Research
Publications
Books
Information: a Human History (Johns Hopkins University Press, under contract)
Engaging with the Past and Present. The Relationship between the Past and Present across the Disciplines, editor (Routledge, 2022)
The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe (under contract with Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World, editor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016)
The Changing Face of the Past: An Introduction to Western Historiography (San Diego, CA: Cognella, 2014)
Journal Articles
“Variété et abondance. La copia et l’histoire de l’Europe des débuts de l’époque moderne”, Cahiers d'histoire. Revue d'histoire critique 149 (2021). Special edition on “Information society in the modern age”
“Diplomacy.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation. Ed. Margaret King. Oxford University Press, 2021.
“Reading Dante in the Sixteenth Century: The Bentley Aldine Divine Comedy and its Marginalia”, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 14 (2020)
“The Arte and Offitio of the Pope in Italian Diplomatic Correspondence, 1464–1492”, Mediterranean Studies 24.2 (2016)
“Of camels, crocodiles and human sacrifice: the North Carolina MS of Solinus’ De situ orbis terrarium and readings of classical geography in the Renaissance”, The International Journal of the Classical Tradition 18.2 (2011) (with Christopher McDonough)
“Pope Paul II (1464-1471) and the ambassadorial community in Rome”, Renaissance et Réforme 31.3 (2008)
“The economic predicament of Italian Renaissance ambassadors”, Journal of Early Modern History 12.2 (2008)
“Deciphering the diplomatic archives of fifteenth-century Italy”, Archival Science 7.4 (2007)
“Where history meets myth: recent work in the history of Renaissance Venice” (review article), The Journal of Urban History 32.2 (2006)
“Royal Diplomacy in Renaissance Italy: Ferrante I d’Aragona and his Ambassadors”, Mediterranean Studies 14 (2005)
Book Chapters
forthcoming
“The evolution of intelligence practices in Early Modern Europe”, in The Cambridge History of Intelligence, eds. David Omand and Peter Jackson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)
"The impacts of paper's abundance, 1450-1650: an episode in coevolution," in Paper Stories: Paper and Book History in Post-Medieval Europe, eds. Þórunn Sigurðardóttir, Silvia Hufnagel, and Davíð Ólafson (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022)
"Written Records and Information in Italy", article-length entry in The Routledge Enyclopedia of the Renaissance World, ed. Suzanne Sutherland (London: Routledge, 2022)
in print
"People: Diplomats/Spies”, in The Princeton Companion to the History of Information, eds. Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja Goeing, and Anthony Grafton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020)
“Ambassadors as travelers in fifteenth-century Italy”, in Travel and Conflict in the Early Modern World, eds. Gabor Galleri and Rachel Willie (London: Routledge, 2020)
“The Age of Secretaries” in Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World, ed. Paul Dover (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016)
“The Emergence of Diplomacy, 1454-1815” in The Oxford handbook of early modern European history, c. 1350-1750, ed. Hamish Scott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) (with Hamish Scott)
“How Heinrich Bullinger read his Solinus. Reading ancient geography in 16th-century Switzerland” in Solinus: New Studies, ed. Kai Brodersen (Heidelberg: Verlag Antike, 2014)
“Reading Pliny’s ape (the Polyhistor of Solinus) in the Renaissance: a study in popularity and obsolescence” in Encyclopaedism before the Enlightenment, eds. Jason König and Gregory Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
“Coalition Warfare in Renaissance Italy” in Coalition Warfare, eds. N. Poulsen, K. Galster and S. Nørby (London: Cambridge Scholars, 2013)
“Philip II, Information Overload and the Early Modern Moment” in The Limits of Empire. Essays in Honor of N. Geoffrey Parker, eds. Tonio Andrade and William Reger (London: Ashgate, 2012)
“The Papal Court as a Clearing-House for International News in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century” in Early Modern Rome 1341-1661, ed. Portia Prebys (Ferrara: Edisai, 2012)
“Information revolutions past and present, and teaching the early modern period” in Teaching the Early Modern Period, eds. Danielle Clarke and Derval Conroy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
