The Afterlife of the Cesi Garden

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-165
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Bentz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Family Identity ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Federico Cesi ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Early Modern Rome ◽  
The City

One of the most celebrated gardens in early modern Rome was built by Cardinal Federico Cesi (d. 1565) near St. Peter’s Basilica. Earlier studies of the site have concentrated on the famous sixteenth-century antiquities collection displayed in the garden. The Afterlife of the Cesi Garden: Family Identity, Politics, and Memory in Early Modern Rome shifts the scholarly focus to also examine the changing appearance, functions, and the broader social, political, and economic significance of the garden for the Cesi family and for the city of Rome over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through a close analysis of visual evidence, unpublished archival documents, and a plan of the garden by the architect Giovanni Battista Contini (d. 1723), Katherine M. Bentz demonstrates that the long post-Renaissance afterlife of the Cesi Garden reveals the ways in which politics shaped specific urban environments in Rome, how aristocratic Romans considered and used gardens over generations, and the vital and symbolic role that the garden played for centuries.

Ritual Time and Popular Expectations of Papal Rule in Early Modern Rome

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
John M. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
Imminent Death ◽  
Early Modern Rome ◽  
The City

The political and ritual life of early modern Rome provided its inhabitants ample opportunities not only to express grievances with papal government but also to voice expectations of newly elected pontiffs. Three ritual moments in particular—each linked as a cycle related to the pope’s reign—looked toward the future. These were the papal election, the possesso (the newly elected pontiff’s procession to San Giovanni in Laterano), and the pope’s death. As the papal election commenced in the conclave, Romans communicated their hopes for a pontiff who would adhere to a traditional moral economy by keeping the city abundantly supplied with grain and other foodstuffs. The ceremonies connected to the possesso reinforced these concerns; during the pope’s procession from Saint Peter’s to San Giovanni, the people greeted him with placards, statues, and ritual shouts, which reminded him to uphold this sacred duty. A pope who failed to abide by this moral economy faced popular discontent. This took the form of murmuring and pasquinades that wished for his imminent death, thus anticipating an end to his odious reign and to the future freedoms of the vacant see, a time in which the machinery of papal government and justice halted, allowing the people to vocalize their anger. Immediately on the heels of the pope’s death came the papal election, starting the cycle anew. This paper will argue that the rhythms of papal government enabled the people to articulate their expectations of papal rule, both present and future, grounded in traditional paternalism.

Street “Luxuries”

2020 ◽  
pp. 413-433
Author(s):  
Melissa Calaresu
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Fast Food ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nutritional Needs ◽  
Early Modern Rome ◽  
The City

The history of eating on the street presents particular challenges as the extant material culture is especially limited. This chapter reveals the variety of food sold on the streets of early modern Rome through the study of a series of images of street sellers printed in the late sixteenth century in response to the growing ethnographic interest of travelers to the city. This chapter turns on its head what was considered a luxury in the early modern economy as these images suggest the range of foodstuffs which cannot be simply understood as daily necessities to meet the basic nutritional needs of the city’s inhabitants such as raw cooking materials or hot fast food. Instead, these images suggest that labor-saving products such as hulled rice or even products such as sweetmeats, which were normally associated with the work of the steward of an aristocratic house and the elite “dressing” of the table, were being sold on the streets. Therefore, despite the inherent ephemerality of the act of selling and eating food and the lack of surviving material culture, these images reveal the complexity of determining social distinction through food choices in early modern Rome.

To Pray, To Work, To Hear, To Speak: Women in Roman Streets c. 1600

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 289-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Street Life ◽  
Female Presence ◽  
Early Modern Rome ◽  
The City ◽  
Demographic Growth

AbstractUsing pictures, city regulations, and judicial records, this essay claims a place for women of varying rank and status in the street life of early modern Rome. It revises the conventional binary of male public realms and female domesticity that, reinforced by scholarly expectations of Mediterranean gendered seclusion, obscures a necessary female presence in the city. In urban spaces outside their homes beggars, prostitutes, servants, working wives, nubile daughters, and even gentlewomen faced risks, but also cadged opportunities. Though excluded from government and corporate decision-making, women routinely ventured into the streets in pursuit of many goals: heavenly salvation, earthly livelihood, neighborly support, vital information, or momentary pleasure. While Rome's patterns of physical and demographic growth distinguished it in important respects from other Italian cities, it is nevertheless likely that, as in Venice, these female uses of urban space had analogues elsewhere.

House names, shop signs and social organization in Western European cities, 1500–1900

Urban History ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garrioch
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Family Identity ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
European Cities ◽  
Individual Family ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The City ◽  
City Centres

The houses in early modern European cities almost all had names and signs. These are usually taken to be an early form of advertising, or else a way of finding one's way around the city in times before street names and numbering. This article argues that their primary purpose was to mark the individual, family or ethnic identity of the house owner or tenant. During the eighteenth century the names and signs changed in character, and by the mid-nineteenth century they had almost disappeared from city centres, primarily as a result of changes in individual and family identity among the urban middle classes, and of the transformation of neighbourhood communities under the pressure of urban economic and social integration. The evolution of house names and shop signs therefore illustrates the changing relationship between the city's residents and the urban environment.

Minimetrò in Perugia as leverage for urban regeneration

TERRITORIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 148-163
Author(s):  
Luca Fondacci
Keyword(s):  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Sustainable Mobility ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Peripheral Area ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Historical Centre

In the 1970s, the fragile historical centre of the city of Perugia was a key area where the binomial of sustainable mobility and urban regeneration was developed and applied. At the turn of the xxi century, the low carbon automatic people-mover Minimetrò broadened that application from the city's historical centre to the outskirts, promoting the enhancement of several urban environments. This paper is the outcome of an investigation of original sources, field surveys and direct interviews, which addresses the Minimetrò as the backbone of a wide regeneration process which has had a considerable impact on the economic development of a peripheral area of the city which was previously devoid of any clear urban sense. The conclusion proposes some solutions to improve the nature of the Minimetrò as an experimental alternative means of transport.

Becoming “Indians”: The Jesuit Missionary Path from Italy to Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.

Some Aspects of Identity Politics of Kharkiv Local Authorities After 2013

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
Denys Kutsenko
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
New Policies ◽  
National Flag ◽  
The City

AbstractThe paper analyzes the transformation of identity politics of Kharkiv local authorities after the Euromaidan, or Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea, and the War in Donbass. Being the second largest city in Ukraine and becoming the frontline city in 2014, Kharkiv is an interesting case for research on how former pro-Russian local elites treat new policies of the central government in Kyiv, on whether earlier they tried to mobilize their electorate or to provoke political opponents with using soviet symbols, soviet memory, and copying Russian initiatives in the sphere of identity.To answer the research question of this article, an analysis of Kharkiv city and oblast programs and strategies and of communal media were made. Decommunisation, as one of the most important identity projects of Ukrainian central authorities after 2014, was analyzed through publications in Kharkiv’s city-owned media as well as reports from other scholars. Some conclusions are made from the analysis of these documents: Kharkiv development strategy until 2020, Complex program of cultural development in Kharkiv in 2011–2016 (and the same for 2017–2021), The regional program of military and patriotic training and participation of people in measures of defense work in 2015–2017, Program of supporting civil society in 2016–2020 in Kharkiv region and the city mayor’s orders about the celebration of Victory Day (9 May), the Day of the National Flag (23 August), the Day of the City (23 August) and Independence Day (24 August) in 2010–2015.

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