Benjamin Gibbs Kohl

Benjamin Gibbs Kohl (born October 26, 1938 in Middletown (Delaware) , † June 10, 2010 in Betterton (Maryland) ) was an American historian specializing in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance , history of rule and humanism . He published a relevant account of the history of Padua in the 14th century. He also gained recognition by providing important sources and information on the history of Venice in the late Middle Ages, by collecting the published Senate resolutions up to 1400 ( The records of the Venetian Senate on disc ) and by offering the available material on public elections online Offices from 1340 to 1524 ( Rulers of Venice ).

Live and act

Benjamin Gibbs Kohl received his bachelor's degree in 1960 and his master's degree from the University of Delaware two years later, and his PhD in medieval and Renaissance history from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1968 . There he was the third from last of Frederic C. Lane's students . On the basis of a Fulbright fellowship , he was able to carry out his research for his dissertation on Padua in the 15th century. From 1970 to 1971 he was a fellow in post-classical studies at the American Academy in Rome . He started as an instructor at Vassar College and gradually rose to full professor (1993). He retired in 2001.

He embarked on idiosyncratic research paths for a Lane student, because after meeting Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna , a humanist and courtier of the Carrara , he translated little-known treatises , adding peripheral thought patterns and protagonists to the studies that were more focused on the great Italian metropolises . From 1978 he published this together with John Witt. Gibbs Kohl's presence at Columbia University's Renaissance seminary , where Paul Oskar Kristeller worked, also had a strong influence on him. In 1976 he published a paper on Conversini in Padua, 1985 At the Birth of the Humanities. The Concept of the Studia Humanitatis in the Early Renaissance, a revised version of which appeared in Renaissance Studies in 1992 .

With Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 , he came back to his dissertation topic in 1998, where he presented a work of conventional historiography. In retirement, he mainly turned to the history of the Republic of Venice , preparing a complete work that was to appear under the title The Governance of Late Medieval Venice at numerous conferences. So he dealt with the “first professional statesman and administrator” of Venice, with Marco Corner (approx. 1286-1368), then with the laws that finally led to the Serrata , the sealing off of the Venetian nobility from rising stars . Shortly before his last departure from Venice, he published Renaissance Padua as a work of art. Policy and Custom in the Governance of a Renaissance City .

Gibbs Kohl was able to provide funds through a foundation to digitize 28,000 pages of frequently consulted archive material from the Venice State Archives . In 2001, after first attempts from 1997, he published Records of the Venetian Senate on Disk, 1350-1400 on CD.Since 2008, a database has been available that lists around 70,000 records under the title The Rulers of Venice , all of which are from the Segretario Voci (1340–1524), as well as the resolutions of the Grand Council, the Senate and the Council of Ten were extracted.

Fonts (selection)

• Renaissance Humanism, 1300-1550. A bibliography of Materials in English , Garland, New York / London 1985.
• with Helen Lanneau Eaker: Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna. Dialogue between Giovanni and a letter , Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies in conjunction with the Renaissance Society of America, 1989.
• with John E. Law (Ed.): Venice and the Veneto , Special Edition of Renaissance Studies, 1994.
• with Alison A. Smith (Ed.): Major Problems in the History of the Italian Renaissance , Boston 1995.
• Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 , Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London 1998.

literature

• Reinhold C. Mueller: In Memoriam: Benjamin G. Kohl (1938-2010) , in: Michael Knapton, John E. Law, Alison A. Smith (eds.): Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance. The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl , Firenze University Press, Firenze 2014, ISBN 978-88-6655-663-3 .

Web links

• The Rulers of Venice , database with over 70,000 records
• Kohl, Benjamin G.  Publications in the bibliographic database of the Regesta Imperii .

Remarks

1. ^ Benjamin Gibbs Kohl: The Works of Giovanni Di Conversino Da Ravenna. A Catalog of Manuscripts and Editions , Fordham University Press, 1975.
2. ^ Benjamin Gibbs Kohl: The Changing Concept of the Studia Humanitatis in the Early Renaissance , in: Renaissance Studies 6 (1992) pp. 185-209.
3. ↑ Reinhold Mueller published it in 2008 in The Governance of Late Medieval Venice : The Serrata of the Great Council of Venice, 1282–1323: the documents , in: Michael Knapton , John E. Law, Alison Smith (eds.): Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance. The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl , Firenze University Press, 2014, pp. 3-34.
4. ↑ Monique O'Connell (ed.): Renaissance Padua as artwork. Policy and Custom in the Governance of a Renaissance City , in: Michael Knapton , John E. Law, Alison A. Smith (Eds.): Venice and the Veneto during the Renaissance. The Legacy of Benjamin Kohl , Firenze University Press, pp. 187-196.
5. ^ Benjamin Gibbs Kohl (Ed.): Records of the Venetian Senate on Disk, 1350-1400 , Italica Press, New York 2001.
6. ^ The Rulers of Venice .