The Power of Space: Cities in Late Medieval/Early Modern Italy and Northern Europe
March 2010
This two-day workshop brought together a group of scholars from the U.S., France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland to share research on how cultural, social, political, and economic practices were constituted by spatial organization in cities of Italy (Venice, Lucca, and Naples among others) and northern Europe (Paris and its environs, Brussels, Ghent, Amsterdam, and Lille among others) during the late medieval and early modern centuries. Although recognized as the most commercialized parts of late medieval Europe, justly famous for their sociopolitical innovations and cultural achievements, the two regions differed in ways that have made comparative analysis difficult. In addition to pursuing questions particularly informed by anthropological work on the way space not only contains but also confers meaning, the conference intended to provide a frame for systematic comparison of these two regions. Proceedings of the workshop have been published in The Power of Space in late medieval and early modern Europe: The cities of Italy, Northern France and the Low Countries, edited by Marc Boone and Martha Howell and published by Brepols (Belgium).