Dr. Matthew Vester

Teaching Fields:

Renaissance and early modern European History (esp. the Savoyard lands, France, and Italy), comparative social history of politics, history of the Alps, kinship and place

Contact:

Matthew Vester
302A Woodburn Hall
P.O. Box 6303
Morgantown, WV 26506-6303
Phone: (304) 293-2421 ext. 5232
Fax: (304) 293-3616
Matt.Vester@mail.wvu.edu

• Degrees

  Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1997
  M.A., University of Virginia, 1992
  B.S.F.S., Georgetown University, 1988

• Research Interests

  In general, I am interested in political culture, which I understand in a very broad sense to include institutional practices, patronage systems and other informal political ties, and political thought (customary and written). My research is informed by a desire to uncover the rich variety of political interactions in the past, and therefore to avoid an anachronistic exaggeration of the role of ‘the state’ in early modern political life. My biography of Jacques de Savoie, duke of Genevois-Nemours, traces the life of an illustrious renaissance prince while showing how sovereign dynasties functioned as political actors in sixteenth-century Europe, creating contradictory pressures within and between families and patronage networks. The house of Savoy responded to these pressures by creating institutional structures such as the princely apanage, which both increased dynastic prestige but also undermined the authority of the senior branch of the ruling family.

  Two of my current projects analyze formal and informal political institutions and practices at different levels of society in the Western Alps. Both projects examine the resources and strategies brought to bear by political actors at family, village, district, regional, and even broader levels in their efforts to control territory and secure individual and collective interests. The first project studies political culture in the Val d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste between 1550 and 1630, focusing on the spatial dimensions of power relations within a particular community, St Vincent. The second project explores similar problems through an analysis of a border dispute in the sixteenth-century Maritime Alps between the parish of Ormea (subject to the duke of Savoy ) and villagers from Pieve di Teco (subject to the Republic of Genoa). A third project examines cultural and ideological exchange between the Republic of Venice and early Stuart England, focusing on the role therein of the Servite friar Paolo Sarpi.

• Grad Students Advised

  MA
  Dale Cogar
  Kelly Benner
  Michael Piano

• Courses Offered

  Hist 101: Western Civilization to 1600
  Hist 204: Renaissance and Reformation
  Hist 205: Absolutism and Enlightenment
  Hist 330: History of Italy , 1200-1800
  Hist 331: History of Italy , 1800-2000
  Hist 346: Kinship in Premodern Europe
  Hist 416: The French Wars of Religion
  Hist 480: History of the Alps
  Hist 481: The Mediterranean, 1200-1800
  Hist 494: Introduction to Historical Research
  Hist 705: Readings in Early Modern History
  Hist 706: Seminar in Early Modern History
  Hist 791: Historiography

• Publications

  English translation of Jon Mathieu_, History of the Alps, 1500-1900: Environment, Development, and Society_ (forthcoming, West Virginia University Press, 2009; originally published in German in 1998)

  “Who Benefited from Tithe Payments in Late Renaissance Bresse?” The Catholic Historical Review (forthcoming)

  Jacques de Savoie, duc de Nemours (1531-1585): L’apanage du Genevois et le dynasticisme savoyard à la Renaissance (Geneva: Droz, 2008)

  “Perché l’autonomia istituzionale non significò meno tasse nella Bresse savoiarda (1560 – 1580)” Quaderni storici 40, 1 (2005): 41-72

  “The Political Autonomy of a Tax Farm: the Nice-Piedmont Gabelle of the Dukes of Savoy , 1535-1580,” The Journal of Modern History 76 (December 2004): 745-92

  “The Bresse Clergy Assembly and Tithe Grants, 1560-1580,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 35, 3 (2004): 771-94

  “Social Hierarchies: The Upper Classes,” in Companion to the History of the Renaissance World, ed. Guido Ruggiero (Blackwell, 2002), pp. 227-42

  “Territorial Politics and Early Modern ‘Fiscal Policy’: Taxation in Savoy , 1559-1580,” Viator 32 (2001): 279-302

  Grants and awards:
  Renaissance Society of America Research Grant, 2008
  Chester Penn Higby Prize (Modern European History section, AHA), 2007
  Villa I Tatti Fellow, 2006-7
  UCLA Clark Library Postdoctoral Fellow, 1997-98