The SIHS Article Prize for Medieval and Early Modern Italian History will be awarded to the best English-language, peer-reviewed journal article made public (either in published form or on a “FirstView platform”) in the calendar year 2025 on Italian history broadly defined by an early career author. The time period for “Medieval-Early Modern” includes roughly from the fifth century to the Napoleonic Wars. Geographical scope and disciplinary methodology are defined in the broadest possible terms. Early career refers to anyone who is in the process of completing their PhD or anyone who was within 6 years of completion when the article was made public. Only members of the Society of Italian Historical Studies (SIHS) will be considered (membership to SIHS for anyone without a tenure track job is $10/year, for tenure track faculty it is $30/year). The award will be presented at the annual SIHS meeting at the American Historical Association in January 2027; efforts to make the article open-access after the announcement of the win will also be made.
A digital version of the article should be submitted to the chair of the committee, Joshua Birk, at jcbirk@smith.edu, by July 1, 2026 with a one-page CV attached that indicates PhD status or date of completion. The prize consists of a $100 monetary reward, as well as a feature on the SIHS website including comments on why the article was selected and an interview with the author published on the SIHS website.
If you have any questions concerning this article prize, feel free to contact the committee through the above email.
Award Committee
Prof. Joshua Birk (chair)
Email: jcbirk@smith.edu
Website: https://www.smith.edu/academics/faculty/joshua-birk
Prof. Nicholas Terpstra
Email: nicholas.terpstra@utoronto.ca
Website: https://www.history.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/nicholas-terpstra
Prof. Eva Del Soldato
Email: evadel@sas.upenn.edu
Website: https://figs.sas.upenn.edu/people/eva-del-soldato
2025 Recipients – Winner: Ori Ben-Shalom
Ori Ben-Shalom, Public Health, Medicine, and Religious Reform in Carlo Borromeo’s Milan, The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 55, nos. 3–4, (2024): 545-574
The year’s SIHS committee awards the prize for an outstanding article on medieval or early modern Italian history to Ori Ben-Shalom, for his article “Public Health, Medicine, and Religious Reform in Carlo Borromeo’s Milan,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 55, nos. 3–4, (2024): 545-574. In this beautifully written work, Ori Ben-Shalom uses groundbreaking archival research to challenge stereotypes about the binary divisions of medical and ecclesiastical care in the 16th century. This article illuminates Carlo Borromeo’s interventions in the medical sphere in nuanced and complex ways, revealing the tensions and the points of contact between religion and medicine. It shows how epidemics could represent opportunities to reaffirm the authority of the Church and purify an entire society both from plague and sin. Ben-Shalom work enriches our understanding not just of Borromeo’s strategies, but of the intersections of networks ecclesiastical power and medical expertise in Milan and beyond.
Honorable Mention – Gabriele Marcon
Gabriele Marcon, “The Boundaries of Knowledge: Books, Experts, and Readers in Early Modern Mines,” Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, vol. 116, no. 1, (2025): 61-81.
The committee awards an honorable mention to Gabriele Marcon, for his article, “‘The Boundaries of Knowledge: Books, Experts, and Readers in Early Modern Mines,” Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, vol. 116, no. 1, (2025): 61-81. Marcon’s article explores the interactions between scholarly administrators and skilled laborers in industrial projects of the 16th century. Using the mining operations of Montecerboli as a case study, this piece offers an essential contribution to our understanding of the mine as a workplace and the circulation of knowledge (or lack thereof) about the mining industry. What were the contributions and limitations of written works on mining? Were books enough to become an expert? Marcon proves they were not. Marcon shows how social, ethnic, and labor hierarchies shaped early modern mining and how skilled practitioners could maintain their privileged position in the face of the emergence of written treatises on mining.
Past Recipients
- 2024 – Catherine Ferrari, “The Widow, The Gambler, and the Unruly Witness: Witness Testimony and Political Agency in a Lawsuit in Early Modern Piedmont.”
- 2024 – Rachel Midura, “‘They Hide from Me, Like the Devil from the Cross’: Transalpine Postal Routes as Intelligence Work, 1555–1645”
- 2023 – Matteo Pompermaier, “Credit and Poverty in Early Modern Venice”
- 2023 – Melissa Vise, “Compositio: Horizons of Truth in the Decameron, the Notarial Register, and Civic Peace Pacts,”
- 2022 – Erin Maglaque, “Care Work and the Family in Catholic Reformation Tuscany”
- 2021 – Michael Martoccio, “The Art of Mercato: Buying City-States in Renaissance Tuscany”