Gilmore Dies of Cancer at 68; Memorial Service to Be Friday

Memorial services for Myron P. Gilmore, Gurney Professor of History and Political Science, will be held in Memorial Church this Friday at 3 p.m.

Gilmore, who was 68 years old, died of cancer last Friday in Cambridge after four decades of association with Harvard as a graduate student and a professor of Renaissance history.

Gilmore served from 1957 to 1962 as chairman of the department of History and from 1964 to 1973 as director of Villa I Tatti, Harvard's Center for Renaissance Studies, in Florence, Italy.

New Perspectives

David Herlihy, professor of History, said yesterday Gilmore gave humanism a new perspective by examining its relationship to Roman law. Gilmore was also an authority on Erasmus, Herlihy added.

"I don't know of anyone who was better liked among Harvard professors, or indeed, anywhere--he was so generous and kind," Frank Freidel, Warren Professor of American History, said yesterday.

Freidel said in his years as chairman of the department of History, Gilmore remained "exceedingly fair, with never a harsh word no matter what the crisis."

In his role as director of the Villa I Tatti, Gilmore organized the rescue of Florence's cultural monuments during the flood of 1966.

He received an honorary degree from the University of Florence in 1976. Two months ago Gilmore received a collection of essays published in Italy honoring his contributions to Renaissance scholarship and the Villa I Tatti, Sheila Gilmore, his wife, said yesterday.

Gilmore was teaching a freshman seminar on Erasmus this semester, and had been appointed to serve as a visiting professor in Renaissance Studies at Smith College this spring.