The papers of historian Benjamin G. Kohl consist of research material and personal papers ranging in date from 1960 to 2006, including a series of correspondence between Kohl and his mentor, Frederic Chapin Lane. The research materials are for Kohl’s book Culture and Politics in Early Renaissance Padua. The personal series includes correspondence from 1965 through 1998; information on grant applications; correspondence with JHU Press regarding publication of the Origins of Venice and the Jews of Venice; and reprints.

A highlight of the personal series are forty-five letters, mostly those of Lane, written during a period when Kohl was finishing the doctorate program at Hopkins, searching for an academic position, and later conducting research in Italy. The final letters in the collection were written by Kohl in 1985 after Lane's death and were addressed to colleagues in the History Department at Hopkins. It was Kohl's plan to publish a collection of Lane's papers as a tribute to his friend and mentor.

The letters, sometimes affectionate, sometimes chastising, relate the association between a student (later a colleague) and a noted professor both of whom shared a passionate interest in historical scholarship.