William J. Connell, Ph.D.

Professor and La Motta Chair

Profile

I study a wide range of problems in Italian and Italian American History, and European history in general, with particular concentrations on medieval and Renaissance intellectual history, humanism, social history and statebuilding. In recent years I have been working on projects concerning interactions between 16th century Florence and northern Europe, Renaissance historical writing, Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought, early interactions between Italy and America, and prosecutions for blasphemy in early modern Europe.

Education

• Ph. D., University of California-Berkeley, 1989
• M.A., University of California-Berkeley, 1984
• B.A., summa cum laude, Yale University, 1980

Academic Distinctions

• Presidential Award, The Columbian Foundation
  
• Corresponding Fellow: Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Toscana; Societa' Pistoiese di Storia Patria
• Editorial Boards: Academic Alternatives; Annali della Storia di Firenze; Italian and Italian American Studies (Palgrave Macmillan); Journal of the History of Ideas; Storia e politica; Reti medievali; Revista de stiinte politice si relatii internationale
• Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
• Harvard University, Villa I Tatti Fellow
• Fulbright Scholar to Italy

Web Site

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Connell_(historian)

Scholarship

• Academic Minute: Niccolò Machiavelli
  Northeast Public Radio, April 2012
• The Eternity of the World and Renaissance Historical Thought
  California Italian Studies, 2(1), 1-23, August 2011
• New light on Machiavelli's letter to Vettori, 10 December 1513 (Book Chapter)
  In "Europe and Italy: Studies in honour of Giorgio Chittolini", Firenze University Press, 93-127, February 2011
• Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice
  Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
• Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence: The Case of Antonio Rinaldeschi
  CRRS-University of Toronto (rev 2d edn 2008, Italian edn 2006, Russian edn 2009, Romanian edn 2011), 2005
• Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince with Related Documents
  Bedford/St. Martins, 2005
• Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence
  University of California Press, 2002
• La città dei crucci: fazioni e clientele in uno stato repubblicano del `400
  Nuova Toscana Editrice, 2000
• Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power
  Cambridge University Press, 2000