Gian Pietro SOLIANI

Gian Pietro Soliani obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophical Studies on 10 December 2008 at the University of Parma, with a thesis entitled The Doctrine of Participation in Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the De hebdomadibus, graduating with a final grade of 110/110 with honours. He subsequently obtained his Master’s degree in Philosophical Sciences on 1 March 2011 at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, with a thesis entitled The Scotist Sources of Rosmini’s Ontology, graduating with a final grade of 110/110 with honours.

On 11 July 2013, after successfully passing the competitive examination for admission to the TFA teacher-training programme (first cycle), he obtained teaching qualification for class A037 (History and Philosophy), with a final grade of 99/100, at the University of Parma.

After successfully passing the competitive examination for admission to the PhD programme at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, he obtained his PhD (28th cycle) on 13 April 2017, with a dissertation on the Spanish Jesuit Antonio Pérez (1599–1649), entitled God and the World. Transcendence and Creation in Antonio Pérez (1599–1649). The research provides a systematic reconstruction of Pérez’s metaphysical, philosophical-anthropological and epistemological thought, drawing both on material published in the mid-seventeenth century and on a substantial body of manuscript sources.

From 2012 to 2020, he taught at the STI in Reggio Emilia, affiliated with the Theological Faculty of Emilia-Romagna (FTER).

From September 2016, he taught History and Philosophy in Italian upper-secondary schools. On 11 July 2018, he successfully passed the national competitive examination for a permanent teaching position in History and Philosophy (A019). From 1 September 2019, he held a permanent position as a teacher in an upper-secondary school for class A019; this activity is currently suspended following his transition to another position.

In the academic year 2020–2021, he was Adjunct Professor of History of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”.

On 12 November 2020, he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor in academic recruitment field 11/C3 (Moral Philosophy).

On 9 September 2021, he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor in academic recruitment field 11/C5 (History of Philosophy).

Following a competitive call issued by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice on 21 December 2020 for the academic field M-FIL/03 (Moral Philosophy), he was appointed fixed-term Type-A Researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice by Rectoral Decree, Official Gazette no. 49 of 22 June 2021.

By Decree no. 1234 of 1 August 2023, the research project ROSMINI – Analysis and Resources of Rosmini’s Thought in a Digital Environment, of which he is Principal Investigator, was awarded funding by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

By Director’s Decree Rep. no. 891/2026, Prot. no. 206431 of 24 August 2026, he was awarded a research contract in Scientific Disciplinary Group 11/PHIL-03 (Moral Philosophy), Scientific Disciplinary Sector PHIL-03/A (Moral Philosophy), under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Pagani, at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage. Project title: The Roots of the Recognition of “Religious Otherness” in Late Scholastic Thought.

For publications, see here.

Participation in international projects, research centres, scientific committees and encyclopaedias

April 2026

Member of the Proyecto de Investigación “La dignidad humana en el Siglo de Oro”

PI: Jaime Vilarroig Martín (CEU Universidad Cardenal Herrera)

Línea Identitaria: “El Humanismo cristiano y la tradición cultural occidental”

2024–present:

Member of the Executive Board of the Centro Studi e Ricerche Antonio Rosmini – University of Trento

Member of the Centre d’études cartésiennes (Sorbonne Université)

2023:

Member of the Scientific Committee of the book series Metafisica, published by Studium-Marcianum Press

2021–present:

Participant in the Conimbricenses.org project, Theology section; coordinators: Profs. Lidia Lanza and Marco Toste

2020–present:

Member of the “Sic et Non” Research Centre on Medieval Thought, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

2020–June 2025:

Member of the Board of Directors of the “Biblioteca teologica Città di Reggio”

2018–present:

Founding member of the Cenacolo Rosminiano Triveneto – research group on the thought of Antonio Rosmini

2016–present:

Member of CISE (Centro Interuniversitario di studi sull’Etica – Inter-University Centre for Studies in Ethics), research group at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Member of the Scientific Committee of the Italiana book series, published by Orthotes

2013–present:

Member of the Scientific Committee of the Rivista Rosminiana di Filosofia e Cultura

Journal refereeing and conference organisation

Referee for the following journals: Etica & Politica (Class A; Scopus); Bulletin de philosophie médiévale (Class A; Scopus); Rivista rosminiana di filosofia e cultura; Rosmini Studies (Class A); Lo Sguardo (Class A); Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale (Class A; Scopus); Razón y Fe; Discipline filosofiche (Class A); Rivista di filosofia politica (Class A); Filosofia morale; Philosophies (Scopus).

