Descrivere una città: Early Modern Guidebooks in Naples

Workshop

Date: May 28, 2018
Time: 09:15 AM (Local Time Germany)
Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
Host: Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte
Contact: paulinyi@biblhertz.it

Descrivere una città: Early Modern Guidebooks in Naples

In name, a guidebook assures the reader of clarification and direction, but the term only seems to neatly define what to expect from these volumes. Instead, the claim to make sense of the unknown is complicated by shifting narrative strategies, choices of language, and the inclusion of illustrations. Recent interest in issues of orientation and subjectivity has shed new light on guidebooks; in addition, a profusion of new printed and digital editions of these works have reinvigorated a discussion of guidebooks as a form of knowledge produced at the intersection of description and dispersal.

This workshop investigates the genre's development in Naples and its resonance in a wider Italian context. While similar interest in the description of major cities grew across Europe, the richness of Neapolitan production and shared concerns around the antique, artistic, and natural landscapes make it a promising point of departure. Examining these guides as negotiations of the city's extraordinary and ordinary dimensions will open up the potentials and limitations of a tool intended to traverse time and space.

Organized by Clare Kobasa and Tanja Michalsky

PROGRAMME
Monday, May 28
9:15
Tanja Michalsky (Rome)
Welcome

Clare Kobasa (Rome)
Introduction

I. Chair: Elisabetta Scirocco (Rome)

9:45 Chiara De Caprio (Naples)
Immagini di città, immagini di lingue

10:30 Harald Hendrix (Rome)
L'invenzione di un nuovo prodotto editoriale: le prime guide illustrate dedicate a Napoli e al suo distretto

11:15 Coffee Break

II. Chair: Joris van Gastel (Rome)

11:45 Lorenza Gianfrancesco (Chichester)
Guidebooks in early seventeenth-century Naples: patronage, propaganda and civic identity

12:30 Melissa Calaresu (Cambridge)
Making Naples: Illustrated guidebooks and the creation of a visual tradition

13:15 Lunch Break

III. Chair: Adrian Bremenkamp (Rome)

14:15 Niall Atkinson (Chicago)
Early Modern Florentines Abroad: Measuring, Counting, and Describing Foreign Cities

15:00 Francesco Caglioti (Naples)
Luoghi reali e 'luoghi comuni' nelle guide e nelle visite di Napoli: per un'elaborazione digitale

15:45 Break

16:15 Closing Discussion
Moderation: Stefano D'Ovidio (Naples)