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Dr. Salvatore Musumeci

Assistant Professor of European History and Italian Cultural Studies
Director of the Undergraduate Research Council 
Dr. Salvatore Musumeci is a Connecticut native and fervent Hartford Whaler and Jimmy Buffett fan. Salvatore received his BA in philosophy and religion from fellow CCCU member Palm Beach Atlantic University and his MA in history from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He completed his Ph.D. in history at Queen Mary and Westfield College (University of London) under the direction of the art historian Dr. Evelyn Welch.

Salvatore is a social historian with an interest in the material and visual cultures of Europe between 1300 and 1600. His research deals primarily with food and the social imagination in medieval and Renaissance Italy, but he also has an interest in all things Italian (regardless of era). Dr. Musumeci teaches all levels of European history and Italian language courses at Bryan College. Salvatore and his wife Robin live in Chattanooga, TN and currently attend North Shore Fellowship. He can be reached at salvatore.musumeci@bryan.edu and would be happy to discuss the possibilities of studying history at Bryan College as well as what careers are open to history majors and minors after they graduate.

Academic Degrees

• Ph. D.: History, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
• M.A.: History, Trinity College (Hartford, CT)
• B.A.: Philosophy and Religion, Palm Beach Atlantic University

Honors and Recognition

• 2012-2013, Councilor in the Arts & Humanities Division, Council on Undergraduate Research (Washington D.C.)
• 2012 Scholar of the Year Award, Bryan College
• 2011 Faculty Appreciation Award, Bryan College
• 2008/2009 Outstanding Faculty and Teaching Award, University of Sioux Falls
• Member of College, Queen Mary and Westfield College (University of London)
• Who's Who in America

Research Assistantship

With Dr. Evelyn Welch, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, and Dr. James Shaw, University of Sheffield, “The Speziale al Giglio: Selling Health in Renaissance Tuscany,” a Wellcome-Trust funded study in the history of medicine, Florence and Prato (Italy).  This study resulted in the following publication: Evelyn Welch and James Shaw, Making and Marketing Medicine in Renaissance Florence (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011).

Fellowships and Grants

• 2012 Lindsay Young Visiting Faculty Fellowship at the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
• Erasmus Grant, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy.
• Graduate Studentship, Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation, France.

Selected Publications

• Book review of John Varriano, “Tastes and Temptations: Food and Art in Renaissance Italy,” in Food and Foodways (forthcoming).
• “The Urban Influence: Shopping and Consumption at the Florentine Monastery of Santa Trinità in the Mid-Fourteenth-Century,” in Ken Albala and Trudy Eden (eds.), Food and Faith: Christian Consumption from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 23-53.
• With Mr. Christopher Strand, “The Loosened Tongue of a Tipsy Diva: Drunkenness, Promiscuity and a Cuckolded Husband in Boccaccio’s tale of Pericone and Alatiel,” Christiana Purdy Moudarres (ed.), Food Talk: Perspectives on Food in Medieval Italian Literature (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010), 85-96.
• With Dr. Dario Del Puppo, “Predator of the Heart: Nobility, Eroticism, and Changing Food Practices in Boccaccio’s Tale of Federigo degli Alberighi,” Christiana Purdy Moudarres (ed.), Food Talk: Perspectives on Food in Medieval Italian Literature (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010), 73-84.
• Book review of Timothy J. Tomasik and Juliann M. Vitullo (eds.), “At the Table: Metaphorical and Material Cultures of Food in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in Gastronomica, Spring 2010, 107-108.
• “Leonardo Sciascia’s To Each His Own,” in Peter Boxall (ed.), 1001 Books You Must Read (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 595.
• “‘Per rape, et porri, et per spinachi’: Examining the Realities of Vegetable Consumption at the Monastery of Santa Trinità in Post-Plague Florence,” in Susan Friedland (ed.), Vegetables: Proceedings of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2008 (Devon: Prospect Books, 2009), 146-154.
• “Palazzo Vecchio,” in Richard Cavendish (ed.), 1001 Historic Sites (New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 2008), 491.
• “Monte Cassino Abbey,” in Richard Cavendish (ed.), 1001 Historic Sites (New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 2008), 525.
• “‘How does it taste Cisti? Is it good?’: Authentic Representations of Italian Renaissance Society and the Culture of Wine Consumption in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron,” in Richard Hosking (ed.), Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2005 (Devon: Prospect Books, 2006), 331-344.
• Book review of Igor de Garine and Valerie de Garine (eds.), “Drinking: Anthropological Approaches,” in Food and Foodways, vol. 14, number 2/April-June 2006, 111-114.

