Cultures and Practices of Coexistence from the Thirteenth Through the Seventeenth Centuries

This book focuses on the ethnically composite, heterogeneous, mixed nature of the Mediterranean cities and their cultural heritage between the late middle ages and early modern times. How did it affect the cohabitation among different people and cultures on the urban scene? How did it mold the shape and image of cities that were crossroads of encounters, but also the arena of conflict and exclusion? The 13 case studies collected in this volume address these issues by exploring the traces left by centuries of interethnic porosity on the tangible and intangible heritage of cities such as Acre and Cyprus, Genoa and Venice, Rome and Istanbul, Cordoba and Tarragona.

Marco Folin is Professor of History of Architecture at the University of Genoa. Antonio Musarra is Researcher in Medieval History at Sapienza University of Rome.

Mediterranean Cities as Cultural Crossroads: An Introduction Part 1: The Medieval City as a Cultural Crossroad 1. "A Dragon with Nine Heads": The Changing Reputation of Crusader Acre, c. 1191-c. 1291 2. Jews in Famagusta: Spatial and Visual Seclusion Under Italian Rule in the Levant 3. Economic Migrants or Commuters?: A Note on the Crews of Genoese Galleys in the Medieval Mediterranean, 14th-15th Centuries 4. The Cultural Transformation of Genoese Galata from the Byzantine to the Ottoman Rule and its Reflection on the Church of San Domenico Part 2: The Multi-Ethnic Dimension of Early Modern "Metropolises" 5. Integrating the Foreigner: The Strategy of Inclusion in Renaissance Venice 6. Polytopos in Early Modern Venetian Imagery 7. Neighbourhoods' Surveillance of Margins: Negotiating Limits of Social Exclusion in Early Modern Istanbul (1530s-1590s) 8. Urban Ethnic Encounters: A Glimpse on the Different Ethnic Communities Living in an Istanbul Neighbourhood, the Mahalle-i Mâ'mûre, in the Late 16th Century Part 3: Mediators, Translators, Interpreters 9. The Hero of Two Worlds: Politics, Archeology and Passion for the Antique in the "Cultural Mediation" of Cyriac of Ancona between East and West, with a Note on the Birth of Venus by Botticelli 10. Spanish Rome and Roman Spain: Reconstructing the Past of Rome and Cordova in Early Modern Rome 11. The Career of Alfonso Ulloa (1529-1570) in Early Modern Venice: A Cosmopolitan Outlook of the 16th-Century Book Trade 12. Migration and the Continuity of a City: Lluis Pons d'Icart's Libro de las grandezas de Tarragona (1572) 13. Genoa in the Travel Diaries of Jehan Lhermite (1587) and Cesare Magalotti (1625): A City from "Paradise on Earth" to "Fury of Mars"