Professor Terpstra is a specialist in the social history of Renaissance and early modern Italy. He has published extensively on urban society, charitable institutions, and confraternities. His books include Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (Johns Hopkins: 2005) and Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge University Press: 1995), which was awarded the Howard R. Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies. He has edited three collections, The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy (forthcoming), The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: 2000) and Civic Self-Fashioning in Renaissance Bologna (special issue of Renaissance Studies vol. 13/4 [1999]), and co-edited three others: Sociability & Its Discontents: Social Capital & Civil Society in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe with N. Eckstein (Brepols: 2008), The Renaissance in the Streets, Schools, and Studies with K. Eisenbichler (Toronto: 2008), The Renaissance in the 19th Century with Y. Portebois (Toronto: 2003). He is currently working on a set of projects having to do with the politics and economics of charity.
Department of History
BA, MA (McMaster), PhD (Toronto)
202 Northop Frye Hall, Victoria College.
tel: 416-585-4428
email: nicholas.terpstra@utoronto.ca
Areas of Research
Civic religion and civil society in Renaissance and Reformation Europe; intersections of politics, religion, charity, and gender in urban society.
Recent Publications
Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence (Johns Hopkins: forthcoming)
Sociability & Its Discontents: Social Capital & Civil Society in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe with N. Eckstein (Brepols: 2008)
Edited: The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy (Truman State: 2008)
Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (Johns Hopkins: 2005)
The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: 2000)
Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: 1995), awarded the Howard R. Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies