Nicole Demarchi, Paolo Diacono e il dolore. I racconti di un’emozione. Haut Moyen Âge 46. Turnhout: Brepols, 2024, 316 pp.

The volume contributes to the increasingly nuanced and detailed historiographical field of research on emotions in the medieval period (inspired by Barbara Rosenwein’s historiographical research). In the introduction, Demarchi explains the decision to analyze the emotion of pain in the works of Paul the Deacon for several reasons: first, pain is closely associated with the most significant moments of Paul’s life; second, Paul himself engaged with multiple emotional communities), from the Lombards of Benevento to the court of Charlemagne; and third, the diverse genres of Paul’s literary works allow him to explore different shades of emotion in different narrative contexts (10–11). The introduction also situates Paul’s literary output within the broader scholarly literature on emotions and addresses methodological issues of historiography and terminology (11–25). The volume consists of six chapters. The first three discuss the historiographical foundations of the research, key aspects of Paul’s life, and the specific theme of mourning. The remaining three chapters focus on an in-depth analysis of Paul’s literary corpus, identifying the most significant expressions of pain in his works.