Born in Bologna. Assistant since 1973, associate professor of architectural history from 1983, professor in 1987 and full professor since 1990. His research interests are primarily oriented towards the history of contemporary architecture and, in particular, the architecture of the Napoleonic era in Italy, the architecture of the Art Nouveau in Paris and the Secession in Vienna, the architecture of historical avant-gardes (Futurism and De Stijl). He also played in the field of industrial archeology research the results of which were presented at international conferences. Part of his scientific work has been devoted to the problem of conservation and restoration of contemporary architecture. From 1986 to 1994 he was a member of the Expert Group UNESCO engaged in the study of the problem of the restoration and conservation of the architectural heritage of the Art Nouveau and from 1989 to 1990 he was a member of the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe responsible for drawing up the recommendation, addressed to the ministers of all member states, on the conservation of the architectural heritage of the twentieth century. Since launch in 1992 was a founding member of Eurocultures Observatoire européen du développement socio-cultural de la ville (Brussels). From 2002 to 2005 he was in charge of a group of scientific researcher of the Department of History of the Florence University, a partner of the European project Patrimoines partagés: savoirs et savoir-faire appliqués au patrimoine architectural urbain et des XIXth et XXe siècles en Méditerranée, since 2006 he has coordinated another group of researchers of the same department partner of the European research project Musomed, engaged in the development of a model of the database “architecture and the city on the Mediterranean in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries”. Since 2008 he has organized, taking care of the catalogs, the three exhibitions promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Italian Architects for Syria and Lebanon in the twentieth century, Italian Architects and engineers in Egypt from the nineteenth to twentieth century , Italian architects in Morocco from the beginning of the French protectorate to today. He has organized two international conferences: The Presence of Italian Architects in Mediterranean Countries (Alexandria 2007) and Architectures et architectes italiens au Maghreb (Tunis 2009). He was a member of the Scientific Committee of the Groupement de recherche international Architectures Modernes en Méditerranée constituted by the French CNRS. He is a partner of the European project Arching and member of the scientific committee of the Cost European architecture beyond Europe.