Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, g... more Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, government officials (and other professionals), as well as animals, all sharing the same streets, neighborhoods, and waterways. As this paper will show, medieval officials were highly concerned with keeping their city and its environs, safe and healthy, and devoted significant amounts of time and resources to achieve these goals. Using Bologna as a case study, this article maps in GIS over one hundred regulations from the city’s urban statutes from 1245-67, to examine public health strategies. In doing so, it will demonstrate that medieval officials in Bologna employed a spatial logic as they created health regulations and oversaw the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. This spatial logic was grounded in an understanding of movement and an awareness of how, where, and when people, animals, goods, water, and waste moved through the city. In this way, the knowledge of space and movement were critical aspects of public health strategies which officials deployed to maintain a healthy and working city.
Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, g... more Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, government officials (and other professionals), as well as animals, all sharing the same streets, neighborhoods, and waterways. As this paper will show, medieval officials were highly concerned with keeping their city and its environs, safe and healthy, and devoted significant amounts of time and resources to achieve these goals. Using Bologna as a case study, this article maps in GIS over one hundred regulations from the city’s urban statutes from 1245-67, to examine public health strategies. In doing so, it will demonstrate that medieval officials in Bologna employed a spatial logic as they created health regulations and oversaw the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. This spatial logic was grounded in an understanding of movement and an awareness of how, where, and when people, animals, goods, water, and waste moved through the city. In this way, the knowledge of space and movement were critical aspects of public health strategies which officials deployed to maintain a healthy and working city.
Public health is often thought of as a by-product of modernity, yet historical evidence shows tha... more Public health is often thought of as a by-product of modernity, yet historical evidence shows that numerous stakeholders in medieval Europe took steps to reduce risks and improve health incomes. The ERC project “Healthscaping Urban Europe: Bio-Power, Space and Society, 1200-1500” (grant no. 724114) explores this idea by bringing together a group of historians and archaeologists of the era to explore how urban residents in two of Europe’s most urbanized regions – Italy and the Low Countries – thought about and pursued population-level health. The project integrates written, visual and material sources with archaeological data to examine preventative health interventions in GIS, suggesting that these were well developed before the onset of the Black Death (1346-1353). This paper deals with the Bologna case study. It describes the datasets we created and the technical choices we made.
This paper traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm unde... more This paper traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm understood and confronted the health challenges facing them, using the extraordinarily well-documented case of Bologna, Italy. Working within a GIS environment, the authors spatially analyze over 3,500 events recorded by the Ufficio del fango concerning violations of the city’s health-related ordinances, augmented by other demographic and material data. As such the study not only adds specificity to recent attempts to enrich the field of premodern public health, but also demonstrates that the Bolognese administration had a sophisticated and evolving understanding of communal health risks, and exposes several discrepancies between policy and practice.
This article traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm un... more This article traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm understood and confronted the health challenges facing them, using the extraordinarily well-documented case of Bologna, Italy. Working within a GIS environment, the authors spatially analyse over 3,500 events recorded by the Ufficio del fango concerning violations of the city’s health-related ordinances, augmented by other demographic and material data. As such, the study not only adds specificity to recent attempts to enrich the field of pre-modern public health, but also demonstrates that the Bolognese administration had a sophisticated and evolving understanding of communal health risks, and exposes several discrepancies between policy and practice.
From 900 to 1300 AD, Italy underwent sweeping cultural changes – the rise of market economies, in... more From 900 to 1300 AD, Italy underwent sweeping cultural changes – the rise of market economies, increased trade and commerce, and new forms of governance. Typically, the elite are cast as the drivers of these shifts, yet it was rural labor that fueled the medieval economy. This paper examines the impact of rural landscape and production strategies during the development of the medieval city-state of Lucca. Historically Lucchese rural producers had greater autonomy compared to their counterparts elsewhere in medieval Europe when it came to land choices and production. Therefore, rural producers had some agency, through their everyday activities and choices, to enhance, resist, or avoid the sociopolitical and economic power changes in urban Lucca. These choices included 1) the type of land they settled on, 2) what they produced and how much, and 3) the degree of trade and interaction with urban Lucca. Rural people produced the grain, olive oil, wine, meat, cheese, and wool that were traded in the cities, collected by elites as rent and taxes, and transformed into capital. In summary, these “everyday decisions” of rural producers impacted rural-urban networks and the growth of the market economy. I suggest that rural productive decisions enhanced the urban economy and territorial cohesiveness, and that these choices helped fuel the rise of the city-state. From 900 to 1300 AD, the period of city-state formation, I explore if and how rural producers shifted their settlements and production to engage with, resist, or avoid the developing urban center of Lucca, considering the variety of ways rural people interacted with and influenced urban developments.
Call for paper is now open and ends on 11 February 2021, 23:59 CET. We ask those of you interested in participating to our session to submit a proposal via the EAA2021 online system following the link above. For any doubts and questions regarding the topic(s) and aim(s) of the session please contact: ale.cianciosi@unive.it ; t.l.zaneri@uva.nl ; annamaria.pazienza@unive.it
Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, g... more Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, government officials (and other professionals), as well as animals, all sharing the same streets, neighborhoods, and waterways. As this paper will show, medieval officials were highly concerned with keeping their city and its environs, safe and healthy, and devoted significant amounts of time and resources to achieve these goals. Using Bologna as a case study, this article maps in GIS over one hundred regulations from the city’s urban statutes from 1245-67, to examine public health strategies. In doing so, it will demonstrate that medieval officials in Bologna employed a spatial logic as they created health regulations and oversaw the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. This spatial logic was grounded in an understanding of movement and an awareness of how, where, and when people, animals, goods, water, and waste moved through the city. In this way, the knowledge of space and movement were critical aspects of public health strategies which officials deployed to maintain a healthy and working city.
Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, g... more Medieval Bologna was a vibrant and dynamic city with hundreds of artisans, craftsmen, students, government officials (and other professionals), as well as animals, all sharing the same streets, neighborhoods, and waterways. As this paper will show, medieval officials were highly concerned with keeping their city and its environs, safe and healthy, and devoted significant amounts of time and resources to achieve these goals. Using Bologna as a case study, this article maps in GIS over one hundred regulations from the city’s urban statutes from 1245-67, to examine public health strategies. In doing so, it will demonstrate that medieval officials in Bologna employed a spatial logic as they created health regulations and oversaw the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. This spatial logic was grounded in an understanding of movement and an awareness of how, where, and when people, animals, goods, water, and waste moved through the city. In this way, the knowledge of space and movement were critical aspects of public health strategies which officials deployed to maintain a healthy and working city.
Public health is often thought of as a by-product of modernity, yet historical evidence shows tha... more Public health is often thought of as a by-product of modernity, yet historical evidence shows that numerous stakeholders in medieval Europe took steps to reduce risks and improve health incomes. The ERC project “Healthscaping Urban Europe: Bio-Power, Space and Society, 1200-1500” (grant no. 724114) explores this idea by bringing together a group of historians and archaeologists of the era to explore how urban residents in two of Europe’s most urbanized regions – Italy and the Low Countries – thought about and pursued population-level health. The project integrates written, visual and material sources with archaeological data to examine preventative health interventions in GIS, suggesting that these were well developed before the onset of the Black Death (1346-1353). This paper deals with the Bologna case study. It describes the datasets we created and the technical choices we made.
This paper traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm unde... more This paper traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm understood and confronted the health challenges facing them, using the extraordinarily well-documented case of Bologna, Italy. Working within a GIS environment, the authors spatially analyze over 3,500 events recorded by the Ufficio del fango concerning violations of the city’s health-related ordinances, augmented by other demographic and material data. As such the study not only adds specificity to recent attempts to enrich the field of premodern public health, but also demonstrates that the Bolognese administration had a sophisticated and evolving understanding of communal health risks, and exposes several discrepancies between policy and practice.
This article traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm un... more This article traces how urban communities operating with a humoral or Galenic medical paradigm understood and confronted the health challenges facing them, using the extraordinarily well-documented case of Bologna, Italy. Working within a GIS environment, the authors spatially analyse over 3,500 events recorded by the Ufficio del fango concerning violations of the city’s health-related ordinances, augmented by other demographic and material data. As such, the study not only adds specificity to recent attempts to enrich the field of pre-modern public health, but also demonstrates that the Bolognese administration had a sophisticated and evolving understanding of communal health risks, and exposes several discrepancies between policy and practice.
From 900 to 1300 AD, Italy underwent sweeping cultural changes – the rise of market economies, in... more From 900 to 1300 AD, Italy underwent sweeping cultural changes – the rise of market economies, increased trade and commerce, and new forms of governance. Typically, the elite are cast as the drivers of these shifts, yet it was rural labor that fueled the medieval economy. This paper examines the impact of rural landscape and production strategies during the development of the medieval city-state of Lucca. Historically Lucchese rural producers had greater autonomy compared to their counterparts elsewhere in medieval Europe when it came to land choices and production. Therefore, rural producers had some agency, through their everyday activities and choices, to enhance, resist, or avoid the sociopolitical and economic power changes in urban Lucca. These choices included 1) the type of land they settled on, 2) what they produced and how much, and 3) the degree of trade and interaction with urban Lucca. Rural people produced the grain, olive oil, wine, meat, cheese, and wool that were traded in the cities, collected by elites as rent and taxes, and transformed into capital. In summary, these “everyday decisions” of rural producers impacted rural-urban networks and the growth of the market economy. I suggest that rural productive decisions enhanced the urban economy and territorial cohesiveness, and that these choices helped fuel the rise of the city-state. From 900 to 1300 AD, the period of city-state formation, I explore if and how rural producers shifted their settlements and production to engage with, resist, or avoid the developing urban center of Lucca, considering the variety of ways rural people interacted with and influenced urban developments.
Call for paper is now open and ends on 11 February 2021, 23:59 CET. We ask those of you interested in participating to our session to submit a proposal via the EAA2021 online system following the link above. For any doubts and questions regarding the topic(s) and aim(s) of the session please contact: ale.cianciosi@unive.it ; t.l.zaneri@uva.nl ; annamaria.pazienza@unive.it
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Call for paper is now open and ends on 11 February 2021, 23:59 CET. We ask those of you interested in participating to our session to submit a proposal via the EAA2021 online system following the link above. For any doubts and questions regarding the topic(s) and aim(s) of the session please contact: ale.cianciosi@unive.it ; t.l.zaneri@uva.nl ; annamaria.pazienza@unive.it
Call for paper is now open and ends on 11 February 2021, 23:59 CET. We ask those of you interested in participating to our session to submit a proposal via the EAA2021 online system following the link above. For any doubts and questions regarding the topic(s) and aim(s) of the session please contact: ale.cianciosi@unive.it ; t.l.zaneri@uva.nl ; annamaria.pazienza@unive.it