08/27/2026
Meet our next Fulbright feature Nick Ricardo ’26 CLAS! After wrapping up his studies in History and Classical Studies, he heads this fall to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he will study Bulgarian and Byzantine history of the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
“As part of my History Department capstone course, I began a line of inquiry regarding how civilizations answer dire circumstances which threaten their sense of purpose,” he says. For the Byzantine Empire, he focused on the Fourth Crusade, which saw Constantinople, Queen of Cities, sacked by a fellow Christian force of Latin Catholic crusaders. “These questions regarding identity, legitimacy and religiosity remain potent forces for helping us to understand the agents of the past on their own terms, rather than a modern caricature.”
At Villanova, he says his classroom experiences provided an irreplicable foundation to pursue the prestigious grant. “The core curriculum of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provided a firm backbone in multidisciplinary research: as I advanced in my pursuit of my degree, the greater the variety of courses within the college I took, the more fascinating connections between history and theology, art history and language, and Latin and Italian syntax I found.”
Off campus, an internship with the Maryland State Archives funded by Villanova’s Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest challenged and expanded his skills in primary source analysis. “No matter how high-quality the resolution of a 13th century mosaic is, there are details which can only be gleaned in person,” he adds. “History ought to be tactile and accessible wherever possible, and my experiences at archeological sites, active digs and archives has only increased this belief.”
Following his Fulbright experience, Nick plans to pursue a master’s degree in medieval studies at Fordham University.
