Dennis Romano
Professor of History

145 Eggers Hall / Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244-1020
Tel. 315-443-5456/Fax. 315-443-5876
email:dromano@maxwell.syr.edu
 

Academic Specialization

Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Early Modern Europe, Venice.

Employment

Current Professor of History and Fine Arts, Syracuse University, Syracuse,
New York.
  1. 2001-02 Lecturer, Summer Humanities Institute, “The Public and Private
    in Medieval Venice,” Venice International University, Venice, Italy.
  2. 2001 Awarded courtesy appointment in Department of Fine Arts.
  3. 1991-97 Associate Professor of History, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
  4. 1987-91 Assistant Professor of History, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
  5. 1986-87 Program Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities,
    Division of Research Programs.
  6. 1984-87 Assistant Professor of History, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS.
  7. 1982-83 Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI.

Publications

Books
  1. Patricians and Popolani: The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance
    State (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
  2. Patrizi e popolani: La società veneziana nel Trecento (Bologna, Societa`
    Editrice il Mulino, 1993). Italian edition of above.
  3. Housecraft and Statecraft: Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice, 1400-1600
    (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
  4. Co-editor, Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization
    of an Italian City-State, 1297-1797 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). Paperback edition 2002.
  5. The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373-1457 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007).

Articles
  1. “City-State and Empire: Historical Overview,” in Venice and its Empire, ed. Peter Humfrey, for the series Art Centers of the Renaissance (New York:
    Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
  2. “Commentary: Why Opera? The Emergence of a New Genre,” Journal of
    Interdisciplinary History 36 (2006): 401-09. (Special issue dedicated to the
    theme “Opera and Society.”)
  3. “Vecchi, poveri, e impotenti: The Elderly in Renaissance Venice,” in Marginal
    Groups in Premodern Italy, ed. Stephen J. Milner (Minneapolis: University of
    Minnesota Press, 2005), 249-71.
  4. “Doge Francesco Foscari in America,” Studi Veneziani, n.s. 46 (2003): 407-15.
  5. “Concluding Remarks,” in The Art Market in Italy, 15th-17th Centuries/Il Mercato
    dell’arte in Italia, secc. xv-xvii, ed. Marcello Fantoni, Louisa Matthew, and Sara
    Matthews-Grieco (Ferrara: Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, 2003), 445-448.
  6. “Sepe ben guidar la optima constelation sua: Francesco Foscari as Procurator of
    San Marco,” Studi Veneziani n.s. 36 (1998): 37-55.
  7. “L’assistenza e la beneficenza,” in Storia di Venezia vol. 5 Il Rinascimento:
    Società ed economia, eds. Ugo Tucci and Alberto Tenenti (Rome: Trecani, 1996): 355-406.
  8. “The Gondola as a Marker of Station in Venetian Society,” Renaissance Studies:
    8 (1994): 359-374.
  9. “Aspects of Patronage in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Venice,” Renaissance
    Quarterly 46 (1993): 712-733.
  10. “The Regulation of Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice,” Sixteenth Century
    Journal 22 (1991): 661-677.
  11. “Gender and the Urban Geography of Renaissance Venice,” Journal of Social
    History 23 (1989): 339-353.
  12. “Struttura familiare e legami matrimoniali a Venezia nel Trecento,” Ricerche Venete 1 (1989): 131-165.
  13. “The Aftermath of the Querini-Tiepolo Conspiracy in Venice,” Stanford Italian
    Review 7 (1987): 147-160.
  14. “Charity and Community in Renaissance Venice,” Journal of Urban History 11
    (1984): 63-82.
  15. “Quod sibi fiat gratia: Adjustment of Penalties and the Exercise of Influence in
    Early Renaissance Venice,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13
    (1983): 151-168.

Current Research
  1. Markets and Marketplaces in late medieval Italy, c. 1100 to c. 1350.             
  2. The Venetian Council of Ten, 1310 to 1600.
  3. The Candle and Wax Trade in the early modern Mediterranean.

