Bolognese of adoption, he has studied with Ezio Raimondi and Raffaele Spongano (with which has graduated in the 1971) to the university in Bologna, where he has been for a long time ordinary teacher of Italian Literature and medieval Italian Literature and where he has directed for many years the Department of classical Philology and Italianistica. After the degree he has had a scholarship to the Italian institute for the historical studies in Naples. His first teaching, to the Letters and Philosophy school of the University in Bologna, has been of humanistic Literature. He has collaborated and collaborates with the principal Italian Publishing Houses and with foreign Publishers, directing reference book and classical book series and participating to the direction or to the scientific committees of prestigious national and international Magazines. Partner of different cultural institutions, among which the academy of the Sciences of the institute in Bologna, he has belonged to the Board of directors of the institute of the Italian encyclopedia Treccani and President of the Foundation Gramsci Emilia-Romagna as well as Secretary for two mandate of the ADI (Association of the Italian Italianistis). Among his interests, the humanistic and Renaissance literature (among other things he has taken care of important works of Niccolò Machiavelli, of which he is among the greatest experts) , the culture and the art of the Seventeenth century, the history of the literary historiography and the comparative literature. He has written hundreds of publications He has thaught classes and lectures in many European and extraeuropean Countries and his works have been translated in various languages He has participated and participates to a lot of cultural (of which is often himself promoter) activities and he collaborates with some RaiTV transmissions.