Caroline Bruzelius, Naples Art History, Is Published

We’re very pleased to announce the newest addition to our Naples: A Documentary History, 400–1400. Caroline Bruzelius’ Art History: Naples in the High and Late Middle Ages is the first comprehensive review of the city’s architecture, art and urban development in the high and late Middle Ages in English since the author’s The Stones of Naples.

Clearly and concisely written, it is an ideal introductory survey for the scholar, student and general reader. This downloadable, interactive e-book is fully searchable and can be navigated with the standard Adobe Acrobat interface: page by page, through an interactive table of contents or via bookmarks. It offers dozens of illustrations — maps, plans, elevations, drawings, color and black & white photos — that can be viewed at any number of screen resolutions. The work provides hyperlinks to web-based photo galleries of all the major monuments, to many documents cited in the text, and a complete — and free — downloadable Bibliography.

Napoli: Atlante della Città Storica

One of the best finds in our research trips to Naples has been Italo Ferraro’s six-volume Napoli: Atlante della Città Storica (Naples: Clean, Oikos, 2002-).

Each of these hefty volumes takes on a different section of the city, moving rione by rione through the architecture and arts, urban fabric and history of the city with gorgeous color and black and white images, maps and street plans, elevations and axonometric projections of city blocks and individual buildings and complexes. The format is large, the design and layout elegant, and the information authoritative and up-to-date. Ferraro and his colleagues offer a wealth of detail, bibliographical citation and fine indexes.

We came across a copy of the first volume several years ago at the Port’Alba book stalls. It was a real steal and we lugged it home in our baggage. Subsequent volumes have been a bit more pricey (140-180 Euros), but well worth the investment.

Next time you're at Port’Alba look for some bargain copies (and if there are extras, do let us know!)

Een passie voor Napels

We’re constantly on the lookout for digital resources to incorporate into, or link out to, our Medieval Naples pages. Recently we came across some wonderful photos of medieval and modern Naples on the site Een passie voor Napels (A Passion for Naples: A Cultural Travel Guide) curated by Henk Woudsma. The site uses a blog format, with a fine index of sites, to offer a detailed look at the city's major monuments, its urban fabric, street life and high culture. The site is written in Dutch and uses Google Translate for an English version.

With Henk’s kind permission we’ll be featuring some of his photos and other resources in our Interactive Map of Medieval Naples and web galleries, linking out to his originals.

We recommend the site to all and invite you to suggest other resources.

(Photo: © Henk Woudsma)

With the end of the summer we return to our work on Naples. This autumn we’ll be adding more texts, images and hyperlinks to resources for our pages of readings.

In the meanwhile, we wanted to let you know that our open-access resources for medieval Naples are proving quite popular with readers. The free and downloadable Bibliography has already received over 10,000 downloads, while our Interactive Map of Medieval Naples has to date received over 9,700 views. We’ll keep editing and expanding both resources in the months ahead.

We’re also happy to inform our readers that Caroline Bruzelius’s chapter on Art and Architecture in High and Late Medieval Naples is in its final stages of editing and will be available to readers soon this fall.

The Hohenstaufen

We’ve begun posting texts for Chapter 5, the Hohenstaufen period, beginning with the reign of Frederick II. These include selections from Villani, the Licterae Generales establishing the University of Naples, and some trade insurance documents concerning trade at the port of Naples.

We'll be expanding this chapter soon with additional texts.

Naples on Google Books

We've recently experienced some of the benefits and pitfalls of using Google Books as a resource for the study of the Neapolitan past. We report on this experience in the June 12, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, available today online in an article entitled "Google Books Mutilates the Printed Past"

and accessible free for the next week.

Mutilation — of kingdoms and of scholarship — emerges as a key theme.

Psalter of Cristoforo Orimina

The liturgical psalter illuminated by Cristoforo Orimina is online with E-Codices, Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland.  The manuscript is Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Comites Latentes 15. Shown here is fol. 29r. Orimina was a court painter during the reigns of Robert of Anjou and Giovanna I and probably completed this manuscript some time between 1335 and 1350 for the house of Agnes de Périgord  (1305–1345), the widow of Robert’s youngest brother, John of Gravina, duke of Durazzo. The arms at the center bottom show those of Talleyrand-Périgord and of Armagnac. The manuscript shows the clear influence of Roberto di Oderisio, responsible for the frescoes in Sta. Maria Incoronata. According to some scholarship it reflects the influence of Franciscan ascetics at the Angevin court. Perhaps, but the manuscript is also replete with delightful marginal images of people at sport and play, making music, dancing, showing off the latest fashions, and in general demonstrating the love of life for which Naples and its court were well known in the mid-fourteenth century.

