He studied at the University of Turin (where he was a pupil of Franco Venturi, and where he obtained his "laurea" in 1969 with a thesis about "Pietro Bizzarri esule Italiano del Cinquecento", published in 1971). Subsequently he has been Accademia dei Lincei fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He has taught early modern history at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Cagliari. Ha has been fellow or visiting professor at the Newberry Library, Chicago, at the Cornell University, Ithaca and at the University of Oxford (where in 2006 he was "Isaiah Berlin" visiting professor).