Born in Messina in 1951, she is Professor of Humanistic Literature at the University of Florence, where she was also Director of the Department of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She has published Coluccio Salutati's De fato et fortuna (1985) and the two volumes Stampa, cultura e società a Messina alla fine del Quattrocento (Press, culture and society in Messina at the end of the 15th century); she has dealt with Cardinal Bessarione to whom she dedicated a monograph (1999) and numerous articles. Other research topics include Roman humanism, the philology of printed texts and the history of manuscripts and libraries.