Franco Cardini (Florence, 1940), a student of Ernesto Sestan, is a highly versatile scholar whose interests range from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era. Within the historiographical problems of the Middle Ages, these interests have been pinned on a wide range of themes, with an extraordinary number of studies, often pioneering, at least in Italy: on the Crusades, pilgrimages, witchcraft, chivalry, war, holiness and many other topics. A refined and eclectic scholar of the medieval mentality, he had many relations with foreign countries, as evidenced by his long stays, among others, in France, Russia and the United States. His political commitment then led him to always look with great attention to contemporary events, of which he is still an uncommitted and non-trivial interpreter.
