I spent one year at the CUH, studying for the MA Urban History. This was my first study experience abroad, after getting a Modern History degree from the Università La Sapienza in Rome and a PhD in European Modern History from the Università della Tuscia in Viterbo. I wanted to leave my country, Italy, in order to broaden my knowledge and enrich my profile as a researcher acquiring new competencies and skills in a university abroad.

I chose Leicester because I knew that the CUH was a first-class research centre in urban history, that is, the field I wanted to specialise in. With the wisdom of hindsight I must say that this turned out to be an excellent choice. In fact, the period I spent there was a very productive one for me. I attended several interesting modules as well as the various cycles of seminars that were organised on a regular basis. I also travelled to Exeter for the 2007 Urban History Group annual conference, which I found so stimulating that I decided to give a paper at the following conference that took place in Nottingham in March 2008.

Then I came back to Italy, where I am attending a teacher-training course and I am employed as a Professor of Modern History at the Università della Tuscia. This is just a temporary post, but I hope that I will manage to successfully go on in the academic career. In this perspective, I am also working as a volunteer assistant at the Department of Early Modern and Modern History at La Sapienza. No need to say that, sooner or later, I would like to go back to Leicester for another period of study and research at the CUH.