Katia Pizzi is Director of the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, where she is also Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies. She obtained degrees from the Universities of Bologna, Kent and Cambridge and previously lectured in Italian at the University of Kent. Pizzi has published extensively on modern literary culture, memory and the history of cities, especially Trieste. Marjatta Hietala is Emerita Professor of General History at the University of Tampere and Honorary Doctor at the University of Stockholm. She has been a professor at the University of Helsinki, the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Minnesota. From 2010 to 2015 she was the president of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS)/Comité international des sciences historiques (CISH). She has written comparative history on the infrastructure of cities, the diffusion of innovations and creative cities, mostly in Europe.