She studied philosophy at the University of Pisa and holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Scuola Normale Superiore. As a Ph.D. student, she obtained scholarships at the University of Munich and the Hegel-Archiv of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and was a Thyssen research fellow at the University of Munich. She received a two-year post-doctoral appointment at the Università Statale di Milano (1994-1996), and from 1997 to 2005 she served as a lecturer through associate professor of German studies at the Università della Calabria.