Maria Di Salvo is Professor of Slavic Philology at Milan State University. She studied Slavic languages at the University of Florence, specializing in Russian and Polish, then at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. She published essays and translations of Russian Formalist criticism (Ju. N. Tynjanov, Formalismo e storia letteraria, Torino, Einaudi 1973, B. Tomaševskij, Teoria della letteratura, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1978, P.G.Bogatyrev, Il teatro delle marionette, Brescia, Grafo edizioni, l980) the history of Russian and Polish linguistics (J. Baudouin de Courtenay, N. Trutskoi), then mainly on the eighteenth century in Russia (parts of Storia della civiltà letteraria russa, ed. by M. Colucci and R. Picchio, vol. I, Torino, UTET, 1997). She has been professor of Russian Literature at the universities of Genoa and Pisa, then of Slavic Philology at the universities of Pavia and Milan.