Grants, Awards, and Honors
  1. 2007-8 Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art.
  2. 2007-8 Fellow, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, (declined).
  3. 2005-6 Co-director with Gary Radke, NEH Summer Seminar for College
    and University Teachers, “Shaping Civic Space in a Renaissance City:
    Venice, c. 1300 to c. 1600,” Venice, June-July, 2006.
  4. 2005 Visiting Scholar, American Academy in Rome.
  5. 2003 Folger Institute, Folger Shakespeare Library, Grant-in-Aid.
  6. 2002 Elected “Socio Straniero” (Foreign Member) of Ateneo Veneto di
    Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (the Venetian Athenaeum).
  7. 2001-2 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow
    (deferred from 2000-01).
  8. 2000-1 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, The National
    Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC.
  9. 1997 Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Award (to support the
    conference “Venice Reconsidered” – Dennis Romano and John Martin,
    conference organizers).
  10. 1995 Trinity College Cesare Barbieri Prize (awarded by The Society for
    Italian Historical Studies).
  11. 1990 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award, Maxwell School, Syracuse University
    (For excellence in teaching, research, and service by a junior faculty
    member).
  12. 1990 National Endowment for the Humanities, Travel to Collections
    Grant.
  13. 1988-9 Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Fellow in Venice.
  14. 1985 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend.
  15. 1983 American Council of Learned Societies, Grant-in-Aid.
  16. 1981-2 Charles Phelps Taft Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cincinnati.
  17. 1979-80 Fulbright Dissertation Fellow in Italy: Delmas Foundation Fellow
    in Venice.
  18. 1973 Phi Beta Kappa, Wake Forest University.  

