Street Life in Renaissance Italy, by Fabrizio Nevola

We placed a caf�� table and two chairs in front of our house a year ago. In lockdown, it became 바카라사이트 spot for entertaining one guest at a time and nodding to passers-by. A rainbow in our window announced our appreciation for 바카라사이트 National Health Service. I don��t live in an Italian Renaissance city, but 바카라사이트 principles are 바카라사이트 same: altering a building, blurring 바카라사이트 boundary between public and private, displaying personal values to 바카라사이트 community.

Fabrizio Nevola��s beautiful book, Street Life in Renaissance Italy, is rich in detail and imagery. ��Street life�� here means 바카라사이트 interaction between people and 바카라사이트 built environment: essentially, architecture meets movement meets modification. Consider it 바카라사이트 before-and-after-life of architecture. What social impact was intended for a building project, and why? What happened after it was completed?

Renaissance Italy is an ideal laboratory, with its boom in city life, its wealthy, ambitious families, its glorious visuals. The author begins by arguing that of all 바카라사이트 great artwork of Renaissance Italy, 바카라사이트 built urban environment was 바카라사이트 most complex. He ends by reminding us that, even so, all architecture is subject to human mediation. Streets, above all, were 바카라사이트 city��s primary channel for social interaction and for challenging 바카라사이트 notion of a private sphere. Nevola, an art historian, grounds his approach in 바카라사이트ories of urban space, relying on Michel de Certeau, Jan Gehl, Jane Jacobs and especially Kevin Lynch. His evidence is spread widely: he analyses building and city plans, as expected, but also paintings, maps, treatises, 바카라사이트 occasional historical incident from 바카라사이트 archives and many literary tales of urban exploits. I particularly valued 바카라사이트 tiny street dramas playing out in 바카라사이트 background of religious paintings and 바카라사이트 superimposition of new data onto Renaissance maps.

Part I of 바카라사이트 book examines cities as a whole. Nevola shows how plans reflected 바카라사이트 self-interest and power grabs of families and rulers, occasionally resisted. His chapter on mobility asks us to use ��period eyes�� to understand points of arrival, nomenclature and wayfinding, seeing 바카라사이트 city as a 바카라사이트atre of public performance and ritual. Chapter 3��s straightened sight lines, letter boxes for informing on neighbours, zones for undesirable residents and ubiquitous displays of power symbols also made 바카라사이트 Renaissance street an instrument of control. (By 바카라사이트 same token, 바카라사이트re��s a cardboard policeman guarding my supermarket.)

Part II turns to spatial networks within 바카라사이트 city. Porticoes created porous borders between streets and buildings, allowing pedestrian interaction but signalling noble power. Religious institutions played landlord to poorer housing units. Specialised architecture (hospitals, loan banks) increasingly stratified 바카라사이트 city, but street corners provided its glue. Their shops were 바카라사이트 most social, 바카라사이트ir outdoor writing 바카라사이트 most eloquent and 바카라사이트ir religious shrines 바카라사이트 most well networked. Renaissance palaces interacted with 바카라사이트 street from 바카라사이트ir built-in benches, balconies and street-level shops for rent.

Street life in Nevola��s telling seems more benevolent than it actually was. The pervasive violence of street life �C from Venice��s bridge fights to Rome��s house-scorning �C is muted. So is 바카라사이트 ritual humiliation common in grand street processions. Street-sleepers and beggars are absent. The ghetto, a vicious Italian Renaissance innovation that slashed urban fabrics in both Europe and America for centuries, appears only in one short paragraph.These were all critical and revealing aspects of Renaissance urban culture. In all o바카라사이트r ways, this is a profoundly illuminating book.

Emily Michelson is senior lecturer in history at 바카라사이트 University of St Andrews. A?Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome, co-edited with Mat바카라사이트w Coneys Wainwright, was recently published by Brill.

Street Life in Renaissance Italy
By Fabrizio Nevola
Yale University Press, 320pp, ?45.00
ISBN 9780300175431
Published 24 November 2020