Tours with Dr. Thomas Madden
Walk Venice, Rome, and Istanbul with the historian who wrote their stories.
Meet Professor Thomas Madden
Dr. Thomas Madden is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. He is one of the country’s leading historians of the medieval Mediterranean, the author of Venice: A New History and Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World, and the resident scholar on Cultured Travel’s small-group tours in Venice, Rome, and Istanbul.
Most people who end up on a Cultured Travel trip have already tried, or never wanted to try, the other travel companies with the 40-person bus tour, the laminated-card guide, and the few days in a great city that somehow ended in a stack of photos and not much understanding of where they had just been. When Professor Madden joins you on a tour, you get a different experience entirely. He navigates you through the part most trips skip, which is the history behind the building you are standing inside, and the choices a city made 800 years ago that still shape the room you walked into this morning.
His credentials are the kind that take a lifetime to assemble. The Medieval Academy of America awarded him the Haskins Medal in 2007 for Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation named him a Fellow in 2012. The National Endowment for the Humanities named him a Public Scholar in 2018. He is also a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Medieval Academy of America.
Outside the academy, his work shows up in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, on CNN, and on The History Channel. He has written and consulted on the Crusades, on the rise and fall of republics, on Byzantium, and on the cities that sat at the crossroads of east and west. He is, in short, the person you would want explaining Venice to you if you only had one week to understand it.
Which is what Cultured Travel offers you. A week in Venice or Rome or Istanbul, with Tom at the table at breakfast, at the lectern, and on the colonnade in the afternoon. Plus a small group of people who came for the same reason you did.
The Fall of Republics
Tom’s new book, The Fall of Republics: A History from Ancient Carthage to the American Constitution, arrives from Princeton University Press in June 2026. The argument is wide and the stakes are unsubtle. He traces how the great republics of the past rose, what held them together, and what eventually pulled them apart. Carthage, Rome, Florence, Venice, and the American framers, who studied every one of them before drafting a constitution of their own.
Venice runs through the book for a reason. The Republic of Venice lasted more than 1,000 years, longer than any other in recorded history, and it is the subject of one of Tom’s earlier books, Venice: A New History. The two books speak to each other. If you read them back to back, the trip we run there starts to feel less like sightseeing and more like fieldwork.
His earlier works each connect to a place you can travel with him. Venice: A New History is the pre-trip reading for Venice, and Tom’s daily lectures on that trip follow its arc. Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World anchors the Istanbul trip from the founding of Constantinople through the fall of the city in 1453. The New Concise History of the Crusades has been translated into seven languages and is the book most people read first when they want a straight account of what the Crusades actually were. Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice, the book that won him the Haskins Medal and the Otto Gründler Prize, is the deep cut for travelers who want to understand the strange brilliance of Venice’s rise to power.
All of Tom’s books are linked from his website. The Fall of Republics is available from Princeton University Press.
Professor Madden and Cultured Travel
Professor Madden came to Cultured Travel through a book. Matt McKissock, co-owner of Cultured Travel, had read his book and knew if he were to develop a tour to Istanbul, Professor Madden would be the best person to bring on board. Istanbul is Matt’s favorite city in the world, and when the idea came up of building an in depth tour there as other companies were merely treating this city as a cruise stop, he looked for the writer he had been reading on the city for years. He sent an email (or maybe, two or three), and eventually, Professor Madden said yes.
The two of them built the first Istanbul itinerary together and ran it in the fall of 2019. The trip filled instantly. The partnership has continued every year since, and it has grown into Venice and Rome as well. Professor Madden serves as the resident scholar on multi-day land tours only for Cultured Travel. There is no other small-group company you can travel with him through.
Matt, Jewel, Professor Madden, and his family have become close over the years, the kind of friendship that happens when people work this hard on the same thing for this long.
Where You Can Travel with Tom
Three cities, each one carrying one of Tom’s books as pre-trip reading. The lectures on each trip take the shape of the book that goes with it.
Venice
The Venice cultural tour uses Venice: A New History as its spine. Tom’s daily lectures follow the chapters of the book, from the founding of the lagoon settlement through the long Venetian republic and its fall. The history meets the place itself, building by building, as the week goes on.
The itinerary includes a private night visit to Basilica di San Marco, a Murano glass furnace where you watch the craft worked the way Venice made it famous, a morning on Torcello, the marshland island where Venice began, and the Jewish Ghetto, the first place in the world to carry that name.
Istanbul
Istanbul is the original Cultured Travel trip with Tom and, in many ways, still the one that made the partnership. Tom shares the scholarly role here with licensed guide, Serif Yenen, the Turkish author of Turkish Odyssey and a longtime documentary producer who knows Istanbul the way only a writer who has lived inside it can. You get two expert voices for one city on the tour of Istanbul. And the lectures are richer for it.
Professor Madden’s focus in Istanbul covers the Byzantine Empire, the Fourth Crusade, and the fall of Constantinople. Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World grounds it. Serif Yenen is at the helm as the licensed guide who walks you through everything in the present and fills in the Ottoman and modern Turkish layers with Professor Madden peppering in commentary.
Rome
Rome is where Professor Madden’s new book lands hardest. The Fall of Republics opens with the Roman Republic, and Rome the city is where you can stand on the ground where that republic ran. Tom walks you through the layers, from the early Roman Republic through the empire and into medieval Rome.
His Crusades scholarship matters here too. Rome was the seat from which the calls to crusade went out, and the city carries that history in its churches and its walls.
Frequently Asked Questions
A few of the questions that come up most often when people are deciding whether tours with Thomas Madden are right for them.
Who is Thomas Madden?
Dr. Thomas F. Madden is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. He is one of the foremost American historians of the medieval Mediterranean and a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
What is Thomas Madden known for?
He is best known for his scholarship on the Crusades, on Venice, and on the medieval Mediterranean world. His books include Venice: A New History, Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World, The New Concise History of the Crusades, and The Fall of Republics.
Has Thomas Madden won any awards?
Yes. He has received the Medieval Academy of America’s Haskins Medal (2007), the Medieval Institute’s Otto Gründler Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012), and the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award (2018). He is also a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies.
What are Thomas Madden’s notable books?
His major works include The Fall of Republics: A History from Ancient Carthage to the American Constitution (Princeton University Press, 2026), Venice: A New History (Penguin), Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World (Viking/Penguin), The New Concise History of the Crusades, and Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice.