I am a specialist in the history of late medieval Italian economy, with a particular interest in military commodities and raw materials.

I earned my Ph.D. cum laude in Early Modern History from the Università degli Studi di Padova (2018), where I studied the innovations in artillery technology in fifteenth-century Florence. After being awarded an Aurelio Marcantoni Prize for an outstanding original investigation of Renaissance Tuscany and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici (2018-2020), I returned to my alma mater to conduct research on the logistical challenge of early modern permanent armies (2020-2022). During the term, I was also the principal investigator for a departmental project on saltpeter trade, which was later awarded an additional research grant by the Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca in Storia Economica. This interest in the diplomacy of strategic materials has eventually led me to a successful application for a British Academy Newton International Fellowship with the University of Exeter (2023-2024). I am now working (2024-2027) with the ECOMEDS Team at King's College London to explore new primary sources and deepen my knowledge in the late medieval resources trade, territorialization processes, and material culture.

Over the last eight years, my articles have appeared in both national and international journals, including Technology and Culture, The Journal of Military History, and Business History. I have written extensively on many aspects of early modern warfare, including the establishment of permanent offices and the formation of military archives, the distinctive fashion of mercenary captains and the involvement of the Medici Bank in the arms trade. My recent monograph on warhorse procurement explores the international market for equine resources and the control exerted by the rising renaissance states on such fundamental assets, thus aiming at a new interpretation of late medieval economic policies. I am now looking forward to making further significant contributions to both the agricultural history and the economic history of the Italian Renaissance.

Research interests

• Renaissance Italy
• Production and commerce
• Primary commodities and strategic materials
• Diplomacy and trade agreements
• War economy

I am interested in the complex history of the Italian Renaissance, with a particular focus on its material foundations and economic systems. Over the last six years, I studied the late medieval military industry to reassess the impact of conflicts on fifteenth-century society and state building, leading several projects on the 'revolutionary challenges' of artillery logistics and publishing a groundbreaking monograph on warhorse market and procurement. Such research helped me in developing an original methodology which combines economic history with military history, the history of technology and the history of art, agricultural history and animal history. I am now specializing in the trade in agricultural products, raw materials, and strategic commodities during the early modern period.

Expertise and public engagement

I recently started to work on strategic commodities as a public historian. For example, I collaborated with cultural geographers to organize a series of interdisciplinary webinars on the complex concept of “heritage from below”, a project awarded by the Società Geografica Italiana which was purposely aimed at analyzing how ordinary people create and experience their own memories and identities. As a scholar interested in the extraction of primary commodities, I coordinated several events on the past vicissitudes of mines and their value in the contemporary sociocultural landscape.

The British Academy Early Career Research Network is currently supporting my effort to establish a network of young scholars in the humanities interested in the significant past and in the compelling future of those raw materials that underpin our civilization.

Selected publications

'Fabrizio Ansani (2024). Il cavallo da guerra e lo stato del Rinascimento. Una storia politica, economica e culturale. Bologna, Il Mulino

Fabrizio Ansani (2024). “A ‘magnificent’ military entrepreneur? The involvement of the Medici Bank in the arms trade (1482-1494)”. In Business History, 66

Fabrizio Ansani (2021). “Oltre i signori, dopo i mercenari. Per una rilettura del rapporto tra istituzioni militari e stato rinascimentale”. In Annali dell’Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, 33

Fabrizio Ansani (2021). “Artiglieria e diplomazia. Esportazioni di salnitro e problemi di munizionamento nella corrispondenza degli oratori italiani del Quattrocento”. In Società e Storia, 171

Fabrizio Ansani (2019). “‘This French artillery is very good and very effective’. Hypotheses on the diffusion of a new military technology in Renaissance Italy”. In The Journal of Military History, 83, 2