Massimiliano Vassalli

Massimiliano Vassalli is a postdoctoral researcher at Sapienza University of Rome and a visiting researcher at the University of Toronto (2025–2027) and SOAS University of London (May–August 2026). 

In 2024, he was awarded the Marie Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project Tracing Records and Views of European Literature on Zoroastrians of Iran in the Late Modern Age (TRAVELS), which reconstructs the history of the Zoroastrian community in Iran between 1773 and 1854 by integrating European, Parsi, and Iranian sources. 

He has published articles on late antique Zoroastrian literature and on 19th-century encounters between Zoroastrians and Europeans, with a focus on cross-cultural perspectives. His recent book on Dēnkard VII (2024) offers an Italian translation and commentary of the Pahlavi text, together with a study of Zarathustra’s place in European intellectual history from antiquity to the present. 

Massimiliano’s broader research interests encompass Zoroastrian literature across the ages, with a focus on the legend of Zarathustra; intellectual exchanges between Zoroastrians and other cultures; and the history of the Zoroastrian communities.

• History of the Zoroastrian community
• Iranian and South Asian Studies
• Zoroastrian Literature
• European-Asian Intellectual History

'TRAVELS' - Tracing Records and Views of European Literature on Zoroastrians of Iran in the Late Modern Age