Florence Edler de Roover


Florence Marguerite Edler de Roover was an American medievalist. In 1945 she published groundbreaking work on the history and terminology of marine insurance, dating the first insurance contracts to Italy in the decades around 1300.

Life

Born in Chicago on 15 December 1900, Florence Edler studied Romance languages and medieval history at the University of Chicago, acquiring her doctorate in 1930 with the dissertation "The Silk Trade of Lucca during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries".
She carried out postdoctoral research in France, Italy and Belgium. In 1936 she married the Belgian economic historian Raymond de Roover, who followed her to the United States. From 1938 to 1944 she was head of the Department of History at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois.
After her husband's death in 1972, Edler de Roover moved to Florence, Italy, to continue her research. She died in Florence on 6 September 1987. Her papers are held by the University of Chicago Library.

Publications