Baths of Pozzuoli now online

Petrus de Eboli’s De balneis Puteolanis (The Baths of Pozzuoli)  is now online in E-Codices, Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. The manuscript, Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 135, is believed to have been created in Naples during the reign of Giovanna I, some time between 1350 and 1370. It appears to show first-hand knowledge of the Bay of Naples’ and Bay of Pozzuoli’s archaeological remains of Roman baths.

First composed by Petrus, court poet to Henry VI of Sicily, between 1196 and 1220, it is one of the most important sources for medieval Naples’ topography and for the history of science and medicine in medieval Europe.

To access the collection, please see our entry on Petrarch’s visit to the baths in October 1343 and click on the thumbnail.

New Readings on Sex, Style and Spending

We’ve added three new readings to our chapter on Robert of Anjou that sample his legislation on prostitution in central Naples (1314), record his spending on cavalcades and church support (June 1334), and translate his sumptuary edict on youth fashion (1335).

We review Paola Vitolo in RQ

There’s a fine new book on Sta. Maria Incoronata that we've recently reviewed in the Spring 2009 issue of Renaissance Quarterly. It’s Paola Vitolo, La chiesa della Regina: L’Incoronata di Napoli, Giovanna I d’Angiò e Roberto di Oderisio (Rome: Viella, 2008). Readers can access the online review hosted by the University of Chicago Press. We hope in the future that Chicago will keep up the high standards established by RQ.

Bibliography and Interactive Map

We’re happy to report that two of our new Medieval Naples pages are being used quite a bit by readers. Our Bibliography has now received almost 1,500 downloads. It is searchable and currently contains nearly 600 items of value to researchers in all periods of medieval Naples. It can be downloaded free of charge.

Our Interactive Map of Medieval Naples has now received nearly 3,900 views. This map uses the online tools available in Google Map. Clicking on the zoom-in or zoom-out buttons on the upper left will magnify views down to the street level. Users can also view this map in “Map” (or street) mode, Satellite (aerial photograph), or Terrain (topographical) views. It uses standard cartographical symbols for abbeys, churches, secular buildings, walls (early medieval and Angevin), gates, and fortifications.

Clicking on any of these symbols will open a window with descriptive texts, images, bibliography and hyperlinks to other texts, sites, and web-image galleries produced by Italica Press.

Clicking “View Larger Map” below will open this map in Google Map and provide a complete index of sites. There you can also open the map in Google Earth (a free, downloadable program) and see the medieval city set against a navigable three-dimensional landscape.

Both the Bibliography and Map are works in progress. We welcome your suggestions for additions and changes.

Site & Server Changes, New Pages

We've just made some changes to our server for Medieval Naples that will make it easier to search and find pages. If you've bookmarked the Table of Contents for Angevin Naples, please change your bookmark to this URL: http://www.italicapress.com/index300.html . We've also placed direct links to documents from the Tables of Contents and added many new documents for the reigns of Robert of Anjou, Giovanna I and our first for Charles III.

Thanks,

We've begun Chapter 6: The Angevins

After many years of delay and false starts we have arrived upon what we think is an ideal solution to our launching the publication of A Documentary History of Naples: Medieval Naples, 400–1400. Rather than wait until we have sifted through hundreds of primary sources, made our limited selections, translated, edited and prepared them for print, we’ve decided to use the potential of online publishing to forge ahead.
In the weeks and months ahead you’ll therefore begin to see many full-text selections on Neapolitan history in English translation appear on these pages. We’re beginning with two areas: the history of the Angevin period and Neapolitan literature and book production. The texts we’ve assembled represent only a small fraction of what we’ll be publishing, but as far as we know they already offer more English-language texts on medieval Naples than can be found published anywhere else.
As we continue to add content, change readings or texts, we’ll be posting entries on this blog. Subscribing to the RSS feed provided here will also give you immediate notification of these changes. The blog format of these pages will also give you a voice in the process: suggesting texts, additions and emendations, editorial and other changes to the texts we’ve already posted. We look forward to this process, and to hearing from you.