Nicholas Scott Baker

Biography

Nicholas Baker is a cultural and political historian of early modern Europe, with particular interests in Renaissance Italy, political culture, and the use of visual sources in historical research. He has published articles on political culture, violence, and sexuality in sixteenth-century Florence. His first book The Fruit of Liberty: Political Culture in the Florentine Renaissance, 1480-1550 was published by Harvard University Press in 2013. He has previously taught at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and at Northwestern University and Washington & Lee University in the United States. In 2013-14, he was the Jean-François Malle Fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. When not engaged in scholarship he devotes far more time than he should to following the fortunes of the Hawthorn Football Club in the AFL and the Chicago Bears in the NFL

Research Interest

I am currently working on a cultural history of financial risk taking and thinking about the future in sixteenth-century Italy. This project explores understandings about the power of fortuna in human lives and ways these beliefs interacted with ideas about providence and human ability in the realms of commerce and gambling. I also continue to maintain an interest in and work on the political culture of Florence during the sixteenth century and cultural connections between the Medici court and the Spanish world.