Department of History

Varner Hall, Room 415
371 Varner Dr.
Rochester, MI 48309-4482
(location map)
(248) 370-3510
fax: (248) 370-3528

Leonardas Gerulaitis

Title: 
Professor Emeritus

The Department of History mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Leonardas Gerulaitis, who died on October 19, 2011. Prof. Gerulaitis received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and taught at Oakland University from 1966 until his retirement in the early 2000s. He remained active in retirement, teaching at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Michigan. He is survived by his wife Renate of Ann Arbor, who taught in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at OU for more than three decades. The following comments, which accompanied the online obituary for Prof. Gerulaitis, give a sense of the impact he had on his students and colleagues:

"The finest teacher I ever knew."
Robert del Valle, Royal Oak, Mich.

"Leo Gerulaitis taught history for 36 years at OU. Imagine the number of lives he touched. Two decades ago, I won the annual Gerulaitis Book Award and he gave me a journalism history text, The South Reports the Civil War. Inside the cover, he wrote: 'The best way to learn is to teach'. He was right, of course, and I'm so fortunate today to be a member of the OU faculty. Thank you, Leo, for caring so much about your students."
Garry Gilbert, Rochester Hills, Mich.

"Leo, as we fondly called him at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Michigan (OLLI), was a memorable teacher of numerous, diverse subjects over the past seven years. These topics ranged from literature, philosophy, religion, political science, architecture, to history. He volunteered hundreds of hours of time to his students at OLLI and we will remember him as one that consistently brought out challenging, intellectual discussions. He will be missed."
Ann Tai, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Degree:
Ph.D., University of Michigan

Major Fields:
Renaissance Europe, History of Publishing

Selected Publications:

Book

Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice (Chicago, 1976).

Articles and Book Chapters

"The Rise and Persistence of a Myth: Witch Transvection," Fifteenth-Century Studies 33 (2008): 103-116.

"Some Renaissance Views About Madness and Genius: Reading Ficino and Paracelsus," Fifteenth-Century Studies 30 (2005): 57-68.

"Incunabula on Syphilis," Fifteenth-Century Studies 29 (2004): 80-96.

"Medications Recommended in Incunabula," Fifteenth-Century Studies 28 (2003): 138-147.

"The First Lithuanian Book in Print," Lituanas: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences 44 (1998).

"Print and the Mind," Fifteenth-Century Studies 17 (1990): 93-103.

"Greek and Roman Medical Incunabula," Fifteenth-Century Studies 14 (1988): 75-86.

"Printing: A Catalyst for Change," Fifteenth-Century Studies 7 (1983): 79-96.

"The Fifteenth-Century Artistic Director of a Printing Firm: Bernard Maler," Proceedings of the Bibliographical Society of America 64 (1970): 324-342.

"The Canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas," Vivarium 5 (1967): 25-46.

"The Ancestry of Aldus Manutius," Renaissance Quarterly 19 (Spring 1966): 1-11.