Edmund Mazza

Edmund J. Mazza is Professor of History at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles, where he teaches Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance and Reformation History. Dr. Mazza has contributed chapters on these subjects for Cognella Press’s forthcoming A History of the Premodern World. Mazza’s research centers on the Medieval Mediterranean, especially the juxtaposition of sectarian communities: the controversies of Catholics, Cathars, and Waldensians; coexistence and conversion among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Barcelona under James I; the inauguration of novel Dominican language schools in Hebrew and Arabic in Spain and North Africa under St. Raymond of Peñafort, OP, as well as the idiosyncratic and prolific apologetics of Blessed Ramon Llull. Dr. Mazza has produced teaching videos shot on location in Athens, Ephesus, Istanbul, Palermo, Naples, Venice, and Rome. Mazza was an invited scholar at Liberty Fund’s 2015 San Diego seminar “Convivencia and Reconquista: Freedom and Responsibility in Medieval Spain.” That same year he organized at New York University the conference “Conversing Conversion,” celebrating the 750th anniversary of the birth of Dante. Dr. Mazza was also the organizer of “Christ Among the Medieval Mendicants,” a 2013 conference commemorating the 750th anniversary of the Barcelona Debate and the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi, co-sponsored by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the Morgan Library and Museum.