Professor David Lines
About
I am a specialist in Renaissance philosophy and intellectual history. Many of my publications have focused on the legacy of ancient thought (particularly Aristotelian moral and natural philosophy) in Latin and the vernacular in Italy. My interests, however, reach across Europe, particularly to France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. I have published on Renaissance universities (especially Bologna) and their configuration of knowledge and learning; philosophical commentaries and translations; ethics and politics; cultural polemics; and the history of libraries (particularly that of Ulisse Aldrovandi). In any of these areas I am able to offer postgraduate supervision to suitably qualified candidates.
My most recent monograph studies the changing configuration of the disciplines at the University of Bologna. The Dynamics of Learning in Early Modern Italy: Arts and Medicine at the University of Bologna (Harvard University Press, 2023) argues that, between c. 1400 and 1750, the curriculum was constantly being reimagined, and that substantial changes can be observed from both the institutional and pedagogical points of view. For examples of my research on Renaissance ethics see my earlier monograph Aristotle's Ethics in the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1300-1650): The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education (Brill, 2002) and the volume (co-edited with Sabrina Ebbersmeyer) Rethinking Virtue, Reforming Society: New Directions in Renaissance Ethics, c. 1350–1650 (Brepols, 2013).
Publications connected to the 'Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries' project (a Leverhulme International Network, of which I was PI), include the following volumes, co-edited with Jill Kraye and Marc Laureys: Forms of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2015), Spheres of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2020) and Management and Resolution of Conflict and Rivalries in Renaissance Europe (V&R, 2023).
Past fellowships include an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (held at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich) and a Villa I Tatti Fellowship (from the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies near Florence). I was the Principal Investigator for an AHRC standard grant on Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy and for a Leverhulme International Network on Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries. I led the Warwick portion of an ERC starting grant on Aristotle in the Italian Vernacular and have recruited several research fellows (including Marie Curie fellows) to Warwick. I have served as the Renaissance Society of America's discipline representative for Philosophy and am on the editorial boards of several journals and book series.
From 2018 to 2023 I directed Warwick's Centre for the Study of the Renaissance. I am Senior Editor for the CSR's book series Warwick Studies in Renaissance Thought and Culture.
I am very keen to supervise suitable PhD students and early career research fellows. I strongly welcome expressions of interest for Feodor Lynen Fellowships.
Main administrative roles
Head of Italian StudiesProfessional associations
- Renaissance Society of America; Society for Italian Studies; British Society for the History of Philosophy.
- Member, editorial board, for journals including Documenta, Mediaevalia et Humanistica, Italique, and Annali di storia delle università italiane
- Board member of Studies in the Faculty of Arts: History and Influence (SFIHA) (Brepols)
Qualifications
- BA (History, English, Ancient Greek; Bryan College, Tenn., 1987)
- MA (English, UNC-Chapel Hill, 1991)
- AM, PhD (History, Harvard University, 1997)