Federico Bellentani

About me

My work sits at the intersection of research, strategy and education, exploring how storytelling, semiotics, digital culture and artificial intelligence shape new imaginaries and social worlds.

I collaborate with universities, organisations, institutions and brands internationally to transform complexity into clarity, helping people and organisations communicate with stronger cultural awareness and deeper social impact.

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In a nutshell

• Post-Doc Researcher and Project Manager at the University of Turin within the ERC Project EUFACETS

• Marketing and Communications Director at Dinova

• Recognised Forbes Italia – Top 100 Marketing Managers in 2025 and Google Cloud Marketing and Communication Star in 2022 and 2024

• Lecturer at University of Bologna and University of Ferrara

• PhD graduate from Cardiff University, with 4 published books and over 30 scientific papers

• Engaged in 20+ international conferences and delivered 25+ invited lectures

Research

My research moves across three main constellations of interest: urban space, memory and identity and digital culture and AI.

Urban space

I study urban space not simply as a physical setting, but as a living text: a dense field of signs, traces, conflicts and imagined futures.

Memory and identity

I am interested in how memories and identities are built, contested and reinvented through material and symbolic forms such as monuments and memorials.

Social innovation and AI

I focus on digital culture and AI, with particular attention to how digital technologies reshape human presence, social relations and cultural meaning.

Marketing

My work is rooted in the idea that marketing and communication are instruments for cultural positioning. I work at the intersection of strategy, narrative and innovation, helping complex ideas become credible and meaningful for different audiences.

On one side, there are technologies, business goals, products and market dynamics; on the other, there are people, expectations, fears, imaginaries and cultural habits. My role is to connect these dimensions, building narratives that are both strategically effective and intellectually honest.

Publications

Books

Federico Bellentani, 2026

Faces and the city. An interdisciplinary approach to facial presence in urban space. London: Routledge.

Federico Bellentani & Massimo Leone, 2026

Segni del tempo. Il volto dell’anziano nell’era digitale, Rome: Aracne.

Federico Bellentani, Mario Panico & Lia Yoka, 2024

Semiotic approaches to urban space, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Federico Bellentani, 2021

The meanings of the built environment. A semiotic and geographical approach to monuments in the post-Soviet era, Berlin: De Gruyter.

Papers

Bellentani, F. 2026. Semiotics of Umarèlls: reclaiming the elderly voice in the digital semiosphere. Semiotica.
Bellentani F. 2024. A Monument’s many faces: The meanings of the face in monuments and memorials. Semiotica 255: 96-116.
Bellentani F., Thibault M. 2024. The feast with the statue – Creative, playful and innovative approaches to controversial cultural heritage. Lexia 39-40: 333-357.
Bellentani F. 2024. A typology of faces of the city. Reti, saperi, linguaggi. Italian Journal of Cognitive Sciences 25 (1/2024): 97-116.
Bellentani F., Leone M. 2024. Ripensare il volto digitale nella Silver Age. Carte Semiotiche – Annali 10 (2024/1): 50-67.
Bellentani F., Arkhipova D. 2022. The built environment in social media: Towards a biosemiotic approach. Biosemiotics 15: 193-213.
Bellentani F. 2021. Pratiche istituzionali per la reinvenzione culturale dei monumenti controversi. Filosofi(e) Semiotiche 8(1): 8-21.
Yoka L., Bellentani F. 2019. Introduction. Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics 5(2): 5-10.
Bellentani F. 2018. Relocating the past: The case of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. Translation. A Transdisciplinary Journal 7: 131-149.
Nanni A., Bellentani F. 2018. The meaning making of the built environment in the Fascist city: A semiotic approach. Sign and Society 6(2): 379-411.
Bellentani F., Panico M. 2018. Pour une approche sémiotique des monuments et des mémoriaux. Trad. E. Caccamo, in collaboration with S. Levesque. Cygne Noir 6.
Bellentani F. 2017. Kultuurilise ümbermõtestamise tavad [Practices of cultural reinvention]. Maja. Estonian Architectural Review 1- 2/2016: 118–119.
Bellentani F., Panico, M. 2016. The meanings of monuments and memorials: Toward a semiotic approach. Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics 2(1): 28–46.
Cócola Gant A., Bellentani F. 2015. Mussolini y la política del pasado de la Roma fascista. Diagonal Revista de Crítica Arquitectónica 39: 10–15.
Montanari F., Frattura L., Chieppa A., Bellentani F., Molica R., Palestrini, M. 2015. Prijedor, Bosnia. Making sense of emptiness. Un workshop, e una prima analisi etnosemiotica, negli spazi urbani del post-conflitto. E | C Rivista on line dell’Associazione Italiana Studi Semiotici 9: 51–58.

