New Approaches to Naples C.1500-C.1800: The Power of Place

ISBN-13: 9781409429432 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 286 str.

Melissa Calaresu;Helen Hills

Opis

Early modern Naples has been characterized as a marginal, wild and exotic place on the fringes of the European world, and as such an appropriate target of attempts, by Catholic missionaries and others, to 'civilize' the city. Historiographically bypassed in favour of Venice, Florence and Rome, Naples is frequently seen as emblematic of the cultural and political decline in the Italian peninsula and as epitomizing the problems of southern Italy. Yet, as this volume makes plain, such views blind us to some of its most extraordinary qualities, and limit our understanding, not only of one of the world's great capital cities, but also of the wider social, cultural and political dynamics of early modern Europe. As the centre of Spanish colonial power within Europe during the vicerealty, and with a population second only to Paris in early modern Europe, Naples is a city that deserves serious study. Further, as a Habsburg dominion, it offers vital points of comparison with non-European sites which were subject to European colonialism. While European colonization outside Europe has received intense scholarly attention, its cultural impact and representation within Europe remain under-explored. Too much has been taken for granted. Too few questions have been posed. In the sphere of the visual arts, investigation reveals that Neapolitan urbanism, architecture, painting and sculpture were of the highest quality during this period, while differing significantly from those of other Italian cities. For long ignored or treated as the subaltern sister of Rome, this urban treasure house is only now receiving the attention from scholars that it has so long deserved. This volume addresses the central paradoxes operating in early modern Italian scholarship. It seeks to illuminate both the historiographical pressures that have marginalized Naples and to showcase important new developments in Neapolitan cultural history and art history. Those developments showcased here include bot

Recenzje

'... succeeds in addressing a number of pertinent issues ... provides a significant contribution to the study of Naples’s cultural history, because of the insights it provides, but even more so because of the questions it raises.' Renaissance Quarterly 'It will be hard to find a more qualitative and broad-ranging set of new studies on Naples, in which the contributors not only display a lucid understanding of the existing scholarly lacunae in the field, but also make a serious attempt to fill those by offering original, interdisciplinary and balanced accounts. The book will be of obvious interest to scholars of Naples, the Italian peninsula, early modern Europe and the Spanish Empire, but it will also be of relevance to anyone wishing to keep abreast of cutting-edge research in urban, cultural and art history.' Urban History 'This excellent book benefits from a high production value, including seven color plates, and that is likely to contribute to its deserved success.' Sixteenth Century Journal

Spis treści

Introduction Between Exoticism and Marginalization: New Approaches to Naples, Melissa Calaresu, Helen Hills; Part I Disaster and Decline; Chapter 1 Myths of Modernity and the Myth of the City: When the Historiography of Pre-modern Italy goes South, John A. Marino; Chapter 2 Through a Glass Darkly: Material Holiness and the Treasury Chapel of San Gennaro in Naples, Helen Hills; Chapter 3 Contaminating Bodies: Print and the 1656 Plague in Naples, Rose Marie, San Juan; Part II Topographies; Chapter 4 Topographies of Poetry: Mapping Early Modern Naples, Harald Hendrix; Chapter 5 The Collection and Dissemination of Neapolitan Music, c.1600–c.1790, Dinko Fabris; Chapter 6 Landed Identity and the Bourbon Neapolitan State: Claude-Joseph Vernet and the Politics of the ‘Siti reali’, Helena Hammond; Part III Exceptionality; Chapter 7 The Architecture of Knowledge: Science, Collecting and Display in Eighteenth-Century Naples, Paola Bertucci; Chapter 8 Collecting Neapolitans: The Representation of Street Life in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples, Melissa Calaresu; Chapter 9 ‘Missed Opportunities’ in the History of Naples, Anna Maria Rao;

O autorze

Melissa Calaresu is Lecturer in History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, UK. Helen Hills is Professor of the History of Art at the University of York, UK.