From time to time, the Society for Italian Historical Studies presents a citation to a senior scholar in recognition of distinguished achievement over the course of a career. No more than one such citation may be presented in a single year, and in some years no award is given.
Latest Recipient: David Kertzer
David Kertzer is the Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science and Professor of Anthropology and Italian Studies at Brown University. His prolific publications deal with a wide range of topics central to modern Italian history, including the tensions between Church and the Communist Party, family (demographic) history, and the power of rituals and symbols in Italian political life. Since 1996, Professor Kertzer has given particular attention to the complex relationship between the Vatican and Jewish populations in Italy and beyond. Beginning with his page turning narrative history The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, Kertzer has trained his lens on the Church’s role as a political institution. This has produced a suite of books – The Pope Who Would be King, The Popes against the Jews, The Pope and Mussolini, and The Pope at War — that have profoundly reshaped historical understanding of both the Church and of the pontiffs who presided over moments of epochal change from the Risorgimento to fascism.
Kertzer has written across disciplines that include history, Italian studies, demography, and anthropology. While always erudite and densely sourced, his work on the Vatican has brought Italian history to a wider audience owing to its high visibility. The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara was a National Book finalist and The Pope and Mussolini received the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Kertzer has also worked tirelessly to promote Italian history through public facing writing in venues like The Atlantic and The New York Times. He co-founded The Journal of Modern Italian Studies and co-edited it for a decade. Kertzer has also supported scholars of Italy through his work on Rome Prize juries for the American Academy in Rome and his long-standing role as an AAR trustee.
Past Recipients
- 2021 – Guido Ruggiero
- 2020 – Mary Gibson
- 2017 – Victoria De Grazia
- 2016 – Katharine Park
- 2015 – John A. Davis
- 2014 – Edward Muir
- 2013 – Nancy Siriasi
- 2004 – Denis Mack Smith
- 2003 – Richard A. Goldthwaite
- 2002 – John W. O’Malley, S. J.
- 2001 – Alan Reinerman
- 2000 – Raymond Grew
- 1998 – Paul Grendler
- 1994 – William Bowsky
- 1992 – Robert Brentano
- 1989 – Gene Brucker
- 1988 – Charles Trinkaus
- 1986 – H. Stuart Hughes
- 1985 – Charles Delzell
- 1984 – R. John Rath
- 1982 – Emiliana P. Noether
- 1981 – Norman Kogan
- 1980 – Max Salvadori
- 1979 – David Herlihy
- 1978 – Eric Cochrane
- 1976 – Myron P. Gilmore
- 1974 – Felix Gilbert
- 1970 – Hans Baron
- 1969 – Robert Lopez
- 1968 – Shepard B. Clough
- 1967 – A. William Salomone
- 1966 – Frederic Lane
- 1964 – Paul Oskar Kristeller
- 1963 – Lauro Martines