Selected Presentations

• “Beyond Gumbo: New Orleans Cuisine as a Mosaic of Europe and Microcosm of Itself.”  SoFAB 2011 Symposium: Hungry in the South, The Southern Food and Beverage Museum, New Orleans, LA, September 2011. 
• With Dr. Rebecca Flynn, '"This do in remembrance of me’: Wine and the Culture of Consumption in the Works of Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer." Thirty-Eighth Annual Sewanee Medieval Colloquium: Voice, Gesture, Memory and Performance, University of the South, Sewanee, TN, April 2011. 
• “Wine and the Social Imagination in Italian Renaissance History and Literature,” South-Central Conference on Christianity and Literature: Sin, Piety, and Celebration in Literature and the Related Arts, Our Lady of the Holy Cross College, New Orleans, LA, February 2011. 
• Participant: “Joyful Teachers, Joyful Scholars,” Council of Christian Colleges and Universities: New Faculty Workshop, Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL, June 2010.
• Panel organizer and moderator: Food and the Social Imagination in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, American Association of Italian Studies Annual Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 2010. 
• With Mr. Christopher Strand, “The Loosened Tongue of a Tipsy Diva: Drunkenness, Promiscuity and a Cuckolded Husband in Boccaccio’s tale of Pericone and Alatiel,” Inaugural Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls, SD, May 2009. 
• With Dr. Dario Del Puppo, “Predator of the Heart: Nobility, Eroticism, and Changing Food Practices in Boccaccio’s Tale of Federigo degli Alberighi,” Northeastern Modern Language Association, Boston, MA, February 2009. 
• “‘Per rape, et porri, et per spinachi’: Examining the Realities of Vegetable Consumption at the Monastery of Santa Trinità in Post-Plague Florence,” The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery: Vegetables, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, September 2008. 
• “Table Culture, Alimentary Habits and Diet: Social Status and Identity in Medieval and Renaissance Italy,” Fresh Perspectives in History Conference: Culture and Identity, University of Sussex, Falmer, UK, March 2006. 
• “Diet, Metaphor and Practice: A Consumable Dialogue in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Florence and Prato,” Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation, Tours, France, September 2005. 
• “‘How does it taste Cisti? Is it good?’: Authentic Representations of Italian Renaissance Society and the Culture of Wine Consumption in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron,” The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery: Authenticity, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, September 2005. 
• “Wine, the Vine and the 1427 Florentine Catasto: Spatial Consumption, Social Constructions and Cultural Anxieties,” Y2 Graduate Conference, Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK, May 2005. 
• “Ascanio Condivi’s Vita di Michelangelo and the Creation of an Artistic Persona,” The Association of Art Historians Annual Meeting, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, April 2005. 
• “Taverns and Inns: A Look at Transient Spaces and Human Behavior in Early Modern Florence, 1427-1480,” Fresh Perspectives in History Conference: Environment and Human Behavior, University of Sussex, Falmer, UK, March 2005.

Professional Associations

• American Association of Italian Studies
• American Boccaccio Association
• American Historical Association
• Association for the Study of Food and Society
• College Art Association
• Dante Society of America
• Renaissance Society of America
• Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition

Topics of Expertise

• Ancient History
• Medieval History
• Early Modern Europe
• Italian History
• History and Social Theory
• Culinary History