He is a full professor of the history of Italian language at the University of Pavia, where he presides over the Centre for the Study of the Manuscript Tradition of Modern and Contemporary Authors. He also directs the Multi – Museo multimedia museum of the Italian language.

He contributes to Corriere della Sera’s ‘7’and ‘La Lettura’ and talks about the histories of words on Rai Tre.

He co-edited Storia dell’italiano scritto [The History of Written Italian] in six volumes (Carocci 2014-2021) with Matteo Motolese and Lorenzo Tomasin. Along with Emiliano Picchiorri and Leonardo Rossi, he is the author of grammar books for middle schoolers (La lingua in cui viviamo [The Language We Live In], Mondadori scuola 2024), and for senior school (La cura delle parole [The Treatment of Words], Einaudi scuola 2023 e L’italiano dal vivo [Italian live], Einaudi scuola 2024).

Among his most recent titles are: Il museo della lingua italiana [The museum of the Italian language] (Mondadori, 2018), Il Dante di tutti. Un’epopea pop [Everybody’s Dante: A popular epic] (Einaudi, 2022); as editor, La vita delle parole. Il lessico dell’italiano tra storia e società [The life of words: The Italian lexicon between history and society] (Il Mulino, 2023) and the narrative essay Il mago delle parole [The word magician] (Einaudi, 2025).

He speaks fluent English and French