Architecture and Urbanism in Early Modern Palermo

Building an Elastic City

AvElizabeth Kassler-Taub

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

1 362 kr

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Beskrivning

Palermo was an active participant in the global dynamics of early modernity, a role that shaped its remaking as the capital of the Habsburg viceroyalty of Sicily. Situating the sixteenth-century city within the broader landscape of Spanish colonialism, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub positions Palermo as a model for understanding how capitals at the edges of empire were made and imagined, inhabited and described. Architecture and Urbanism in Early Modern Palermo: Building an Elastic City introduces readers to monuments and sites absent from mainstream histories of early modern Italy and Spain, highlighting the experimental design models and building practices developed in response to, and defiance of, the city's entanglements across both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Kassler-Taub conceptualizes Palermo's capacity for change and adaptation as an index of its 'elasticity.' She shows how the city's centuries-long colonial condition generated remarkable resilience: Palermo was able to withstand tension and to reshape itself without violating its basic form and identity.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2026-09-30
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:350
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9781009790857

Utforska kategorier

Arkitekturhistoria inom Kultur
Renässansen inom Historia och arkeologi

Mer om författaren

Elizabeth Kassler-Taub is Assistant Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College. Her research and teaching explore global histories of early modern architecture and urbanism, with a focus on Spanish Italy. She is the co-editor of Monumentality: Geographies, Histories, Ideologies (Getty Research Institute, 2026).

Recensioner i media

'Elizabeth Kassler-Taub's important study of the monumental architecture and 'elastic' urban form of pre-modern Palermo redresses longstanding narratives of a Renaissance perennially belated by adherence to an anticlassical Arab, Norman, and Aragonese past, of heterogeneity as cultural contamination. Her book is an outstanding example of the recent wave of scholarship on the early modern port city, and her analyses of the intricate aesthetics of Palermitan architecture are lucid, insightful, and beautiful to read.' Stephen J. Campbell, Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor, Johns Hopkins University

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction; Part I. The Global Rearview: 1. Building and Belonging: Practices of Vernacularization; 2. Imperial Imaginaries: Reusing the Past; Part II. Uncertain Futures: 3. Unbuilt Urbanism: Engineering the City; 4. City Limits: Mechanics of Modernization; Afterword; Bibliography; Index.