Monica Baldassarri is a Senior Research Fellow in Numismatics at the University of Milan, where she teaches History of Medieval and Modern Coins. After completing advanced studies at the Ashmolean Museum and the University of Oxford, she earned a PhD in Medieval History at the University of Cagliari and a Postgraduate Diploma in Late Antique and Medieval Archaeology at the University of Pisa. She has also been a Research Fellow at the University of Pisa and the CNR-ICCOM in Pisa in the fields of history, archaeology and numismatics. She serves on the scientific committees of national and international journals and she is currently collaborating with the British Museum as curator of the volumes The Italian Coins in the British Museum.
For years, she has been engaging in research on medieval and post-medieval archaeology and history between Italy and the western Mediterranean, developing diachronic projects on the archaeology and history of settlements and landscapes, with a focus on the exploitation of material resources and, above all, on metallurgical production. Her research also focuses on monetary history between Late Antiquity and the Modern Age, with a particular interest in the methodological developments of archaeonumismatics, as well as in the dialogue between material and documentary sources in the monetary field and the different uses of coins, both economic and non-economic. In her studies, constant attention is paid to the role of iconographic elements and other aspects of visual communication in coins, but also in seals, medals and other paramonetary materials used between Late Antiquity and the Modern Age.
Her publications in the field of visual history include:
- Stemmi, animali ed altre bizzarrie. La collezione di tessere e gettoni di Moisè Supino, Pisa, ETS, 2003
- La monetazione nella Tuscia medievale: le “strategie” tra comunicazione politica, economia ed arte, in Visibile parlare. Le arti nella Toscana medievale, a cura di M. Collareta, Firenze, Edifir, 2013, pp. 97-112
- “Identità” urbana, sigilli e monete nel Mediterraneo occidentale medievale: alcuni casi a confronto, in Polis, urbs, civitas: moneta e identità, a cura di L. Travaini, G. Arrigoni, Roma, Edizioni Quasar, 2013, pp. 191-207
- Il Volto Santo e la monetazione lucchese nel XIII secolo, in “Predella. Journal of Visual Arts”, 43-44 (2018), pp. 51-63, tavv. XIX-XXIX
- Le monete di Lucca. Dal periodo longobardo al Trecento, Firenze, All’Insegna del Giglio, 2021
- conE. Salvatori, Dove osano le aquile. I sigilli del Comune di Pisa tra Bisanzio, Roma e gli Svevi (XII-XIII secolo), in “Numismatica e Antichità Classiche – Quaderni Ticinesi”, 50 (2021), pp. 275-300
- (a cura di), A ciascuno il suo ‘segno’. Insegne e simboli nell’araldica toscana e montopolese (Quaderni del Sistema Museale Montopolese – QuaSIMM, 1), Pisa, Felici Editore, 2022
- Zecca e monete del Comune di Pisa, dalle origini alla Seconda Repubblica, XII secolo -1406, vol. 1, Pisa, Felici Editore-Le Impronte, 20232.