Dr Zoe Farrell

I am a historian of early modern Italy and Europe, with a particular interest in northern Italy in the Renaissance. Prior to joining Oxford as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, I completed my PhD in History at the University of Cambridge. I have also been a Rome Awardee at the British School at Rome and have worked as an Assistant Professor in Early Modern European History at the University of Cambridge.

My research has been supported by the Leverhulme Foundation, the Cambridge Trust, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Kurt Hahn Trust.

Research Interests

I am a social and cultural historian of early modern Europe, with specialisms in the histories of the working people, material culture, and cross-cultural encounters. My doctoral thesis, ‘Artisans and consumption in sixteenth-century Verona’, challenged conventional narratives of the Italian Renaissance by exploring both a people and a place that have been understudied, placing both artisans and Verona at the centre of the dialogue. My thesis explored domestic consumption, cultural production, and the exchange of goods throughout northern Italy and the rest of Europe. My current research, entitled 'German immigrants and transalpine cultural exchange in the Venetian terraferma' develops insights into how cities and towns in northern Italy interacted with and integrated German immigrant communities and itinerant populations by investigating German communities in several cities in the Veneto region, including Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Feltre, and Belluno. The central aim of this project is to discover more about the cross-border exchange of people, ideas, and goods in the Renaissance.

You can follow me on Twitter/X @zoeffarrell