterpretations of classical texts about Sparta, the incorporation of Spartan ideals into early modern political theory, and their presence in literary and historical writings
Education
- PhD in Classical Antiquity and its Reception: Archaeology, Philology, History.
- MA in Ancient Philology, Literature and History, University of Bologna
- BA in Classics, University of Siena
Affiliations
Martina Gatto is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (2025 - 2028).