Nicholas Terpstra, professor of history at the University of Toronto, is a historian of early modern social history in Italy whose work has focused on the intersection of religion and politics, and particularly confraternities, charitable institutions, and the networks of care available to marginal populations. He has written many articles and is the author of Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (2005) and Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (1995), which was awarded the Howard Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies.