Francesca graduated in 1976 from Pisa University (Dott. Lett.) and was senior lecturer in the English Department of the Università IULM, Milan, from 1986 to 2002. In 2009 she was awarded a PhD by Heythrop College, University of London, where she is now Research Associate. As well as this, she is a Teaching Fellow at UCL. Her publications include translations into Italian as well as several books and articles on various aspects of English and Italian literature from the Renaissance to the present. Since early on her research interest has been the relationship between literature and Christian spirituality. At present she is editing a collection of essays on Mgr Ronald Knox for PIMS and writing John Donne’s Itinerary for Open Book Publishers Cambridge. At Heythrop, Francesca is the convenor for the Power of the Word series under the Heythrop Institute.

Francesca has set up an international research network for the study of the interconnections between poetry, philosophy, theology and the creative arts. As part of this project, entitled the Power of the Word, supported by Heythrop Research grants, Francesca has organized four international conferences, two in the UK, one in Poland and one in Italy.