Martin van Gelderen

Professor of  European Intellectual History

Tel. [+39] 055 4685 507/391
Fax [+39] 055 4685 203

Email Martin.vanGelderen@eui.eu 

Secretary: Mónica Palao  

Postal address:

Department of History and Civilization
Via Boccaccio 121 - 50133 Florence - Italy
Villa Schifanoia - Office VS 32

 

Office Hours

For appointments please contact: Mónica Palao  

 Fields of Research

• Intellectual History
• History of Political Thought, in particular Natural Law Theories and Republican Traditions in Europe
• History of Religion, in particular of Toleration in Reformation Europe
• Historiography

 Languages

Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, Castilian

 Current Seminars at EUI

• Natural Law, Imperialism and Perpetual Peace: European ideals (and Illussions) of Global Governance  - Fall Term 2011/2012
• Writing the History of Europe  (with Prof. L. Molà) - Fall Term 2011/2012
• Freedom and Rethoric  - Spring Term 2011/2012
• Approaches to Intellectual History  (with Prof. D. Moses) - Spring term 2011/2012

 Current Research Projects

• New English edition and translation of Hugo Grotius, De Iure Belli ac Pacis/The Rights of War and Peace for the series Cambridge texts in the History of Political Thought.

• The Autumn of Humanism: the political and religious debates of Hugo Grotius’, a monograph studying the main debates in the life and work of Grotius, exploring some of the interlinkages between Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish political and religious thought in the late 16th and 17th century.

• ‘From Noah's Ark to the New World’, a study of the humanist debate on the origins of the American Indians, focusing on the historical research of scholars such as Acosta, Grotius, De Laet, Hornius, Locke and Montanus.

• Freedom and the Construction of Europe: New Perspectives on Philosophical and Religious Controversies, joint research project, co-directed with Quentin Skinner. For more information see the Freedom and the Construction of Europe  website.

• Project Boccaccio Intellectual History Programme 

 Selected Recent Publications

• Freedom Fighters: The Act of Abjuration , Hugo Grotius and Dutch Debates on Liberty in Paul Brood, Kubben (eds), The Act of Abjuration. Inspired and Inspirational, Tilburg University, 2011, pp.155-168

• Menschenrechte und Demokratie - James Madison, Hugo Grotius und die Probleme des neuen Europa’, Gerald-Stourzh-Vorlesung 2009 

• “Hot Protestantism”. Die Rhetorik und politische Sprache der englischen und niederländischen Calvinisten’, in Ansgar Reiss and Sabine Witt (eds.), Calvinismus. Die Reformierten in Deutchland und Europa, Dresden, 2009, pp. 189-195

• ‘The Low Countries: The Quest for Concord’, in Glenn Burgess, Howell Lloyd and Simon Hodson (eds.), European Political Thought 1450-1700: Religion, Law and Philosophy, New Haven. Conn/London, 2007, pp. 376-415

• So meerly humane': Theories of Resistance in Early Modern Europe’ in Annabel Brett and James Tully (eds.), Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 149-170

• Georg Schmidt, Martin van Gelderen (eds.), Kollektive Freiheitsvorstellungen im frühneuzeitlichen Europa (1400 bis 1800) (Peter Lang Verlag, Bern etc., 2005)