Arsenio Frugoni

Frugoni received his doctorate in 1938 from the elite Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and pursued post-graduate studies at the Italian Historical Institute for the Middle Ages (Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo)[1] in Rome.

Frugoni is known principally for his contributions to the field of medieval biography and intellectual history, with a focus on the papacy and religious ideology.

Frugoni also wrote extensively on Dante as a political and religious dissenter, as well as on the rise of humanism and its impact on the Italian Renaissance.

Many of Frugoni's ideas were more congruent with the French Annales School and its interest in historical mentalities, than with the traditional approaches that were current in the Italian academy during his career.

[2] Frugoni's daughter, Chiara (1940-2022), followed in her father's footsteps and became a noted historian of medieval social history.