From 21 to 27 May 2025, Dr Sofia Bianchi Mancini, postdoctoral researcher at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (University of Erfurt) and co-Principal Investigator of the project A01 "Ambiguous Property: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages", part of the Collaborative Research Centre TRR 294/2–424638267 "Structural Change of Property" (funded by the DFG), visited our Faculty for a short research stay as part of a scientific collaboration with the ERC project STONE-MASTERS and the Warsaw Centre for Research on Ancient Civilizations (CRAC UW).

During her stay, Dr Bianchi Mancini worked closely with our team on the comparative study of Greek letter morphology. Drawing on her expertise in the Archaic palaeography of epichoric scripts from Sicily—particularly as found in the earliest extant curse tablets of the ancient world—she engaged in dialogue with the team’s research on Late Antique palaeography. She also explored our methodological approach to palaeographic comparison, with the aim of applying it to her own field of study, and we jointly conducted trials in letterform design to support both research lines. As part of her stay, Dr Bianchi Mancini delivered a lecture within the framework of the Seminarium "Epigrafika i papirologia" on 26 May 2025. Her talk, entitled "How to Curse in Mid-Fifth Century Akragas: An Analysis of IGASM II, 90", presented a novel exploration of how palaeographic analysis can inform the study and contextualisation of Sicilian curse tablets.