Andrea Carandini is professor emeritus of Archaeology and History of Greek and Roman Art at Sapienza University of Rome. A student of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, he conducted fundamental excavations between the Palatine Hill and the Forum, discovering early Rome in the 8th century BC and Rome before Rome in the 9th and 10th centuries. From 2009 to 2012, he was President of the Higher Council for Cultural Heritage and from 2013 to 2021 President of the FAI. For Laterza, he is the author of, among other works: Rome. The First Day (2007); The Houses of Power in Ancient Rome (2010); Il nuovo dell’Italia è nel passato (The New Italy is in the Past) (2012); Su questa pietra. Gesù, Pietro e la nascita della Chiesa (On This Stone: Jesus, Peter, and the Birth of the Church) (2013); Il fuoco sacro di Roma. Vesta, Romolo, Enea (The Sacred Fire of Rome: Vesta, Romulus, Aeneas) (2015); Angoli di Roma. Guida inconsueta alla città antica (Corners of Rome: An Unusual Guide to the Ancient City) (2016); La forza del contesto (The Power of Context) (2017); I, Agrippina (2018); From Monster to Prince. The Origins of Rome (with Paolo Carafa, 2021), I, Nero (with Nicolò Squartini, 2023). For Einaudi, he has published The Birth of Rome (2003), Searching for Quirinius (2007), Stories of the Earth (2010). For Rubbettino, he is the author of Landscape of Ideas. Three Years with Isaiah Berlin (2015), and Seneca and Faust. Dialogues on Morality between Origins and Decadence (2025).