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Let’s talk about you: what is your background, what do you teach, and what are your research interests?
I am Caterina Tarlazzi. I was born and raised in Romagna, and at Ca' Foscari I currently teach History of Mediaeval Philosophy (for Bachelor students) and History of Mediaeval Logic and Semantics (for Master students). I work on the history of mediaeval philosophy. Specifically, I study logic, metaphysics and semantics from Boethius to the end of the twelfth century, and the manuscripts containing the works on logic from this period. Most of all, I study Peter Abelard and his contemporaries (Heloise, Alberic, William, Walter...) — the schools that gave rise to universities.

Tell us about your academic path.
For most of my education I lived in three places: Padua, Paris and Cambridge. With Erasmus, PhD co-tutorship and postdoc, I managed to rotate twice... I loved them all very much, especially Cambridge, whose somewhat 'abbey-like' style suited me very much. Before coming to Ca' Foscari, I worked as a postdoc researcher at the University of Geneva, a place which, because of its interests, summed up so many aspects of this tri-language career.

What was your greatest professional satisfaction?
I have to say that I have had a lot of satisfaction from my work... However, I may be trite, but at the moment my greatest satisfaction is still the day I found out I had been awarded the Rita Levi Montalcini grant, to which I currently owe my position at Ca' Foscari. It is a programme of the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) that offers a potentially permanent position to young researchers working abroad. Fortunately, the call comes out every year, so you can dream of getting it and try to prepare to apply as well as you can. I remember very well the afternoon when I found the email with the subject "Results of the RLM application"... And what a joy to read that it started with "We are delighted"...! These applications always make my heart jump.

Why do you study your subject? What would you tell a student to attract their interest in your research?
You know, I was asked this same question on the day of the oral exam for the Research Associate position at St John's College. I replied that I like to study these things "because it's difficult"... and from the reaction of the professors interviewing me, I always thought I had the place for this answer! For me, studying the logic and manuscripts of Abelard's time is like solving a puzzle; I am fascinated by the many skills required (not only Latin, but palaeography to read the manuscript, knowledge of the sources to understand what we are talking about, English to write about the subject) and the obscurity of the content. And yet, little by little, you manage to understand even something that is apparently impossible to understand... This is what I find fascinating.

Your dream for your future research?
Seeing Abelard's lost Grammar in a manuscript... and realising that I have found it!