Biography

Brian Maxson received his PhD at Northwestern University in 2008, and is currently an Assistant Professor of History and Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies at East Tennessee State University. His research interests focus on the political culture of pre-modern Europe, particularly during the Italian Renaissance. His publications include the following books, The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence (2014), and After Civic Humanism (forthcoming, 2015). He has also published numerous articles on the political and diplomatic contexts of humanist works in fifteenth-century Florence.

Project Summary

This project examines the conception and practice of political corruption in fifteenth century Florence. Using an interdisciplinary approach, he is seeking to establish how Florentines conceived of corruption and how these conceptions impacted and were impacted by the well-established fluidity of private and public affairs in Renaissance Florence.