From Tempests and Hydraulic Machines to the Arno Diversion: the Historical Significance of da Vinci’s Study of Water
Reemergence of classical thought and the importance of water in society led da Vinci to pursue multiple projects regarding his study of water – culminating in the project to divert the Arno River.
Move over Milan! Late Medieval and Renaissance Fashion in Venice
Milan may be Italy’s current fashion capital, but Venice had an important role to play in the development of the Italian fashion and textile industry since the late middle ages and renaissance period.
The Importance of Being Good: Moral Philosophy in the Italian Universities, 1300–1600
This paper therefore explores how important moral philosophy was, during the Italian Renaissance, as an independent university subject, and whether its status had a direct relationship with that of rhetorical studies
Shaping a Saint’s Identity: The Imagery of Thomas Becket in Medieval Italy
This article sets out to trace the visual responses to the sainthood of Thomas of Canterbury outside of his original cultural context, namely in Italy, where his cult was readily received, integrated and modified.
Medieval Books for Christmas
It’s that time of year again – the mad scramble for the perfect Christmas gift for the historian, nerd, avid reader on your list. Here are a few suggestions for you – new releases for December and January!
How to protect yourself against the Plague: Remedies from Renaissance Italy
‘Rue tops, one clove of garlic, a walnut, a grain of salt, and eat on an empty stomach everyday for up to a month, and you must be cheerful, and this recipe, it’s good against vermin and it’s perfect.
The Morality of Misogyny: The Case of Rustico Filippi, Vituperator of Women
At the outset of his influential study on Rabelais, Mikhail Bakhtin makes an interesting observation. The scholar dedicates several pages to detail how the French author’s critical reception changed over time. Bakhtin illustrates how the attempt to comprehend an author can frequently be stymied by the cultural changes that occur across the centuries.
The Sincere Body: The Performance of Weeping and Emotion in Late Medieval Italian Sermons
In 1493 the well-known and controversial Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Feltre gave a series of Lenten sermons to the people of Pavia. On March 11 he dedicated an entire sermon to the necessity of contrition—or perfect sorrow over sin—in the rite of confession.
CONFERENCES: The Stellinga, the Saxon Elite, and Carolingian Politics
This is my summary of a paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research on the causes of the Stellinga uprising in the Carolingian period.
Flee the loathsome shadow: Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and the Medici in Florence
This article examines the changing political landscape of Medicean Florence, from Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464) to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), through the letters of the celebrated neo-Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99).
Constructing social identity in Renaissance Florence: Botticelli’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’
This study scrutinizes a work within a neglected portion of Botticelli’s oeuvre, examining the ways in which its modest, and somewhat ambiguous, visual cues also construct its sitter’s elevated social identity, while simultaneously protecting it.
Women’s monasticism in late medieval Bologna, 1200-1500
This dissertation explores the fluid relationship between monastic women and religious orders. I examine the roles of popes and their representatives, governing bodies of religious orders, and the nunneries themselves in outlining the contours of those relationships.
Petrus Hispanus (circa 1215-1277) and ‘The Treasury of the Poor’
The identity of Petrus Hispanus is a matter of some controversy. Part of the problem is centred on the fact that ‘Hispanus’ covers the general region of the Iberian Peninsula, referred to in medieval times as ‘las Españas’ (the Spains), incorporating both present day Spain and Portgual.
10 Terrifying Reads for Halloween!
Here are some spooky medieval books for you to celebrate with over Halloween!
The drawings that Michelangelo did not want you to see
There are about 600 drawings by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo that have survived to the present day – many of them stunningly beautiful – but he would probably have been ‘absolutely horrified’ that the general public can now see them.
Profile of a Plant: The Olive in Early Medieval Italy, 400-900 CE
The essay illuminates some of the ways that early medieval Italian communities engaged their environmental inheritance, how they recast the stolid olive to fit local contingencies.
Domestic Slavery in Renaissance Italy
The ways merchants in Italy differentiated along ethnic and religious lines among the slaves they dealt in sheds light more on how the people of Italy made distinctions among themselves than on the origins and religion of their captives.
The Fashion Police in 16th-century Italy
Patrolling the streets and squares of the bustling city as arbiters of the level of ostentation that was deemed appropriate, the sumptuary magistrates were quite simply the Fashion Police.
The Floating State: Trade Embargoes and the Rise of a New Venetian State
This paper was given by Georg Christ and examined embargoes and state formation in the late medieval and early modern period in Venice.
Latin Patrons, Greek Fathers: St Bartholomew of Simeri and Byzantine Monastic Reform in Norman Italy, 11th-12th Centuries
St Bartholomew of Simeri (ca. 1050-1130), a Greek monastic founder and reformer from Calabria, saw the effective end of Byzantine imperial power in southern Italy in 1071, the conquest of Muslim Palermo by Robert Guiscard the following year, and the rise of the Norman kingdom of Roger II at the end of his life.
A Medieval Scholasticus and Renaissance Choirmaster: A Portrait of John Hothby at Lucca
John Hothby’s career as cathedral choirmaster at Lucca is one of the longest, best documented, and most exceptional of any Northern musician active in fifteenth-century Italy.
Justinian’s Reconquest: Notions of Return in Procopius’ Gothic Wars
Though the native Italians play a relatively minor role in the Gothic Wars, the essay will suggest, that in Procopius’ mind, the Western Romans’ ‘decision’ to forego their martial roles for less martial forms of male self-fashioning in the fifth century had led, not only to the rise of the ‘barbarian’ Vandals and the Goths, but had separated the Italians from an essential component of Romanitas—masculine martial virtues.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Real and imaginary journeys in the later Middle Ages
For a proper understanding of the actions of men in the past it is necessary to have some idea of how they conceived the world and their place in it, yet for the medieval period there is a serious inbalance in the sources.
Pedlars and Alchemists in Friuli History of itinerant sellers in an alpine reality
This short review discusses about itinerant sellers in Friuli, who are Cramaro called (XI-XIX centuries). Attention is focused, in particular, on the question if some of theme were alchemists.