The SOF’s Research Grant Program is now accepting grant applications for 2016 and encouraging members to help us raise the additional funds we need to keep the grant program going strong.
If you have not yet seen the Ashland conference video in which Michael Delahoyde describes his adventures last summer hunting for Oxfordian clues in Italian archives, we hope you will do so soon. Nothing can better demonstrate the value of the SOF Research Grant Program. Delahoyde and research associate Coleen Moriarty, aided by an SOF research grant, explored a number of 16th century archives in northern Italy. As luck would have it, on their last day in Venice they found a document signed by Edward de Vere. This previously unknown document proves Oxford’s whereabouts in the summer of 1575, his interest in art, and suggests that other documents signed by him or referring to him are to be found in these archives. Delahoyde and Moriarty will return to northern Italy for another exploration of archives this summer with a second SOF research grant.
Another grant recipient, John Lavendoski, has uncovered a 16th century map that proves the existence of a water route from Milan to Venice. Stratfordian scholars have for years scoffed at Shakespeare for thinking that one could travel from Milan to Venice by boat, but Shakespeare was right! And Roger Stritmatter, our third grant recipient, has confirmed that there are notations in a 16th century Seneca manuscript that are likely to be by de Vere, meaning that this longer term research project is worthy of additional study.
You are welcome to apply for a 2016 research grant. Just follow the RGP 2016 Guidelines. Proposals will be accepted through July 31, 2016, with the Selection Committee’s decision announced by August 31, 2016.
Our goal this year is to have $20,000 to award as grants ranging from $2,000 to $20,000. The RGP has already received $4,000 from members as part of our annual donations solicitation. The SOF once again will provide up to $10,000 in matching funds, thereby doubling the power of your donation! A generous grant from the Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation helped make these matching funds possible. Therefore, we need only another $6,000 in donations to reach our goal of $20,000 with the matching funds.
Please help us bring the truth to light! All donations, large and small, are welcome. You can make your donation online at our Research Grant Fund page. Or mail your check to the SOF at P.O. Box 66083, Auburndale, MA 02466.
Thank you!
John Hamill, Chair
Research Grant Program
[posted February 17, 2016]
