Ron Musto attended Regis High School in New York City. He holds a B.A. from  Fordham University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in medieval and Renaissance History from Columbia University. He specialized in fourteenth-century Italian religious history and taught on the college level for several years. He is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and the winner of NEH (1978) and Mellon Foundation (1980) fellowships and of the Best Book Award from the Catholic Press Association (1986) for his The Catholic Peace Tradition.

With John Monfasani, he is the co-editor of Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice, Jr. His Apocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age was published by the University of California Press in 2003 and was the winner of the Helen & Howard R. Marraro Prize of the American Historical Association for 2004. His most recent book, The Trials of Giovanna: A Murder, A Queen and a Kingdom, is in progress.

He has worked in the book trade since 1967, in reference and humanities publishing since 1975, and in 1985 cofounded Italica Press in New York City. At Italica Press he has been coauthor/editor of several e-books, including The Road to Compostela. He is the series editor of the five-volume A Documentary History of Naples; and with Caroline Bruzelius, Eileen Gardiner, and William Tronzo he is a co-editor of the volume on Medieval Naples, which is currently being published online.

With Eileen Gardiner he has directed the ACLS Humanities E-Book initiative for the American Council of Learned Societies since 1999.  With Dr. Gardiner he is the co-author of the article on “The Electronic Book” in The Oxford Companion to the Book. Michael F. Suarez, SJ and H.R. Woudhuysen, eds. 2 vols. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 1:164–71.

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Ron Musto served as a conscientious objector from 1970 to 1972, during the Vietnam war. He went on in 1980 to begin a series of publications on peace and justice in the Catholic tradition. These works include:

1. •The Catholic Peace Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986; reprint New York: Peace Books, 2002.
   
   

2. •The Peace Tradition in the Catholic Church. An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, 1987.
   
   

3. •Catholic Peacemakers: A Documentary History. 2 vols.
   Vol. 1: From the Bible to the Crusades. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993.
   Vol. 2: From the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.
   
   

4. •Liberation Theologies: A Research Guide. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.
   
   

5. •“Just Wars and Evil Empires: Erasmus and the Turks,” in John Monfasani and Ronald G. Musto, eds., Renaissance Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Eugene F. Rice, Jr. New York: Italica Press, 1991, pp. 197–216.
   
   

6. •“Catholic Peace Traditions.” In The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace. Nigel J. Young, ed. 4 vols. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 1:244–46.
   

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