Describing and ‘Mapping the Town’ using Iconographic and Literary Sources. Cities in the Late Middle Ages in Italy

During the last decades, representations of medieval and early modern urban space have witnessed an increasing popularity as objects of study within the historical disciplines. Scholars with different backgrounds investigate urban landscapes in various forms and using a wide range of media. In general, such ‘portraits of the city’ cover different types of visual and written documents. The twelve essays gathered in this book all cover specific types of such portraits, ranging from historiographical texts and archival record, over drawings, prints and paintings to maps and real urban architectural settings. Moreover, the interdisciplinary scope results in an ample compilation of various innovative methodologies, currently applied in the fields of study and disciplines addressed in the book. ‘Portraits of the City’ provides a representative overview of the current state of knowledge and is in this way a relevant contribution to the international debate on representations of the city.In her paper 'Describing and ‘Mapping the Town’ using Iconographic and Literary Sources. Cities in the Late Middle Ages in Italy', the architectural historian Silvia Beltramo examines the different social and architectural elements that constitute the urban space. She does so by using a variety of sources, relying in particular on iconographic and historical documents (legal documents, tax records, registers and statutory decrees), as well as physical witnesses (architecture and archaeology) and literary records including contemporary chronicles or short stories, such as the writings of Boccaccio and Sacchetti. Beltramo’s article shows the advantage of combining literary, documentary and material sources to reconstruct perceived and lived urban space.