Papers and Lectures
  1. Paper, “The Idea of Equality in Fifteenth-Century Venice,” to be presented
    at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Miami,
    March 2007 ( And organizer of the session “Aspects of Renaissance
    Republicanism”).
  2. Invited Presentation, “Mythic Venice,” presented at the annual major
    donors’ dinner, Corning Museum of Glass, November 2006.
  3. Roundtable discussant, “Government and Politics,” for the conference
    “La Serenissima: A Conference on the History of the Republic of
    Venice.” Embassy of Italy, Washington, D.C. September 2006
  4. Invited Lecture, “Art, Politics, and the Venetian Territorial State: The
    Building Projects of Doge Francesco Foscari,” Murphy Lecture
    Series, The University of Kansas, April 2005.
  5. Commentator, “Michael and his Manuscript,” presented at the conference
    “The World of Michael of Rhodes,” The Dibner Institute, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., December 2005.
  6. Invited Paper, “The Limits of Kinship: Family Politics, Vendetta, and
    the State in Fifteenth-Century Venice,” presented at the Institute for
    Historical Research, London, February 2005.
  7. Paper, “Bernardo Giustinian’s Funeral Oration for Doge Francesco
    Foscari,” presented in a special session in honor of the late Patricia Labalme at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New York, NY, April 2004.
  8. Commentator for the session “Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice,” part of
    a special conference sponsored by the Journal of Interdisciplinary History
    entitled, “Opera and Society,” Princeton, NJ, March 2004.
  9. Invited Lecture, “The Doge De-sexed: Venetian Rulership and Notions
    of Masculinity,” presented at the annual meeting of the
    New England Renaissance Conference, Storrs, CT, October 2003 and
    at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, November, 2003.
  10. Lecture, “Portraits of Venice through Time,” presented at the Smithsonian
    Institution, Washington, D.C. March 2003; and the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, October 2003, and at Villa Ulivi, the NYU study center in Florence, Italy, November, 2003.
  11. Paper, “Worldly Goods: Envy and Factionalism in late Medieval and
    Renaissance Italy,” presented at the annual meeting of the
    Renaissance Society of America, Toronto, Canada, March 2003.
  12. Book Presentation, “Presentation of the book, The Art Market in Italy, 15th-
    17th Centuries,” at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Toronto, Canada, March 2003. Special session organized by the Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali, Ferrara, Italy.
  13. Session Organizer “Reliquaries and Banners: Their Uses and Meanings in
    Three Renaissance Polities,” and presenter of paper, “Symbols of Sovereignty: Military Banners in Fifteenth-Century Venice,” presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Tempe, Arizona, April 2002.
  14. Paper, “Worldy Goods, Envy, and Competition in late Medieval and Renaissance
    Italy,” presented at the Center for Renaisance and Baroque Studies,
    University of Maryland, College Park, February, 2002.
  15. Paper, “At the Margins? The Place of Servants in Venetian Society,” presented
    at the conference “News on the Rialto: Identities and the Social Order in Renaissance Venice: A Conference in Honor of Brian Pullan,” University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, November, 2001.
  16. Invited Commentator for seminar “The Catholic Church and Blacks in
    Renaissance Italy,” Catholic University of America, Washington,
    DC, October 2001.
    Final Roundtable Discussant at the conference “The Art Market in Italy,
    15th through 17th Centures,” Florence, Italy, June 2000.
  17. Paper, “The Tomb of Doge Francesco Foscari,” presented at the Twelfth
    New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
    Sarasota, Florida, March 2000.
  18. Invited Lecture, “Politics and Architectural Patronage in Renaissance Venice:
    The Commissions of Doge Francesco Foscari,” presented at Villa le
    Balze, the Georgetown University Study Center, Fiesole, Italy, November
    1999; Wake Forest University, November 2000; and at the North Carolina Renaissance Workshop, February 2001.
  19. Invited Lecture, “Vecchi, poveri, e impotenti: The Elderly in Renaissance
    Venice,” presented at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for
    Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy, November 1998.
  20. Paper, “The Elections of Francesco Foscari as Procurator of San Marco and
    as Doge,” presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, College Park, Maryland, April 1998.
  21. Chair and Commentator, “Gender and Class in the High and Late Middle
    Ages,” 110th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association,
    Atlanta, Georgia, January 1996.
  22. Paper, “Food, Clothing and Shelter: The Material Concerns of Domestic
    Servants in Renaissance Venice,” presented at the New England Renaissance Conference, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, November, 1995.
  23. Paper, “The Gondola as a Marker of Station in Venetian Society,” presented
    at the conference “Renaissance Venice: Continuity and Change,”
    Folger Library, Washington, D.C., October 1993.
  24. Paper, “The Family Model of Master/Servant Relations in Renaissance Venice,”
    presented at the Twentieth Annual Warwick University Symposium on
    Renaissance Florence and Venice, Venice, Italy, December 1992.
  25. Invited Lecture, “The Dynamic of Master/Servant Relations in Renaissance
    Venice,” presented to the History Department, Vassar College,
    Poughkeepsie, New York, December 1991.
  26. Paper, “Aspects of Patronage in Renaissance Venice,” presented at the Sixteenth
    Century Studies Conference, Philadelphia, October 1991.
  27. Discussant for the Symposium “Venice: Educator of Europe,” University of
    San Francisco, August 1991.
  28. Paper, “The Culture of Domestic Servants in Venice,” presented at the 105th
    Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New York,
    December 1990.
  29. Discussant for Italy, Roundtable Discussion on “Cities in Early Modern Europe,”
    held at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association,
    St. Paul, MN, October 1990.
  30. Paper, “Masters and Servants: Identity and Social Place in Renaissance Venice,”
    presented at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America,
    Toronto, Ontario, April 1990.
  31. Paper, “The Masculinization of Domestic Service in Sixteenth-Century Venice,” presented at the conference “Gender and Society II: Men in the Middle
    Ages,” Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies, March 1990.
  32. Invited Lecture, “Disobedient Servants and Merciful Masters: The Regulation
    and Control of Domestic Servants in Renaissance Venice,” presented
    at SUNY Binghamton, November 1989.
  33. Paper, “Gender and the Urban Geography of Renaissance Venice,” presented at
    the Fifteenth Annual Warwick University Symposium on Florence and
    Venice in the Renaissance, Venice, Italy, December 1988.
  34. Paper, “Politics and Parishes in Early Renaissance Venice,” presented at the
    meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New York, March 1988.
  35. Paper, “Apprenticeship in Early Renaissance Venice,” presented at the Sixth
    New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Sarasota,
    Florida, March 1988.
  36. Session Organizer, “Gender and Power in Renaissance Italy,” and presenter,
    “Gender, Space, and Power: Men’s and Women’s Patronage Networks
    in Early Renaissance Venice,” presented at the 101st annual meeting of
    the American Historical Association, Chicago, Illinois, December 1986.
  37. Paper, “The Aftermath of the Querini-Tiepolo Conspiracy in Venice, 1310,”
    presented at the Fifth New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Sarasota, Florida, March 1986.
  38. Paper, “Private Property, Public Authority, and Urban Growth in Late
    Medieval Venice,” presented at the Twentieth International Conference
    On Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1985.
  39. Paper, “Neighbors and Patrons: Women’s Networks in Early Renaissance
    Venice,” presented at the conference “Power, Influence, and
    Insubordination: Women in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,”
    Fordham University, New York, March 1985.
  40. Paper, “Artisan Networks in Early Renaissance Venice,” presented at the
    98th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, San Francisco, December 1983.

Member
  1. Ateneo Veneto di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti
  2. American Historical Association
  3. Renaissance Society of America
  4. Medieval Academy of America
  5. Society for Italian Historical Studies
  6. Sixteenth Century Society