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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1645: Materialities and the Built Environment of Italy, 800-1200

Thursday 4 July 2019, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Organiser:Caroline Goodson, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Donal Cooper, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
Paper 1645-aFire and the City in Early Medieval Italy
(Language: English)
James Norrie, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell’Antichità, Università degli Studi di Padova / Humanities Research Programme, British School at Rome
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Daily Life, Economics - Urban, Social History
Paper 1645-bDead Ends: Monasteries and Immateriality
(Language: English)
Caroline Goodson, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Archaeology - General, Economics - General, Monasticism, Social History
Paper 1645-cSubverted Expectations: Power and Aristocratic Architecture
(Language: English)
Giulia Bellato, Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Architecture - Secular, Social History
Abstract

This session foregrounds the built environment and material culture of medieval Italy and the roles it played in social and political history. Monumental building projects and records of them in texts have long been understood as part of medieval aristocratic virtues, and laudatory descriptions of urban fabric clearly attest to the values of urbanism. The physical environment was more than a symbolic expression of status, however. Buildings shaped the interactions that took place within them and not only does material culture reflect what people did but also what objects themselves allowed - and constrained - certain activities. The papers in this session all address materiality as an agent which prompted human interventions and interactions and fostered behaviours in early medieval Italy.