Rector Andrea Mazzucchi, who has been in office since September 1, 2026

Philologist Andrea Mazzucchi, the new rector of the University of Naples Federico II, will take office on September 1. Elected on July 3 in the first round of voting with broad support, Mazzucchi succeeds Professor Matteo Lorito and will lead the university for the six-year term from 2026 to 2032. As established by ministerial decree, the new rector’s inauguration will take place two months before the natural expiration of his predecessor’s term.

Lorito ,in fact, brought forward the end of his term—which would have expired on October 31, 2026—to July 9, in order to assume the position of member of the Governing Council of the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research System (ANVUR). During the interim period, which will last until August 31, Professor Angela Zampella, formerly the university’s vice rector, has assumed the role of acting rector.

Among the new Rector’s main objectives is to make Federico II increasingly competitive at the national and international levels, while simultaneously strengthening its role as a major public university and a bastion of knowledge, freedom, and democracy. A more cohesive, inclusive, and participatory university, in which all members of the university community are involved in decision-making processes and in which students are at the center of institutional action.

“I accept this position,” says Rector Mazzucchi, “with a very strong sense of responsibility and the awareness that I am becoming part of the history of an extraordinary university, to which I have dedicated much of my academic life. The first priority will be to build an increasingly united and cohesive university community, capable of harnessing the extraordinary wealth of expertise at Federico II and confidently tackling the transformations that lie ahead. A great university cannot be the sum of individual interests, nor can it be governed through centralized management: instead, it must value its various components and involve them in the decision-making process. Above all, we will put our students at the center, working to tangibly improve their university experience. At the same time, we will strive to strengthen the University’s capacity to produce excellence in teaching and research and to compete at the international level, by supporting our researchers in accessing competitive funding and fostering interdisciplinary and international collaborations. Indeed, the university cannot merely be a place where one acquires skills and earns degrees; it must serve as the fundamental lever in building critical knowledge, in the ability to interpret the present and shape the future—including in service to the community. This is the responsibility I would like to assume in the coming years, together with the entire Federico II community.”

Andrea Mazzucchi, born in 1966, a native of Puglia and a Neapolitan by choice, is a full professor of Italian Literary Philology, currently serving his second term as head of the Department of Humanities at Federico II, and former president of the University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Considered one of the most authoritative scholars of Dante and the medieval Italian literary tradition, he was educated in Naples and Florence and is the author of over 300 publications. He is a full member of the Accademia Pontaniana and the National Society of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, president of the Society of Philologists of Italian Literature, and a member of the Accademia della Crusca. Since 2017, he has directed the School of Advanced Studies in the History and Philology of Manuscripts and Ancient Books at the Girolamini Library in Naples, established through a partnership between Federico II University and the Ministry of Culture in response to the severe book theft that struck the historic library in 2012, and which led to the creation of new catalogs of the incunabula and ancient manuscripts housed in the monumental complex.

With Andrea Mazzucchi, the Federico II rectorate returns to a humanist for the first time since the term of Professor Fulvio Tessitore (1993–2001).