Chapters

Bellentani F., Leone M. 2026. Segni del tempo: il volto anziano nell’era digitale. In: Bellentani F., Leone M. (eds.) Segni del tempo. Il volto dell’anziano nell’era digitale. I Saggi di Lexia 64. Rome: Aracne, 9-29.
Hejazi S., Arkhipova D., Barbotto S., Bellentani F., Boffi L., Ghidoli D. 2025. Isolated in connection. Un progetto di ricerca multidisciplinare sulla Silver Age e la sua cultura digitale. In Stano S. and Ponzo J. (eds). Nuove tecnologie digitali e immersive. I Saggi Lexia 61-63. Rome: Aracne, 63-77.
Bellentani F. 2025. The filtered face of the city and its cultural reinvention: the case of Estonia. In Piluso F., Leone M. (eds.) Semiotica dei filtri. I Saggi di Lexia 60. Rome: Aracne: 163-180.
Bellentani F. 2025. La guerra dei monumenti: un approccio semiotico alle controversie su memoriali e monumenti in Estonia. In Galofaro F. (ed) Il senso della pace. Prospettive sulla semiotica della guerra. Milan: Mimesis, 55-73.
Bellentani F. 2025. The cultural reinvention of monuments and memorials in Estonia. In Falsetti M. (ed.) Architecture in the Baltic States. Cities, Landscapes and Heritage of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. London: Routledge, 153-167.
Bellentani F. 2025. Eterni o effimeri? Come evolvono i significati dei monumenti e del loro volto. In Leone, M. (ed.) Il Volto Infinito, 98–130. Turin: FACETS Digital Press, 98-130.
Bellentani F., Yoka L., Panico M. 2024. Introduction to Semiotic approaches to urban space. In Bellentani, F., Yoka, L., Panico, M. (eds.) Semiotic approaches to urban space. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing: 1-14.
Bellentani F. 2023. Evanescent faces: a semiotic investigation of digital memorials and commemorative practices. In Leone, M. (ed.) The Hybrid Face. Paradoxes of the Visage in the Digital Era. London: Routledge, 192-214.
Bellentani F. 2023. Il volto latente della città. In Leone M., ed., Il volto latente. Turin: FACETS Digital Press, 62-85.
Bellentani F. 2023. Semiotics and cultural geography: An interdisciplinary approach to the built environment. In Biglari A. (ed.) Open Semiotics. Paris: L’Harmattan, 105-118.
Dall’Acqua A., Bellentani F. 2023. How to build a chatbot: A semiotic approach. In Santangelo A., Leone M. (eds) Semiotica e Intelligenza Artificiale. Turin: Aracne, 149-170.
Bellentani F. 2021. Translation and controversial monuments in Tallinn. In Lee T.K. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and the City. London: Routledge, 205-221.
Bellentani F. 2020. Diario del Coronavirus: Balconi. In Lorusso A.M., Marrone G., Jacoviello S. (eds) Diario semiotico sul Coronavirus. Palermo: EC-AISS, 52-53.
Bellentani F. 2016. Landscape as text. In Higuera C.J.R., Bennett T.J. (eds.), Concepts for semiotics. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 76-87.

Edited issues

Bellentani F., Leone M. I Saggi di Lexia 64.
Bellentani F. 2023. Special Section of Semiotica 255.
Yoka L., Bellentani F. 2021. Interartive 101.
Yoka L., Bellentani F. 2019. Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics 5 (2).

Definitions

Bellentani F. 2024. Architecture. Semioticon. Open Semiotics resource Centre.
Bellentani F. 2024. Soviet and Post-Soviet Monuments in Estonia. In: Saloul, I., Baillie, B. (eds.) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Reviews

Bellentani F., Giuliana T.G. 2026. Review of The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games, Aroni G. (2022). In Santangelo A, Stano S. (eds.) Il senso della realtà. I Saggi di Lexia 47-48. Rome: Aracne, 377-383.
Bellentani F. 2023. Review of Daniel E. Agbiboa, They Eat Our Sweat. Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Urban Nigeria. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Articles

2026. Non solo vivere più a lungo. La sfida è costruire un tempo che abbia senso, FRIDA
2025. Souls are young: le storie dei nonni in un archivio digitale che unisce le generazioni, FRIDA
2022. Kuidas muuta vastuolulised monumendid rahupaikadeks, Postimees
2021. Interview on controversial monuments, Deník N.
2021. Federico Bellentani e la guerra dei monumenti, Estonia Magazine
2021. Monuments to semioticians around the world, UT Blog
2021. Eesti monumendisõjad pakuvad uurijatele väärtuslikku õppematerjali, Novaator – ERR
2021. Notes on Leonidas’s photography portfolio, Interartive 101
2021. How to deal with controversial monuments? Interartive 101
2020. Dealing with controversial monuments in Estonia and beyond, Cardiff Alumni Blog
2020. Contested Monuments in Post-Communist countries: Problems and Lessons, CommunistCrimes.org
2020. Seven ways to deal with monuments in Estonia, Estonian World
2020. Realised 5 interview podcasts with Fare Ricerca. Title: Humanities skills for innovation
2020. Podcast on Smart Working: how to start doing it now? Rinascita Digitale
2018. Monuments and memorials in changing societies: A semiotic and geographical approach, SemiotiX. A Global Information Magazine
2017. Re-creating memorial landscape in Estonia, Tallinn RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum
2015. with Andrea Zani Comunicare il cibo: i tipi di padiglione dell’Expo Milano 2015, TraMe
2013. La reinvenzione culturale dello spazio urbano in Estonia, TraMe