Member of the Organising Committee of the international conference Secularity and Postsecularity. Sociological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 17–18 October 2025.

Member of the Organising Committee of the international conference Blaise Pascal (1623–1662): Metaphysics, Science, Theology, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 30–31 March 2023.

Member of the Scientific and Organising Committee of the annual Philosophy of Practice seminars (FILPRA), together with Profs. Paolo Pagani and Fabrizio Turoldo (2021–present).

Member of the Scientific and Organising Committee of the annual Ontoethics seminar, together with Prof. Paolo Pagani and Dr Francesco Saccardi.
From 2016 to 2021: Member of the Organising Committee of the Quaestiones quodlibetales at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (optional teaching activities of the PhD programme in Philosophy).

Member of the Organising Committee of the national conference Rosmini and Twentieth-Century Italian Philosophy, held at the Istituto della Carità – Monte Calvario, Domodossola, 11 October 2014.

Invited lectures and conference presentations in Italy and abroad

1. “Notas sobre la fe implícita y la salvación en algunos teólogos de Salamanca”, International Congress for the Fifth Centenary of the birth of the Escuela de Salamanca, Salamanca, 9–13 February 2026.
2. “Dignity and Infinity. The Projection of Thomas Aquinas’s Thought in Francisco de Vitoria and the Questions Raised by the Discovery of the New World”, paper presented at the international conference The Holiest among the Learned, the Most Learned among the Saints. Perspectives on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas in Relation to Modernity on the Eighth Centenary of His Birth, Venice, 13–15 November 2025.
3. “Christopher Davenport (1598–1680) sobre la relación entre la ignorancia invencible y la salvación. La escolástica española adaptada al ámbito británico”, International Conference Salvation, Politics and Economy in the Early Modern Period: Relevance and Projection of the Scholastic Tradition, organised by José Luis Cendejas Bueno, Francisco Javier Gómez Díez and Leopoldo José Prieto López, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, 18–19 June 2025.
4. “The Ideal and the Real. Notes on Rosmini’s Critique of Gioberti’s Metaphysics”, conference Between Philosophy and Politics: The Legacy of Vincenzo Gioberti, Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi and Associazione Vincenzo Gioberti, Brescia, 20 March 2025.
5. “Alfonso de Castro and Sebastian Castellio on Religious Truth, Heresy and Toleration”, IHR Study Days, Laboratories of Tolerance: Rethinking Sebastian Castellio and his Legacy, organised by Odile Panetta, Brigitte Hilmer and Ueli Zahnd, University of Geneva – Institut d’histoire de la Réformation, Geneva, 7–8 November 2024.
6. “La verdad trascendental en Antonio Pérez S.J. (1599-1649)”, VI Jornadas de Sofic, Quid est veritas. Sobra la verdad, Barcelona, Universitat Abat Oliba, 18–19 October 2024.
7. “The Self between Logic and Metaphysics in the Thought of Antonio Pérez S.J. (1599–1649)”, Logic and Metaphysics in the Cartesian Age, seminar of the Centro Dipartimentale di studi su Descartes e il Seicento in collaboration with the Centre d’études cartésiennes of Sorbonne Université, University of Salento, Lecce, 13–14 March 2024.
8. “Francisco de Vitoria: Beatitudine e appetito naturale nel ‘De beatitudine’, qq. 1-5”, Congreso V Centenario de la llegada de Francisco de Vitoria a Castilla (1523-24). Precedentes y maestros, Complutense University of Madrid, 24–25 January 2024.
9. “Rosmini and Second Scholasticism. Introductory Remarks”, preparatory seminar for the three-year project Rosmini and Second Scholasticism, together with Prof. Igor Agostini, University of Trento, 1 December 2023.
10. “Human Freedom in Blaise Pascal in the Light of Proximate and Remote Sources”, international conference Blaise Pascal between Philosophy and Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, 23 November 2023.
