Position

AHA President, 1965

Institution

Johns Hopkins University

Presidential Address

At the Roots of Republicanism

 

In Memoriam

From Perspectives, April 1985

Frederic C. Lane (November 23, 1900–October 14, 1984), president of the AHA in 1964, died at his home near Westminster, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1984. Lane, educated at Cornell and Har­vard and for 38 years associated with The Johns Hopkins University before his retire­ment in 1966, was a leading economic histori­an of medieval and Renaissance Venice, known for his studies of the Arsenal (trans­lated into French) and of Andrea Barbarigo (translated into Italian), for his general his­tory of Venice (translated into Italian and German, with a French translation forthcom­ing), and for his numerous articles, many of which were collected into a book on his retirement. His vigorous scholarly industry lasted up to his death, at which time he was preparing the index to what will perhaps be his most notable contributions to medieval economic history, Coins and Moneys of Account (to be published by The Johns Hopkins Uni­versity Press in the spring of 1985), the first of a two-volume study, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, co-authored with his former student, Reinhold  C. Mueller, of the University of Venice. Besides his role in this association, Lane was also a president of the Economic History Associa­tion in 1958 and of the International Eco­nomic History Association in 1965. His nu­merous honors included, after his retire­ment, an honorary degree from Michigan State University, the dedication of a special issue of The Economic History Journal (1980) on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, and two prestigious prizes in Italy—the 1980 In­ternational Galileo Prize, awarded annually to a foreigner for outstanding contributions to the study of Italian culture and history; and the 1984 International Prize of the Francesco Saverio Nitti Foundation, awarded by economists (in this instance to an econom­ic historian) through the Academia Nazion­ale dei Lincei. A bibliography of his work appeared in the 1966 volume of collected studies, and this was updated in the 1980 issue of The Journal of Economic History dedi­cated to him. A complete bibliography will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Ital­ian journal, Ateneo veneto.—Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Johns Hopkins University

Bibliography

Venetian ships and shipbuilders of the Renaissance, by Frederic Chapin Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1934; Reprint, Johns Hopkins pbks. ed. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Andrea Barbarigo, merchant of Venice, 1418 1449, by Frederic C. Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1944; Reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1967.

The world’s history: New York, Chicago: Harcourt, Brace and company, 1947.

Ships for victory; a history of shipbuilding under the United States Maritime Commission in World War II, by Frederic C. Lane, with the collaboration of Blanche D. Coll [and others] Charts by Joseph T. Reynolds. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1951; Reprint, with a new preface by Arthur Donovan. Johns Hopkins paperbacks ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Venice and history; the collected papers of Frederic C. Lane, edited by a committee of colleagues and former students. Foreword by Fernand Braudel. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.

Venice, a maritime republic, by Frederic C. Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

Profits from power: readings in protection rent and violence-controlling enterprises, by Frederic C. Lane. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1979.

Money and banking in medieval and Renaissance Venice: coins and moneys of account, by Frederic C. Lane, Reinhold C. Mueller. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.