The Unruly Tongue: Speech and Violence in Medieval Italy
By Melissa Vise
University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 978-1-5128-2487-2
How free should speech be? And what limits, if any, should restrain it? This question echoes across centuries—from modern debates to the turbulent politics of medieval Italy. This book examines the latter, revealing how words shaped power, conflict, and society in the city-states of medieval Italy.
Excerpt:
What do words do? And has “what words do” changed over time? This book answers the latter question with a resounding “yes” by articulating a historicized response to the former. The story begins in a surprising place: the fractious world of the cities of northern Italy, known as the communes, where the first glimmers of post-Roman Western republican political forms had begun to flicker by the eleventh century. But by the end of the thirteenth century, those political forms were in crisis. Known as the “time of Dino and Dante,” the turn of the fourteenth century witnessed not only those authors’ brilliant compositions – the Cronica (Chronicles) of Dino and, among others, the Divina commedia (Divine Comedy) of Dante – but also their laments over what they perceived to be the great loss of their home city, Florence, as it succumbed to violent factional politics and, eventually, overlordship.
Who is this book for?
This intriguing book will appeal to readers interested in the politics and society of late medieval and Renaissance Italy, while also attracting a broader audience of both medievalists and general readers. It certainly has a very modern feel to it.
“Melissa Vise’s new work is a marvellous book which will prompt thought, engagement and further research into the use and misuse of speech in Medieval contexts.” ~ review by Christopher Heath in the Journal of Religious History
The Author
Melissa Vise is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, where her research focuses on medieval Italian legal issues.
The Unruly Tongue: Speech and Violence in Medieval Italy
By Melissa Vise
University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 978-1-5128-2487-2
How free should speech be? And what limits, if any, should restrain it? This question echoes across centuries—from modern debates to the turbulent politics of medieval Italy. This book examines the latter, revealing how words shaped power, conflict, and society in the city-states of medieval Italy.
Excerpt:
What do words do? And has “what words do” changed over time? This book answers the latter question with a resounding “yes” by articulating a historicized response to the former. The story begins in a surprising place: the fractious world of the cities of northern Italy, known as the communes, where the first glimmers of post-Roman Western republican political forms had begun to flicker by the eleventh century. But by the end of the thirteenth century, those political forms were in crisis. Known as the “time of Dino and Dante,” the turn of the fourteenth century witnessed not only those authors’ brilliant compositions – the Cronica (Chronicles) of Dino and, among others, the Divina commedia (Divine Comedy) of Dante – but also their laments over what they perceived to be the great loss of their home city, Florence, as it succumbed to violent factional politics and, eventually, overlordship.
Who is this book for?
This intriguing book will appeal to readers interested in the politics and society of late medieval and Renaissance Italy, while also attracting a broader audience of both medievalists and general readers. It certainly has a very modern feel to it.
“Melissa Vise’s new work is a marvellous book which will prompt thought, engagement and further research into the use and misuse of speech in Medieval contexts.” ~ review by Christopher Heath in the Journal of Religious History
The Author
Melissa Vise is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, where her research focuses on medieval Italian legal issues.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
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