[6][a] Lydia Marinelli was born at Matrei, a relatively isolated little town north of Lienz, high in the mountains of East Tyrol.
[4] Marinelli received her doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1999 for a dissertation entitled "Psyches Kanon – Zur Publikationsgeschichte der Psychoanalyse rund um den Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Verlag", concerning the publications on psychoanalysis produced by the highly influential so-called "International Psychoanalytic Publishing House" which operated in Vienna between 1919 and 1938.
[2][8] It was characteristic that Marinelli combined her work on the dissertation with a small (and very well reviewed) exhibition on the same themes which she was preparing for the Freud Museum.
[9] In 2003/04 Marinelli became "Director of the Research Division" ("wissenschaftliche Leiterin") at the Sigmund Freud Foundation, retaining the post for the rest of her life.
[2][8] Although the focus of her professional career was on Vienna, Lydia Marinelli was an enthusiastic networker and communicator, notably when it came to encouraging a less polarised and ossified approach to the study of Sigmund Freud.