Silvia Cavicchioli is Full Professor (Storia contemporanea) and teaches Storia dell’Ottocento e del Novecento; Storia e memoria del XIX secolo; Research, Storytelling, Enhancement of Historical and Cultural Heritage in the Department of Studi Storici of the University of Turin where she is President of the “Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Cultural Heritage and Creativity for tourism and territorial development” and member of the “Collegio del Dottorato in Patrimonio culturale e produzione storico-artistica, audiovisiva e multimediale”.
She is the Scientific Director of the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in Turin.
She is corresponding member of the Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria, member of the Board of the Comitato di Torino dell’Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano. Former Vice President of the Museo del Territorio Biellese is currently Director of the Centro Studi Archivi Alberti La Marmora in Biella; member of the Società italiana per lo studio della storia contemporanea (SISSCO) and of the Associazione Amici di “Passato e presente”. She is member of Direction Board of the review “Memoria e Ricerca. Rivista di storia contemporanea”; member of the Scientific Board of the review “Il Risorgimento”; member of the Editorial Board of the review “Itinerari di ricerca storica”. She is also member of the Editorial Board of the editorial series of the Comitato di Torino dell’Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano (Carocci Editore) and member of the Scientific Board of the editorial series “Il fiuto dell’orco” (Edizioni Affinità Elettive). She has been member of the Jury of the National Award “Cherasco Storia” from 2008 to 2016.
In recent years her research interests have focused on memory studies, in particular on the themes of history and celebration of the Italian Risorgimento; on political martyrdom; on gender history; on the museums’ collections, political objects and Art related to national identities in XIXth century; on Public Uses of Bodies and Relics; on the history of the Kingdom of Sardinia and post-unitarian Italy; on the XIXth century ruling classes and family histories.
Among her recent publications: Silvia Cavicchioli, Giacomo Girardi (a cura di), Sfida al congresso di Vienna. Quadri internazionali e cultura politica nell’Italia delle rivoluzioni del 1820-21, Carocci, Roma 2023; I cimeli della patria. Memoria e politica nel lungo Ottocento (Carocci, Roma 2022, awarded with the Premio “Memoria e Ricerca” 2023); Public Uses of Human Remains and Relics in History, eds. with L. Provero (Routledge, New York 2020); Anita. Storia e mito di Anita Garibaldi (Einaudi, Turin 2017, awarded with the Premio Fiuggi Storia 2017, Sezione Biografie; finalist for the Premio Acqui Storia 2018; finalist for the Premio Comisso 2018); Famiglia, memoria, mito. I Ferrero della Marmora (1748-1918) (Carocci, Rome 2004); Fare l’Italia. I dieci anni che prepararono l’unificazione (Carocci, Rome 2002 e 2012); L’eredità Cadorna. Una storia di famiglia dal XVIII al XX secolo (Carocci, Rome 2001, finalist for the Premio Acqui Storia 2002).
Among her last papers: Mémoires publiques des martyrs politiques du Risorgimento en Italie, in Pierre-Marie Delpu (dir.), Le martyre politique en Europe du Sud (XIXe-XXIe siècle). Figures, mutations, usages, Éditions de la Casa de Velázquez, Madrid 2025, pp. 207-220; Donne, ebrei, “corpi morali” nei voti liberi delle province modenesi nel 1859, in “Passato e presente”, 115, 2022, pp. 174-194; De Marengo à Solférino et Saint-Martin. Une réflexion sur les ossuaires militaires du XIXe siècle, in Emmanuel Fureix et Paule Petitier (dir.), “Romatisme”, 2021/4, pp. 56-68; The politics of memory. Heirlooms and relics of patriots, fighters and martyrs of the Italian Risorgimento, in Enrico Francia – Carlotta Sorba (eds.), Political Objects in the Age of Revolutions, Viella, Rome 2021, pp. 179-198; Guerra di Crimea: memorie nazionali e processi di democratizzazione, in “Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell’800 e del ‘900”, 2/2021, pp. 177-209; (mit Gabriele Clemens), Nationale Erinnerungskulturen und Erinnerungspolitik in der neueren und neuesten Geschichte Europas (1770-2020), in Silvia Cavicchioli und Gabriele Clemens (Hrsg.), “Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento/Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient”, 46, 2020/1, Luoghi controversi della memoria – I musei nazionali europei/Kontroverse Erinnerungsorte – europäische Nationalmuseen, pp. 11-23