Dr Stefan Bauer

Dr Bauer is a Lecturer in Early Modern History in the Department of History. He is an intellectual and cultural historian. His research interests cover humanism, religious polemic, censorship, fakes and forgeries. 

Dr Bauer is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Co-Editor of ‘Lias: Journal of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and its Sources’. Dr Bauer has taught and held positions at Warwick, York, the London School of Economics, the German Historical Institute in Rome and the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trent. Bauer is a Privatdozent at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Warwick; Research Associate at the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, University of York; and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

In 2021, Dr Stefan Bauer was elected to the Council of the Royal Historical Society.

In 2023, Dr Bauer was elected to the Academia Europaea as a member of the History and Archaeology section.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Renaissance and Reformation
• Church history
• Humanism
• Fakes and forgeries
• Censorship

For more information, please see Stefan Bauer’s full research profile

Selected publications

• Co-editor (with Simon Ditchfield), A Renaissance Reclaimed: Jacob Burckhardt’s ‘Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy’ Revisited (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) (Proceedings of the British Academy)
• Editor, The Uses of History in Religious Controversies from Erasmus to Baronio, Special Issue of Renaissance Studies 35 (2021) no. 1
• The Invention of Papal History: Onofrio Panvinio between Renaissance and Catholic Reform (Oxford University Press, 2020). Finalist for the RefoRC book award 2020.
• ‘History for Hire in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Onofrio Panvinio’s Histories of Roman Families’, Erudition and the Republic of Letters 4 (2019) 397–438
• The Censorship and Fortuna of Platina’s Lives of the Popes in the Sixteenth Century (Brepols, 2006)

 

Expertise and public engagement

Public Engagement

2020    ‘The Invention of Papal History’, audio interview with Crawford Gribben, New Books Network, 19 October 2020

2020    ‘Dialoghi di Urbisaglia’, video interview with Edoardo Barbieri, Il canale dei libri, 14 September 2020

2020    Book launch The Invention of Papal History, with Simon Ditchfield and Rosamond McKitterick, hosted by the Society for Renaissance Studies, online, 2 July

2020    ‘The Forgotten Father of Church History’, The Tablet, London, 27 June, pp. 12–13

2020    ‘How Onofrio Panvinio Made the Popes History: The Forgotten Story of a Renaissance Pioneer’, The Spectator, US edition, 4 May

2018    Co-organizer, panel discussion, with museum curators, Interpreting the Renaissance in the 21st Century, National Gallery, London, 25 May

2018    Co-organizer, Burckhardt at 200: Interpreting the Italian Renaissance Past, Present and Future, with Peter Burke et al., Warburg Institute, London, 30 May

2017    Book exhibition The Art of Disagreeing Badly: Religious Dispute in Early Modern Europe (II), Middle Temple Library, London. Online exhibition available here. Public lecture at opening event, chaired by Giles Mandelbrote, 24 August

2017    ‘Rare Book of the Month: Onofrio Panvinio, De primatu Petri’, Middle Temple Library Blog, July 2017

2016    Book exhibition The Art of Disagreeing Badly: Religious Dispute in Early Modern Europe (I), York Minster Library. Online exhibition available here. Public lecture at opening event during York Interfaith Week, 15 November

2015–21    Chair, UK Chapter, Marie Curie Alumni Association, financed by the European Commission. Organizer of interdisciplinary networking and career events (700+ members)

 

Recent Media Coverage

2020    Peter Marshall, ‘History Wars: The Cultural Politics of Papal Rome’, History Today 70 (2020) no. 6, pp. 98–99

2020    Solène Tadié, ‘How a Forgotten 16th-Century Augustinian “Invented” Papal History’, National Catholic Register, 16 July 2020

2020    Charles Collins, ‘Is a 16th-Century Friar the “Inventor” of Papal History?’, Crux, 10 June 2020

2020    Matteo Al Kalak, ‘Panvinio e il rinnovamento nella Chiesa del ‘500’, Avvenire, 10 May 2020

2018    Jonathan Jones, ‘Meet Jacob Burckhardt, the Thinker who Invented “Culture”’,
The Guardian, 30 May 2018

 

Expert panels and memberships:

Managing Editor, Lias: Journal of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and its Sources (2019-)

Managing Editor, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento/Jahrbuch des italienisch-deutschen historischen Instituts in Trient (2011–13)

Member, Programme Committee, Renaissance Society of America

External reviewer, Grant applications, National Science Centre, Poland

Member, Expert panel of the European Commission, reviewing Marie Curie Fellowship applications

Member, Advisory board, Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism

Member, Advisory committee, Studi storici, filologici e letterari, Edizioni CLORI

Co-owner, Email list ‘The Material Renaissance: Costs and Consumption in Italy’

Peer reviewer of unpublished manuscripts, Presses: Oxford University Press, Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge; Journals: English Historical Review, Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Reformation, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Studies in Church History, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Italian Studies, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, Krypton

 

Professional Memberships and Affiliations

Fellow, Royal Historical Society

Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Corresponding Fellow, Roma nel Rinascimento

Renaissance Society of America

Society for Renaissance Studies

Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre, University of Warwick

Research Network ‘Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism’

Research Group ‘Transizioni’, Trento

Research Network ‘Histoire et pouvoir’, Paris and Erfurt