Dr Francesco Cassini

Lecturer in Ancient History

A man with brown hair in a blue shirt and dark blazer in front of a bookshelf

Francesco Cassini is an ancient historian and archaeologist, specializing in the Roman Republic, Italy and the western Mediterranean, and Latin epigraphy. Before joining UCL, Francesco Cassini held positions at Columbia University in New York, Sapienza University in Rome, as a member of the Sapienza School for Advanced Studies (SSAS), and the University of Lausanne. He has published various contributions on the civic and urban history of Italian cities, monuments and imperial ideology, and the archaeology of his native region, Venetia.

Beyond his scholarly activity, he has extensive on-site experience and has collaborated on curatorial projects with Sapienza University, the Sapienza School for Advanced Studies, and the Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage involving antiquities collections and excavation archives. He is also interested in various aspects of ancient visual culture and currently leads the project ICONOS, which explores the iconographic reception of ancient myths, as well as the “Online database for the epigraphic collections of the city of Rome.”

Further research venues involve processes of empire-building, labor and production in the ancient urban economy, folklore and popular culture in antiquity, and the history of classical scholarship.

Selected publications

  • (2025) The Standardization of Honorific Practices in Late Republican Italy. Some notes on Serial Monuments and Elogia, in E. Mataix Ferrándiz – K. Verboven (eds.), Legal and Economic Practice in the Roman World. Perspectives on Standardization and Localism, Cham.
  • (2025) Spunti di lettura dello spazio nei rilievi storici romani. Il caso dei pannelli dell’arco di Marco Aurelio, in F. Ghedini, et al. (eds.), Iconografia 2022. La rappresentazione dello spazio tra realtà e simbolo, Padova.
  • (2023) Aspetto e carattere degli spazi pubblici di Aquileia repubblicana. Alcune riflessioni tra passato e presente, «Quaderni Friulani di Archeologia», 33: 7-22.
  • (2021) Whose monuments? Italian urbanism and Roman interventions (2nd-1st century BCE), in R. Pfeilschifter – C. Mohamad-Klotzbach (eds.), Local Self-Governance in Antiquity and in the Global South, Berlin: 205-224.
  • (2021) Gens, gentilitas, gentilis. Alcuni appunti su lessico e archeologia funeraria della Venetia romana, «Scienze dell’Antichità», 27.2: 215-228. 
     

Public Engagement

  • Catalogue essay (‘L’originalità del multiplo. Rileggere l’arte antica attraverso il seriale’) for the exhibition ‘Greek originals in Rome’, Capitoline Museums, 2025-26.

As the founder and president of the SSAS Alumni Association, Francesco is involved in various outreach initiatives and research groups focused on academic policies and the societal impact of academic institutions.

Teaching

Contact

Email: f.cassini@ucl.ac.uk

Office: B16, 23 Gordon Square

Student support and feedback hours: Mondays, 12-1 pm; Wednesdays, 3-4 pm. Book here.

Student support & feedback hours are an opportunity for students to chat with their module tutors about their ideas, any support they might need with the module, and to go through feedback from their assessments. 

Qualifications

Ph.D., Columbia University, 2024