Robert Burr Litchfield *65

Due to complications from a fall, Burr died in Westport, Mass., Feb. 9, 2023, at the age of 86. 

Burr was born Aug. 16, 1936, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Harvard with an A.B. in 1958. He was a Fulbright scholar in Italy 1958-59 and earned a Ph.D. in history from Princeton in 1965. 

He was a professor of European history at Brown, where he taught from 1968 until his retirement in 2003. His courses included The Industrial Revolution in 18th-19th century Europe; European enlightenment; and European social history. Burr taught at Dartmouth before joining the faculty at Brown. 

He published Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790, which won the American Historical Association’s Marraro Prize in 1987. He also translated works of leading Italian historians Franco Venturi, Emilio Sereni, and Sergio Bertelli. After participating in a project for comparative census analysis, in 2008 Burr published an ebook, Florence Ducal Capital 1530-1630, which details the city’s changing urban geography.

He loved to cook and used both Italian and English cookbooks. His delicious Roman stew was enjoyed by many guests.

Burr is survived by his husband, W. Gardner Chace.

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.