Garrett Mattingly (1900–1962)

Garrett Mattingly was born in Washington, DC and moved with his family to Michigan as a young teenager. After serving in the U.S. Army in 1918-1919, he earned a B.A. at Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1923. As an undergraduate, he received a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship to study in Strasbourg and Paris, France, and in Florence, Italy. He also wrote poetry and a novel, and worked as a stringer for several French and Italian newspapers. He received his M.A. in history at Harvard in 1926 and began his academic career at Northwestern University in Illinois, teaching history and literature.

Mattingly completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1935, developing a strong interest in the 16th century, especially early modern diplomatic history. On a Guggenheim Fellowship, he spent the academic year 1937-1938 doing intensive research in European archives. Prof. Mattingly taught himself several foreign languages as well as 16th-century script in order to read primary sources. He wrote meticulously researched, compelling books and was a popular lecturer and professor. His debut book was the biography Catherine of Aragon (1941), a critical and popular success. During World War II, Prof. Mattingly served on active duty as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. In 1947, he joined the faculty of Columbia University in New York as professor of European history. His 1955 work Renaissance Diplomacy made his national and international historical reputation. In 1960, he won the Pulitzer Prize for The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, which was a bestseller. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.