Elizabeth Mellyn
Assistant Professor
Department of History
College of Liberal Arts
- Exploring the new socio-cultural orientation in economic history that has shifted scholarly focus from the market as an amoral, self-regulating arena to the behavior of living breathing consumers who interacted and consumed there.
- Building on this model, investigating the medieval and early modern market economy from the perspective of illegal, illicit, or not entirely above-board borrowing and lending practices.
- On research trips to the archives of three Italian test cities—Florence, Venice, and Rome—creating a database outlining the parameters of public debt litigation prosecuted in civil, criminal, and commercial courts.
- Integrating the research into the foundation of a book, Off the Books in Early Modern Italy: A Cultural History of Money, Markets, and Debt Litigation in Florence, Venice, and Rome.