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Alessandra Molinari is (since 2001) Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy), with PhD supervisions also with the University of Siena. Her studies have focused mainly on the city of Rome in the Middle Ages, medieval Tuscany (Arezzo and its territory), but especially Sicily from the Byzantine to the Swabian period. She has directed excavations and other fieldwork at Segesta (Trapani) and its territory, Mazara del Vallo, the old Cathedral of Arezzo and the castle of Montecchio Vesponi (Cortona). Her current research projects include construction of the digital Forma Urbis of medieval Rome and, above all, the study of the socio-economic transformations of Sicily from the Byzantine to Islamic age, in collaboration with the University of York with a multidisciplinary approach. Her books include: Segesta II. Il castello e la moschea (scavi 1989-95) (Palermo, 1997); Arezzo: il Colle del Pionta. Fonti e materiali dall’età classica all’età moderna, (Arezzo, 2005), with C. Tristano. She is joint editor (with A. Nef) of La Sicile à l’Époque islamique. Questions de méthodes et renouvellement récent des problématiques, MEFRM, 116, 2004, 1, and editor of the collected papers on ‘Mondi rurali d’Italia: insediamenti, struttura sociale, economia. Secoli X-XIII’, int journal Archeologia Medievale, XXXVII, 2010.