
Dr. David Merlin
Researcher Music History
+39 06 66049221
david[dot]merlin[at]dhi-roma[dot]it
Study of Musicology at the University of Pavia (Bachelor's and Master's degree, Prof. Giacomo Baroffio) and PhD at the University of Vienna (dissertation on the context, production process, liturgical and musical content, as well as the music notation of an antiphonary printed in Vienna in 1519, Prof. Birgit Lodes); collaborations with the University of Pavia, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Library of Melk Abbey, Monash University (Australia), and the Cantus Database (Canada); 2019–2025 teaching at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Vienna and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna; 2023–2025 Post-Doctoral Researcher in the interdisciplinary project "SIDME – Sensory Impairment and Disability in Medieval Europe. Inclusive Approaches for Studying the Experience of Art", led by Prof. Zuleika Murat at the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua; since March 2025 postdoc researcher at the German Historical Institute in Rome in the Department of Music History with the research project Healing Cecilia. Sacred Music and People with Disabilities in Hospitals of the German- and Italian-Speaking Areas (16th–18th Centuries).
Main research interests
Liturgical-musical manuscripts, fragments, and prints (especially 12th–18th centuries); regional and local traditions of liturgical chant; Saints’ liturgical Offices; late medieval notations of monophony; music printing; cantus fractus and early/simple polyphony; Disability Studies in the premodern era; digital multimedia musicking
