By the age of seventeen, when he entered the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, he was fluent in Greek and Latin.
He wrote his dissertation on the life of Gregentios, La ‘Vita’ di s. Gregenzio, vescovo dei Himyariti, under the supervision of Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli and Vera von Falkenhausen, in 1978–79.
Beginning in that year, he took part in archaeological excavations in Bosra, identifying and publishing numerous Greek and Latin inscriptions.
He moved to the University of Milan in 2001, where he was professor of Late Antique and Medieval Artistic Culture and Byzantine Civilization.
[2] Although he never visited Ethiopia, his interest in Ethiopian studies grew in later years.