Curriculum Vitae

Giovanni Silvano Email giovanni.silvano@unipd.it W. +39 049 8278530
M. +39 3286464192
Ph.D. in History, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Current position(s)
Professor of Modern History, Department of Historical, Geographical Sciences and the Ancient World, University of Padua (UNIPD), Italy
Director of the Interdepartmental Center of History of Medicine (CISM), UNIPD

I graduated at the University of Padua in Philosophy. In September 1980, I started attending the Ph.D. program in History at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1987 I was given a Ph.D. in History. In 1988 I was fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C, and at the Department of History of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In this period my publications include «La Republica de’ Viniziani». Ricerche sul repubblicanesimo veneziano in età moderna,; Florentine republicanism in the early sixteenth century, in Machiavelli and Republicanism, edited by G. Bock, Q. Skinner, M. Viroli, Donato Giannotti, Republica fiorentina. A critical edition and introduction by Giovanni Silvano, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, N. CCXXXVII.

In the nineties, my scientific interests moved from intellectual to social and economic history. First, I investigated mechanisms of public support of ‘Studi generali’ at Padova, Pavia and Pisa in the XIVth century, and ecclesiastical property after the collapse of Venice. This research has merged in Padova democratica (1797): finanza pubblica e rivoluzione.

I completed a study of the Monte di Pietà at Padova between XVth and XVIth centuries. I studied the social impact on poverty and margination of the Monti, Ospedali and philanthropic institutions. Such private bodies, most of which dated back to the Middle Ages, were to be turned into Public Institutions in 1890 by Francesco Crispi. On these topics, I published A beneficio dei poveri. Il Monte di pietà di Padova tra pubblico e privato (1491-1600), and L’organizzazione della solidarietà in età contemporanea, in Custode di mio fratello.

My interest in the history of medicine has much to do with the birth of modern hospitals, lengthily considered a general, indistinct shelter for the poor. My attention to the development of modern medicine, largely based on science and clinical evidence, is related to the shift in the mission of modern hospital from lodgings to medical guard and place for medical treatment. I reached this conclusion in my research Assistenza e clinica nell’ospedale S. Francesco a Padova.


Up to First World War, poverty, margination and infectious diseases were all tied up in a kind of loop. In my work Croce Rossa Italiana e welfare nazionale dal 1914 al 1927. Esperienze di interventismo umanitario, I was able to show such a pattern. Both science and social awareness forged the new XXth century medical art. Presently, I am directing the historical section of a new history of Pediatrics from its origin to present day, and the writing of a concise history of how Science and Medicine have advanced from the middle ages to present day at the Studio of Padua.

Areas of research/interest

-pre and post industrial societies
-poverty, margination and diseases (especially epidemics)
-welfare and fiscal systems
-hospitals (assistance and clinics)
-Science and Medicine from XVIth to the first decades of XXth century

Notices