Edward Loss

Edward Loss joins Stanford History Department in Winter 2025 as Kratter Visiting Professor in European History. A talented historian and paleographer, his research has focused on the institutions of diplomacy and espionage in late medieval Italy. He is currently working on multiple projects utilizing AI-powered handwritten text recognition technologies.

Dr. Loss is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Medieval Studies and Digital Humanities at University of Genoa, Italy. He received his Ph.D. in History from University of Bologna, and has held research and postdoctoral positions at Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom, Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici. He is the author of Officium Spiarum: Spionaggio e gestione delle informazioni a Bologna (secoli XIII-XIV)  <Officium Spiarum: Espionage and information gathering in Bologna (13th - 14th centuries)> (Rome, Viella, 2020) and co-editor of Oltre la carità. Donatori, istituzioni e comunità fra Medioevo ed Età contemporanea  <Beyond Charity. Donors, Institutions and communities between the Middle Ages and the Modern Era>  (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021).

During his Stanford residency, Professor Loss will teach HISTORY 301AR: From the Court to the Archive: Criminal Justice and Documentary Culture in Premodern Italy, and deliver a talk, titled "Jewish Women and Notarial Deeds in Renaissance Bologna," as part of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS)’s weekly workshop series. The residency is supported by the endowment for Kratter Chair in European History, established in 1962 with Mr. Marvin Kratter's generous foresight to deepen intellectual networks and international collaboration among scholars of post-Renaissance European History.