Former Postdoc at UniGenova | alumnus UToronto | First Gen+ASD | studies Mediterranean socioeconomic history 1350–1750, focusing on Genoa, slavery, commerce, networks, notarial contracts, and law | also digital humanities, semantic data and environment.
Steven Teasdale
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Carlo Ginzburg has just passed away. There is little I can add in memory of a scholar of his stature. I'll recall only what he said during a fortunate conversation at the Betty Behrens Seminar in Cambridge: “Read everything. Your research path will find its way". And I live by that advice.
Who loves a press which is not afraid of appendices and tables?!
Latest volume, no 146, in our “Medieval Mediterranean” Series: George Terezakis, Thessaly in the Later Middle Ages: Social Composition and Spatial Distribution of Population (Leiden: Brill, 2026), 773 pp. #medieval #medievalsky
12 May 1543: a husband-and-wife couple denounce Marcos Gil to the Inquisition in Lisbon for having supposedly said “by our stork” (por nossa cegonha) instead “by our lady” (por nossa senhora) when swearing a legally binding oath.
Gabriele Passabì
Source: Archivio di stato di Genova, Notai antichi 720, Bartolomeo Risso, filza 6, nr. 187, dated 1453-01-08, in which the slaveholders and brothers Oberto and Meliano Riccio, named as heirs of the deceased Battista Cicala, sell an enslaved woman named Lucia.
Fifteenth-century Genoese nobles really wanted their social status documented in contracts... in this case, the heir of Battista Cicala ensuring that the notary included "spectabilis miltis et egregrii" before his name after the first draft was made! #medievalsky #earlymodern
GEMENE-ST has encoded thousands of historical contracts and persons related to Mediterranean and Atlantic slavery ca. 1400-1550. It's an ongoing project which will be expanded significantly over the next year. (Full disclosure: I was involved in this!) #medievalsky #earlymodern #digitalhumanities
Steven Teasdale
RIP Carlo Ginzburg. His landmark works in #earlymodern microhistory and innovative historical methods have had a great influence on myself and many others.
Looking forward to this new history podcast by @adapalmer.bsky.social ! #earlymodern
Roman poses an interesting question here: "I don’t quite understand the rationale for these acts of controlled violence [by Mongol rulers]... why destroy the seized ‘property’ of their rivals? Why not make it their own?" I don't know the answer myself. Could it be related to nomadism? #medievalsky
