Biography

Achille Marotta is a historian of the early modern Mediterranean (1500-1800), specialising in the history of slavery in the region and in the history of Muslims in Europe.
He earned his PhD from the University of Bologna in 2024 with a thesis on enslaved and freed Muslims in the Republic of Genoa, now being revised into a monograph.
He is currently working on two further projects related to Mediterranean slavery. The first is a study of “merchant slaves” who enaged in trade, sometimes accumulating enough capital to purchase their own freedom. A second, longer-term project deals with slavery and kinship in Southern Europe and North Africa. Methodologically, his work engages with Italian microhistory, legal history, and social anthropology.

Research projects, clusters and working groups

• From slaves to citizens in the Early Modern Mediterranean

Mentor

• Giancarlo, Casale

Mentor

• M'hamed, Oualdi

Fields of expertise

Recent research output

• MAROTTA, Achille (2024), The Muslim friend : cross-confessional male intimacy in eighteenth-century Italy, Article