Donatella Calabi - Böcker

As transfer points between different economic and cultural zones, cities are crucial to shaping processes of cultural exchange. Urban culture embraces cultural traits borrowed or imported from afar and those of local neighbourhoods, professions and social groups, yet it also offers possibilities for the survival of minority identities. This volume compares the characteristics and patterns of change in the spaces, sites and building, which expressed and shaped inter-cultural relationships within the cities of early modern Europe, especially in their ethnic, religious and international dimensions. A central theme is the role of foreigners and the spaces and buildings associated with them from ghettos, churches and hospitals to colleges, inns and markets. Individual studies include Greeks in Italian cities and London; the 'Cities of Jews' in Italy and the place of ghettos in the European imagination; and the contributions of foreign merchants to the growth of Amsterdam as a commercial metropolis.

The early modern period is often characterised as a time that witnessed the rise of a new and powerful merchant class across Europe. From Italy and Spain in the south, to the Low Countries and England in the north, men of business and trade came to play an increasingly pivotal role in the culture, politics and economies of western Europe. This book takes a comparative approach to the effect such merchants and traders had on the urban history of market places - streets, squares and civic buildings - in some of the great commercial European cities between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It looks at how this in period, the transformations of designated commercial areas were important enough to modify relationships throughout the entire urban context. Market places tend to be very ancient, continuing to function for centuries on the same location; but between the middle of the fourteenth and the first decades of the seventeenth, their structures began to change as new regulations and patterns of manufacture, distribution and consumption began to install a new uniformity and geometry on the market place. During the period covered by this study, most major European cities undertook the rebuilding of entire zones, constructing new buildings, demolishing existing structures and embellishing others. This book analyses the intentions of innovation, in parallel with sanitary and hygienic reasons, the juridical regulations of the architecture of certain building types and the urban strategies as efficient tools to better control the economic activities within the city.

As transfer points between different economic and cultural zones, cities are crucial to shaping processes of cultural exchange. Urban culture embraces cultural traits borrowed or imported from afar and those of local neighbourhoods, professions and social groups, yet it also offers possibilities for the survival of minority identities. This volume compares the characteristics and patterns of change in the spaces, sites and building, which expressed and shaped inter-cultural relationships within the cities of early modern Europe, especially in their ethnic, religious and international dimensions. A central theme is the role of foreigners and the spaces and buildings associated with them from ghettos, churches and hospitals to colleges, inns and markets. Individual studies include Greeks in Italian cities and London; the 'Cities of Jews' in Italy and the place of ghettos in the European imagination; and the contributions of foreign merchants to the growth of Amsterdam as a commercial metropolis.

The early modern period is often characterised as a time that witnessed the rise of a new and powerful merchant class across Europe. From Italy and Spain in the south, to the Low Countries and England in the north, men of business and trade came to play an increasingly pivotal role in the culture, politics and economies of western Europe. This book takes a comparative approach to the effect such merchants and traders had on the urban history of market places - streets, squares and civic buildings - in some of the great commercial European cities between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It looks at how this in period, the transformations of designated commercial areas were important enough to modify relationships throughout the entire urban context. Market places tend to be very ancient, continuing to function for centuries on the same location; but between the middle of the fourteenth and the first decades of the seventeenth, their structures began to change as new regulations and patterns of manufacture, distribution and consumption began to install a new uniformity and geometry on the market place. During the period covered by this study, most major European cities undertook the rebuilding of entire zones, constructing new buildings, demolishing existing structures and embellishing others. This book analyses the intentions of innovation, in parallel with sanitary and hygienic reasons, the juridical regulations of the architecture of certain building types and the urban strategies as efficient tools to better control the economic activities within the city.

The history of the Venice Ghetto, how it developed, its architecture, the concrete life of its inhabitants and their relations with the whole city form the subject of this book. A reconstruction of the Ghetto in its various historical phases makes it possible to see exactly how the quarter grew. Along with that are closely analysed the Jewish religion s customs and rites, the outstanding importance of Venetian Jewish printing the first in Europe, the cultural, artistic and artisanal, linguistic, familiar and economic contexts. In short, the story of a complete and enthralling microcosm that grew and prospered for over four centuries within the Serenissima Republic.