11. “Presencia del ser ideal como inmanencia de lo ‘divino’ en Antonio Rosmini”, Simposium Internacional SOFiC – Interioridad humana presencia, conciencia, educación, Universidad Católica de Ávila, 15–16 September 2023.
12. “Duplex delectatio. Augustine, Pascal and Molinism”, international conference for the fourth centenary of Pascal’s birth, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662): Metaphysics, Science, Theology, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 30–31 March 2023.
13. “Ser, sustancia, persona. La unidad del ser humano en Antonio Pérez S.J. (1599-1649)”, IV Simposium Internacional SoFiC Cuerpo humano e identidad personal, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, 16–17 September 2022.
14. “Duns Scotus and Henry of Harclay on the Will: Affinities and Divergences”, 15th International Congress of the SIEPM, Paris-Aubervilliers, Radical Thinking in the Middle Ages, 23 August 2022.
15. “The Influence of Rosmini’s Idea of Being on Gentile’s Act of Thinking”, 6th Annual Meeting of SIP (Society for Italian Philosophy), Rochester, 9–11 June 2022.
16. “Figures of Infinity between the Middle Ages and Modernity”, paper presented in the Philosophy of Practice seminar series (FILPRA), with Prof. Igor Agostini, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 15 December 2021.
17. “¿Se puede querer el mal en cuanto mal? El nacimiento de una nueva idea de libertad entre la baja Edad Media y la Edad Moderna”, III jornadas SoFiC (El Mal), Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, 17–18 September 2021.
18. “Friendship and the Beatific Vision in Thomas Aquinas”, paper presented at the conference On Man and God. Anthropology and Christology in Thomas Aquinas, Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, 2 May 2019.
19. “God’s Omnipotence in Duns Scotus and Ockham”, seminar within the Quaestiones quodlibetales seminar series, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 26 February 2019.
20. “Optimum secundum modum creaturae. Thomas Aquinas and Metaphysical Optimism”, conference Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy, within the series Quaestiones quodlibetales. Three Study Days on Medieval Philosophy, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 9 January 2018.
21. “The Necessary Connection in Suárez between the Absoluteness of God and the Absoluteness of the Possible”, Francisco Suárez S.I. (1548–1617): On the Threshold of Modernity, conference marking the fourth centenary of his death, University of Genoa, 1 December 2017.
22. “The Medieval Sources of Rosmini’s Principle of Cognition”, national conference Being and Its Forms. Antonio Rosmini and Philosophy, University of Parma, 24–25 November 2017.
23. “The Transcendence of God, the Immanence of the Divine. Notes on Being in Duns Scotus and Rosmini”, advanced seminar Rosmini and Phenomenology, Rovereto, University of Trento, 17–19 May 2017.
24. “Rosmini and Ontological, Personal and Political Freedom”, The Polis: Forms of Bonds and Freedom between Personal and Civic Consciousness, Studio Teologico “S. Paolo”, Catania, 28 April 2016.
25. “Antonio Rosmini and Gustavo Bontadini”, joint presentation with Dr Francesco Saccardi, Biblioteca dei Cappuccini, Reggio Emilia, 23 November 2016.
26. “Introduction to the Problem of Evil”, conference Leviathan. Knowledge Confronting the Scandal of Evil, University of Parma, 16–17 October 2015.
27. “From the Classical Transcendental to the Modern Transcendental”, FILPRA seminar jointly presented with Costantino Esposito, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 20 May 2015.
28. “The Transcendentality of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Rosmini between Tradition and Modernity”, conference Rosmini for Our Time. Elements of Re-generation, Modena, 13–14 November 2014.
29. “Rosmini, Gentile and Us”, study day on Rosmini and Twentieth-Century Italian Thought, Sacro Monte Calvario, Domodossola, 11 October 2014.
    “Introduction to Consciousness”, conference The Primacy of Consciousness, University of Parma, 23–24 May 2014.
30. “The Interpretation of the Teosofia”, Fourth National Congress on the Thought of Maria Adelaide Raschini, The Necessity and Untimeliness of Philosophy, Bocca di Magra, 4–7 September 2013.