Ambrogio A. Caiani

Ambrogio received his doctorate from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge in 2009. Since then he has taught at the universities of Greenwich and York and at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Kent in Canterbury.

His main research interests have focused on Revolutionary France and Napoleonic Italy. His doctorate examined the declining fortunes of Louis XVI's court during the early French Revolution and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012.

Ambrogio is also very interested in how the Ancien Régime was invented and conceptualised during the 19th century. With Professor Michael Broers of the University of Oxford he organised an international conference in August 2016 entitled: ‘The Price of Peace, Modernising the Ancien Régime? 1815-1848’. This encouraged scholars to engage and share new comparative perspectives on the political history of the European Restorations and Vormärz periods. A two-volume edited collection based on the conference proceedings was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.

His second book entitled: To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII 1800-1815 was published by Yale University Press in April 2021 just before the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death. It won the 2021 Franco-British Book Prize.

The next book is entitled: 'Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World, The Catholic Church’s struggle with Revolution and Democracy 1700-1903.' It examines the politics of religion for the Catholic Church during the Age of Revolutions. It traces the decline in the Roman Church's fortunes which culminated in the loss of the Papal States between 1859-1870. Despite this painful reverse Catholicism witnessed unprecedented expansion into Africa and Asia through its collusion with the second wave of European Imperialism. This period was a vital turning point for Catholics and the Papacy.

Ambrogio has published his research in several journals including The Historical Journal, English Historical Review, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, French History, European History Quarterly and International History Review.