My new book project explores the still neglected Italian Enlightenment movement, or Illuminismo, within the framework of the gallows, which shaped major political, religious, aesthetic, and medico-scientific reforms across the Italian peninsula. Focusing on four cultural capitals: Bologna (a Papal state), Milan (ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs), Florence (under Grand Duke Peter Leopold), and Naples (Kingdom of the Spanish Bourbons), I aim to show that, notwithstanding their distinct cultural histories and modes of governance, for each, the criminal body was a recurrent touchstone for institutional transformation. In the singular collaborative milieu of scholars and artists at the American Academy, the Rome Prize would allow me to hone what I hope will be a critical new narrative of the Enlightenment Age.