“Italy 1000-1300”, article-length entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, ed. Clifford Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
“Italy 1300-1500”, article-length entry in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, ed. Clifford Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
“The Resident Ambassador and the Transformation of Intelligence Gathering in Renaissance Italy” in Intelligence, Statecraft and International Power, ed. J. Ohlmeyer, R. Armstrong and E. O’Halpin (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006)
“Good information, bad information and misinformation: deceit and diplomacy in fifteenth-century Italy” in Shell Games: scams, frauds, deceit (1300-1650), ed. R. Raiswell and M. Crane (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto, 2004)
“Renaissance Statecraft”, in Exploring the European Past: Texts and Images (New York: Thomson Learning Custom Publishing, 2004)
Encyclopedia Entries
Siege of Bergamo”, “Battle of Bosco Marengo”, “Siege of Brescia”, “Francesco Bussone”, “Siege of Rhodes”, “Siege of Volterra”, short entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, ed. Clifford Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
“Louis XII” in Great Lives from History: The Renaissance, 1454-1600 (Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, 2005)
“Ludovico Sforza in Milan”, “Valois-Habsburg Wars” in Great Events from History: The Renaissance, 1454-1600 (Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, 2005)
Book Reviews
Review of Lorenz Böninger, Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the Social World of
Florentine Printing, ca. 1470–1493, in The Meideval History Journal (2022)
Review of John Rule and Ben Trotter, A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy and the Rise of the Information State, in European History Quarterly 46.1 (2016)
Review of Christopher Celenza, Machiavelli: a Portrait, in Canadian Journal of History 50.3 (2015)
Review of Pierre Savy, Seigneurs et Condottieres: les Dal Verme, in English Historical Review 130.546 (2015)
Review of Cédric Michon, ed., Conseils et Conseilers dans l’Europe de la Renaissance v. 1450-v.1550, in Journal of Early Modern History 18.3 (2014)
Review of Michael Mallett and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1494-1559, in Renaissance Quarterly (Summer 2013)
Review of Eva Pibiri and Guillaume Poisson, eds., Le diplomate en question (XVe-XVIIIe siècles) in Medieval Review (Winter 2011)
Review of Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox, eds., Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture, in Renaissance Quarterly (Winter 2011)
Review of Girolamo Donà – Dispacci da Roma, 19 gennaio – 30 agosto 1510, in Renaissance Quarterly 63.4 (Winter 2010)
Review of Tommaso Duranti, Diplomazia e autogoverno a Bologna nel Quattrocento (1392-1466), in Renaissance Quarterly 63.2 (Summer 2010)
Review of Nadia Covini, La balanza drita: pratiche di governo, leggi e ordinamenti nel ducato sforzesco, in Renaissance Quarterly 63.2 (Summer 2010)
Review of Elisabetta Scarton, Giovanni Lanfredini: Uomo d’affari e diplomatico nell’Italia del Quattrocento, in The Sixteenth-century Journal 40.3 (2009)
Review of Lucio Paolo Rosello, Il ritratto del vero governo del prencipe (1552), ed. Matteo Salvetti, in Renaissance Quarterly 61.4 (Winter 2008)
Review of Richard Walsh, Charles the Bold and Italy (1466-1476) in Renaissance Quarterly 59.2 (Summer 2006)
Review of Robert von Friedeburg, Self-Defense and Religious Strife in Early Modern Europe, 1530-1680 in Seventeenth-Century News 64.2 (Summer 2006)
Review of Stephen Kolsky, Courts and Courtiers in Renaissance Northern Italy in The Sixteenth-century Journal 36.3 (2005)
Review of Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla corte sforzesca (1450-1500), 8 vols., ed. Franca Leverotti in Renaissance Quarterly 56.1 (Spring 2003)
Review of Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli 1442-1458, ed. Francesco Senatore in Speculum 77.1 (January 2002)
Review of John Adamson, ed., The Princely Courts of Europe, 1500-1750 in The Sixteenth-century Journal 32.2 (2001)
Review of Maria Nadia Covini, L’esercito del duca: organizzazione militare e istituzioni al tempo degli Sforza (1450-1480) in The Journal of Military History 64.1 (2000)
Review of Francesco Senatore, ‘Uno mundo di carta’: forme e strutture della diplomazia sforzesca in The Sixteenth-century Journal 30.3 (1999)
Review of David Chambers and Trevor Dean, Clean Hands and Rough Justice: An Investigating Magistrate in Renaissance Italy in The Sixteenth-century Journal 29.2 (1998)
