Robert Burr Litchfield of Westport, MA, passed away peacefully at home on February 9, 2023, at the age of 86. He was Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University where he taught from 1968 until his retirement in 2003. Before Brown, he taught at Dartmouth College.
His parents were Robert O. Litchfield and Susan Burr Litchfield. He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. Burr and his husband, Gardner, travelled to Florence, Italy almost every year since 1987. He enjoyed cooking and was very good at it. Burr cooked a delicious Roman Stew. At family gatherings he could be counted on to jump in and rescue a dish that had gone off track!
He graduated from Harvard in 1958 and earned a Ph. D. from Princeton in 1966. 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, he published an e-book, Florence Ducal Capital 1530-1630 in 2004, which details the city’s changing urban geography. You might be able to read it on your cell phone!
He is survived by his husband, W. Gardner Chace.
Calling hours will be at Potter Funeral Home, 81 Reed Road, Westport, MA, on Thursday, February 16th from 4-7PM.Funeral service will be at Grace Episcopal Church, 133 School Street, New Bedford, MA, Friday, February 17th at 11:30AM. Interment will be private.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Grace Episcopal Church.