Frederic Chapin Lane was a professor of history at Johns Hopkins and a leading scholar of the Italian Renaissance. Lane was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1900 and spent much of his early life in the Boston area where his father was a member of the faculty of Tufts University. Lane was a graduate of Cornell University, held a master's degree from Tufts, and received the Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. He came to Hopkins in 1928 as an instructor in the Department of History. He was promoted to full professor in 1946 and served as chairman of the department from 1960 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1964. At Hopkins, his classes included "Italy During the Renaissance," "Economic Development in Oceanic Expansion," and "Economic Development in the Later Middle Ages." Lane placed great emphasis on his role as teacher and believed it important to remain in touch with students' reactions and ideas. He was honored by his students and colleagues in 1964 when they cooperated in the publication of a collection of his papers entitled Venice and History. When he retired to his family home in Massachusetts to continue his writing and research, he did not give up the classroom. He agreed to lecture one day a week at Brandeis University which he did until 1970.

Lane's primary field of research was the economic history of Venice and other city-states of the Italian Renaissance. Lane traveled regularly to Venice where he researched the papers of ducal families and mercantile houses of Renaissance Venice. His published works include Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (1934); Andrea Barbarigo, a Merchant of Venice (1944); Venice, A Maritime Republic (1973); and Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice (1985).

Frederic C. Lane died in Westminster, Massachusetts, October 14, 1984.