Italian cities are renowned for their bustling marketplaces full of bars, covered market-stalls and beautiful art in the form of water-fountains. New book tells the story of the spatial, architectural and artistic elements of the medieval marketplace

Markets and Marketplaces in Medieval Italy, c. 1100 to c. 1440
by Dennis Romano
Yale University Press 2015
ISBN-10: 0300169078
ISBN-13: 978-0300169072

Cathedrals and civic palaces stand to this day as symbols of the dynamism and creativity of the city-states that flourished in Italy during the Middle Ages. Markets and Marketplaces in Medieval Italy argues that the bustling yet impermanent sites of markets played an equally significant role, not only in the economic life of the Italian communes, but in their political, social, and cultural life as well. Drawing on a range of evidence from cities and towns across northern and central Italy, Dennis Romano explores the significance of the marketplace as the symbolic embodiment of the common good; its regulation and organization; the ethics of economic exchange; and how governments and guilds sought to promote market values. With a special focus on the spatial, architectural, and artistic elements of the marketplace, Romano adds new dimensions to our understanding of the evolution of the market economy and the origins of commercial capitalism and Renaissance individualism.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dennis Romano is the Dr. Walter G. Montgomery and Marian Gruber Professor of History and a professor in the Department of Art and Music Histories at Syracuse University.

FEATURED PHOTO:

Piazza del Campo Siena. Source: Wikipedia