Frank J. Coppa

Frank John Coppa (born July 18, 1937) is an American historian, author, and educator who has written widely on the Papacy in history as well as on Italian historical topics.

Born on July 18, 1937 in New York City, New York, Coppa attended Brooklyn College (B.A., 1960) and the Catholic University of America (M.A., 1962; Ph.D., 1966). He received a Fulbright grant to study in Italy in 1964-1965.

Coppa began teaching at St. John's University in Jamaica, Queens, New York, in 1965 as an Instructor, and was promoted to Assistant Professor (1966), Associate Professor (1970), and Professor (1979). He was the founding director of the school's doctoral program in Modern World History, and retired in 2010. In 2011, he received the first Lifetime Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Catholic Historical Association.

Coppa's dissertation topic was, "Giolitti and Industrial Italy: An Analysis of the Interrelationship Between Giolitti's Economic Policy and His Political Program." Many of his early publications dealt with topics pertaining to both Catholic and Italian history, such as Giolitti, Mazzini, Antonelli, Cavour, Garibaldi, and Columbus. Later in his career, Coppa also began to publish widely on the Papacy, including articles and books on Pio Nono, Pius XI, and Pius XII. He also authored/edited several widely respected books on the Papacy, including Encyclopedia of the Vatican and the Papacy (1999), The Great Popes Through History: An Encyclopedia (2002), The Papacy, the Jews and the Holocaust: From Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitism to the Third Millennium (2006), and Politics and the Papacy in the Modern World (2008).