ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |8 pages

Mediterranean Cities as Cultural Crossroads

An Introduction

part I|90 pages

The Medieval City as a Cultural Crossroad

chapter 1|30 pages

“A Dragon With Nine Heads”

The Changing Reputation of Crusader Acre, c. 1191–c. 1291

chapter 2|21 pages

Jews in Famagusta

Spatial and Visual Seclusion Under Italian Rule in the Levant

chapter 3|14 pages

Economic Migrants or Commuters?

A Note on the Crews of Genoese Galleys in the Medieval Mediterranean, 14th–15th Centuries

part II|63 pages

The Multi-Ethnic Dimension of Early Modern “Metropolises”

chapter 5|16 pages

Integrating the Foreigner

The Strategy of Inclusion in Renaissance Venice

chapter 7|12 pages

Neighbourhoods’ Surveillance of Margins

Negotiating Limits of Social Exclusion in Early Modern Istanbul (1530s–1590s)

chapter 8|19 pages

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 III|83 pages

Mediators, Translators, Interpreters

chapter 9|22 pages

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

chapter 10|18 pages

Spanish Rome and Roman Spain

Reconstructing the Past of Rome and Cordova in Early Modern Rome

chapter 11|10 pages

The Career of Alfonso Ulloa (1529–1570) in Early Modern Venice

A Cosmopolitan Outlook of the 16th-Century Book Trade

chapter 12|17 pages

Migration and the Continuity of a City

Lluis Pons d’Icart’s Libro de las grandezas de Tarragona (1572)

chapter 13|14 pages

Genoa in the Travel Diaries of Jehan Lhermite (1587) and Cesare Magalotti (1625)

A City From “Paradise on Earth” to “Fury of Mars”