I would like to introduce myself. My name is Rala Diakite, and as you have seen, I am working on the Villani portion of the VHL. My stint as a research fellow for the Decameron Web in the year 2000 was my first experience of this dynamic project. That period found me at Brown University, as a doctoral candidate in Italian Studies. I have since completed my degree (2003), with a dissertation that compares the political vision of Giovanni Villani to that of Dante, as well as exploring Villani’s role as an early reader of Dante. My interests are Villani, of course, as well as the genre of the Italian chronicle generally. I am intrigued by the contemporaneous blossoming of the vernacular chronicle and the novella in this period, and by their areas of intersection. As Assistant Professor in the Humanities Department of Fitchburg State College, I teach courses on Italian language and culture.