Dru is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Saint Louis University. Her research focuses on the intersection of state, culture, and economy in the development and operation of financial and commercial networks in the early modern Mediterranean. In addition to a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Dru completed a Master of Arts in History from The University of Tulsa. Her dissertation, “The Republic of Money: Refashioning Florentine and Genoese Commercial Identities in the Early Modern Mediterranean, 1450-1650,” explores the ways in which commercial actors responded to geopolitical and economic shifts by adapting operationally, redefining themselves occupationally, or refashioning themselves culturally and socially in an effort to remain relevant in a global economy. As a MAP fellow she will be analyzing financial records and correspondence of specific merchant-banking families to gain insight into the operational adjustments of these multi-national firms as well as examining products of their artistic patronage to assess ways in which these objects were used as a tool to reformulate images of power and authority. In conjunction, she will investigate commercial links between the Grand Duchy, France, and the Ottoman Empire to comprehend the role played by the State in merchant affairs, and its efforts to stimulate economic activity.
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