Up first here at EMoDiR’s final panel at the RSA, Sarah Richman will talk about “Marlowe's Dancing Devils in Doctor Faustus.” #RSA2026

Jordan Ivie, arguing that early modern attitudes towards demonic familiars are a direct reflection of early modern attitudes towards gender itself. #RSA2026

And now, in our final paper of a packed day here at #RSA2026, Kevin Cochard examines a corpus of french “canards” by cataloguing the various forms of encounters with devils throughout the long seventeenth century.

David Lee Vaughan III explores how Marchamont Nedham used Satanic imagery during the English Civil Wars to demonize opponents and shape political discourse in the 1640s. #RSA2026

Ana Sáez-Hidalgo examines demonizing portrayals of Elizabeth I in Catholic polemic. From exile texts to images of the Queen in hell, the paper shows how diabolical imagery challenged her religious and political authority after 1570. #RSA2026

Bradley Mollmann examines demonization and the collapse of social trust in early modern Spain. Centered on 1609—Basque witch hunts and the Morisco expulsion—the paper links accusations of diabolism to crises of authority and cohesion within the “General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century #RSA2026

Giulio Greco, “Bodin’s Demonology: Between Control and Subversion” From the Démonomanie to the Colloquium Heptaplomeres, Bodin turns demonological logic back on Christian dogma itself—using it not only for control, but as a tool of dissent and epistemological critique #RSA2026

Second paper of our #EMoDiR panel at #RSA2026: Jakob Moser (University of Vienna), “Theologia Daemonum.” From psalm-singing demons in hagiography to Reformation prints crowded with reading devils, a striking visual and intellectual “theology of demons” emerges—captured in truly fascinating images

Third paper of our #EMoDiR panel at #RSA2026: Christine Kooi, “The Devil Congratulates Charles IX.” A biting 1572 Protestant Pasquillus imagines Satan praising the king after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre—searing satire that sharpens confessional polemic in the later Reformation.

GLIRN – Research Initiative on Global Italian Religious Networks invites news and notices for the Spring 2026 issue of The GLIRN Review. Share books, conferences, CFPs, fellowships, grants, and opportunities on Italian religious history and its global connections. as.nyu.edu/departments/...

Thrilled to chair and co-organize three EMoDiR panels at RSA San Francisco 2026 on The Devil and Dissent: from demonology and Reformation polemic to political demonization and gendered stage representations #RenTwitter #earlymodern #RenTwitter #earlymodern

Stefano Villani, «Un abisso di guerre et confusione». Rapporti diplomatici, informazione e doni tra l’Inghilterra della guerra civile e dell’Interregno e la Toscana di Ferdinando II. This chapter examines how Amerigo Salvetti interpreted the English Civil Wars and the Interregnum. go.umd.edu/26k5

My review of Madigan’s The Popes against the Protestants. An interesting book undermined by editorial errors and misprints. If this is becoming the standard, what are we paying for when we buy outrageously expensive books from top university presses? Full Review: go.umd.edu/26ib or go.umd.edu/26hk

A nice surprise: an unexpected review of Making Italy Anglican (2022) has just appeared in Cromohs. Many thanks to Marco Fratini for the careful and generous reading. oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/cr... #BCP #BCP #ChurchOfEngland #Anglican #TranslationStudies

📣 Coming soon 📆 17 Feb 2026 Umberto Grassi, What God Kept for Himself: Atheism, Sodomy, and Radical Dissent in Renaissance Italy (Harvard University Press, 2026) ✨A landmark study of sexual nonconformity and religious dissent in Renaissance Italy. 📚Add to your reading list!

✨Out now! Federico Barbierato’s english translation and revised edition of his seminal work on magical texts and culture in Early Modern Venice, published in EMoDiR’s Routledge series. 🔗 www.routledge.com/In-the-Room-... #EarlyModern #BookRelease #MagicStudies #ReligiousHistory

We've now created a starter pack for those whose work/interests include early modern religious radicalism: go.bsky.app/ArYba4T Let me know if you'd like to be added! #EarlyModern

Call for papers for a special issue of the 'Journal of Early Modern Studies' edited by Brendan Dooley and Stefano Villani: Diplomacy and the Circulation of Political Information in Early Modern Europe. Deadline: 31 January 2026. 🔗 go.umd.edu/24lh

NYU–Roma Tre Permanent Global Seminar on Religious Diversity in Italian Urban History 🗓 Deadline: 1 Nov 2025 📄 Details: as.nyu.edu/content/dam/...

The second issue of the year of The GLIRN Review (Fall 2025) has just been published on the website of the Research Initiative on Global Italian Religious Networks (GLIRN) and can be found here: as.nyu.edu/departments/...

"Every country has its scapegoats... David Rizzio became one of Scotland’s most haunting." Read Dr Emanuela Patti's timely piece on why Mary Queen of Scots' murdered private secretary was a political scapegoat in @scotsman.com www.scotsman.com/news/opinion...

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

Tunis, July 14, 2025

Today (June 9) in Florence: the 2025 Annual Conference of the Global Italian Religious Networks (GLIRN), hosted by NYU

Buon 25 aprile! Viva la Resistenza!

