Sandra Cavallo

Sandra Cavallo obtained her PhD from UCL with a thesis on charity and medical poor-relief in early modern Italy. From 1991 to 1995, she held a Wellcome Award in the History of Medicine at the University of Exeter, then moved to Royal Holloway, where she is professor of Early Modern History and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Body and Material Culture. She held fellowships at the EHESS (Paris) and the EUI (Florence) and served in the editorial boards of Genesis and Social History of Medicine.

Sandra’s current research interests lie at the intersection between the history of medicine and the home. She has been Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior and participated in the exhibition project "At Home in Renaissance Italy" (Victoria & Albert Museum 2006–2007). From 2009 to 2012, she led the Wellcome Trust Project Grant “Healthy Homes Healthy Bodies,” which revealed the pervasive role of preventive concerns in shaping the life, design, and material culture of the early modern home. At the MPIWG, she will explore the impact of Early Vernacular Medical Books on the domestic culture of health. A parallel project is a microhistory of the Roman Baroque palace.