«Studi Germanici» was founded in 1935 to host the results of the research activities conducted by the Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici. It is the oldest academic journal of German studies published in Italy and has made a crucial contribution to the field. Its orientation reflects the breadth of the discipline in the Italian context. Philological and literary studies make up its fundamental core, but ample space is given to German culture as a whole, understood in all its geopolitical extension and in its multiple expressions, from linguistics to philosophy, from art history to musicology, from social sciences to history, from cinema to archaeology. The specificity of the journal (and of the Institute it is affiliated to) lies in its inclusion of the Scandinavian and Dutch areas, which are considered historical parts of the Germanic world, and closely linked to it. Since its inception, «Studi Germanici» has thus experimented with intersectionality as an approach to research, positioning itself as an indispensable methodological point of reference in the Italian humanities.

Starting with issue 17 in 2020, «Studi Germanici» has had a new collegiate editorship and a new internal subdivision into three sections. The ‘Essays’ contain wide-ranging investigations focusing on issues, texts and authors, or devoted to the clarification of theoretical and methodological questions of a generic nature; ‘Research’ contains publications regarding archival materials, especially if previously unpublished or scarcely studied; the ‘Observatory of German Studies’ is devoted to academic reviews.

«Studi Germanici» is indexed in the Italian Fascia A list (ANVUR Area 10) and is published every six months. A thematic issue is published once a year by the Italian Association of German Studies. The journal publishes essays in Italian, German, English and French. It is hosted on the website of the Institute for German Studies, which ensures access to «Studi Germanici» in the event it should no longer be published. The journal is supported financially by the Istituto di Studi Germanici, which earns no revenue from its publications.