Terrific from Richard Evans on Christopher Hill and his generation of Marxist historians. www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Probably one more session of tidying to go before I've got a complete route network for Italy as published #16thCentury - #18thCentury! I like this view of Northern Italy to show that the #earlymodern routes (red) are not just the Roman roads (green). 🗃️ @emdigit.bsky.social

Happy to see in print my article on “Alessandro Amidei e «La Liturgia Inglese overo il libro delle Publiche Preghiere»” in the volume on Italian language and the Reformation edited by Cordibella and Tomasin @lorenzotomasin.bsky.social. See the first pages on Academia: go.umd.edu/1y2g

Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim friends. May this celebration be a sign of hope, justice, and peace for you, your families, and the world. As it is written both in the Talmud and in the Qur'an, whoever kills a person, it is as if he had killed all of humanity (Qur'an 5:32)

On April 7, 2025, 5:00–6:30 PM, @umdhistory.bsky.social will host 'Making Sense of Mass Atrocities: The Meanings of Genocide in Historical and Contemporary Contexts', with Omer Bartov and Shibley Telhami. RSVP: bit.ly/Bartov

it is grimly hilarious that, given the immense, decades-long fetishization of "leadership" and "leadership skills" in business-oriented academia and politics, even unto the formation of leadership institutes, there should turn out to be no leaders in any positions of power

'Jews and State Building: Early Modern Italy and Beyond' at @UofMaryland, March 24, 2:00-3:15 PM. Featuring Bernard Cooperman, @serenadinepi.bsky.social, Germano Maifreda

Happy to discuss my book 'Making Italy Anglican' with Paolo Cozzo on March 27, 2025, at 17:30 CET on Zoom #BCP #ChurchOfEngland #Anglican #TranslationStudies go.umd.edu/1x8s

Honored to contribute to the Festschrift Donec Templa Refeceris, ed. by Freddolini & Giometti, for my friend and former colleague Cinzia Sicca with my Italian essay on how the category of '#Papism' shaped British views of Catholicism. Download it here: 🔗 go.umd.edu/1x7t

Next virtual WAGPCS meeting Friday, March 7, 2025, 3:30–5:00 PM (ET): Jordan Sly @jordanssly.bsky.social on "The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont: Political Performance & the Use of History in the Cromwellian Protectorate"; more info: wagpcs.wordpress.com/2025/02/21/n...

In the latest 'Società e Storia', articles explore English’s hegemony in academic writing. Check it out here: francoangeli.it/riviste/rivi.... Here are the first two pages of my article Tirannia dell’inglese, modelli “anglosassoni” e globalizzazione: academia.edu/127819243/Ti....

Monument to Alexander VII by Bernini (St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City): Truth’s foot strategically stamps on Protestant England!

What is one to conclude from the contrast between the AHA’s position on Ukraine and its position on Gaza other than it believes some people’s histories are worth more than others?

Book Review (in Italian): Lorenzo Carletti, Cristiano Giometti, Fascismo e democrazia al MoMA di New York nel 1940. Storia di una mostra mancata, Roma, Carocci editore, 2023 www.academia.edu/127054406/Bo... www.carocci.it/prodotto/fas...

10 new essays on James VI & I. Publishing March 2025, from Routledge. #earlymodern #stuarts #KingJames400 #historyteacher

I finally received my copy of La Livornina: Alle origini di Livorno, città cosmopolita in età moderna, edited by Lucia Felici (Rome, Viella, 2024), pp. 107–132. If you’re interested in receiving a PDF of my chapter, La Livornina e gli inglesi, feel free to drop me a line.

I’m going to keep re-posting this until at least ten of you confirm you’ve submitted proposals that are pre-1800 or cross-Channel. So if you want your timelines quieter, you know what to do. (Don’t mute me, don’t mute me, don’t mute me.)

New Special Issue of Church History and Religious Culture: "Religious Practices, Boundaries, and Institutions: Historiographical Debates and New Perspectives in Early Modern Italian History." Ed. by Sabina Pavone and @stefanovil.bsky.social brill.com/view/journal... #earlymodern

Very much looking forward to my last conference of 2024, on Jewish and Christian weddings in the early modern period. Organised by @serenadinepi.bsky.social , Guido Bartolucci and Fernanda Alfieri at the University of Bologna ✨✨

We've created a Starter Pack of #History societies and groups working to support promote our disciple and historians, in higher education and related professions go.bsky.app/68FsvjY Mainly UK but also international, with selected societies from related humanities subjects. Please share #Skystorians

A lot of old and new friends, and good colleagues to follow in this starter pack go.bsky.app/HkdLzpk

Look what the lovely librarians at the KNIR (Dutch Institute Rome) arranged for me!!!

Excited to announce the publication of Jews and State Building. A collective exploration of the Jewish role in state formation in pre-Unification Italy, the ultimate historical laboratory! 📚✨ brill.com/display/titl...

And it’s out! My book is now available online: www.cambridge.org/core/books/l... From the history of knowledge to the practice of censorship, the Republic of Letters, textual criticism, and much else(!), it tells a new story about the Old Testament in #EarlyModern Europe. #Skystorians

go.bsky.app/2uyhgJd @drdanielletw.bsky.social @stefanovil.bsky.social @stefanbauer.bsky.social @rmidura.bsky.social @massimorospocher.bsky.social @toffolosandra.bsky.social @giob1974.bsky.social @sandroarca55.bsky.social @vandawilcox.bsky.social @robbyref.bsky.social