Charlie West

Charlie previously completed his Bachelor’s in Italian at Spanish (2023), and his Master’s in Medieval Studies (2024), at the University of Oxford. He also studied History of Art at the University of Córdoba on an Erasmus Exchange (2021-22), and has taught English as a Foreign Language in Lombardy and Poland.

His Master’s thesis, ‘Mentioning the Unmentionable: Dante’s Sodomites in the Commentaries’, explored the treatment of sexual deviancy in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century commentaries on the Commedia, applying a new framework to a corpus of late-medieval texts and illuminations. His work generally focuses on rethinking approaches to the medieval texts and imagery, and in particular the limits and boundaries of ‘masculinity’, having written on the representations of Saint Sebastian, as well as texts such as Petrarch’s Canzoniere, Poliziano’s Orfeo, and Machiavelli’s Mandragola. He also has a keen interest in the visual and material culture of late medieval Italy, having undertaken palaeographic and codicological research into various manuscripts and charters in the libraries and archives, both at Oxford and Yale. Charlie’s research also touches upon the history of Italian Studies, and Dante Studies in particular, in Britain.