Roads to health : infrastructure and urban wellbeing in later medieval Italy / G. Geltner

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geltner, G., author.

Series:

Middle Ages series.

The Middle ages series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban health--Italy--History--To 1500--Case studies.

Urban health.

Public health--Italy--History--To 1500--Case studies.

Public health.

Public health laws--Italy--History--To 1500--Case studies.

Public health laws.

City dwellers--Health and hygiene--Italy--History--To 1500--Case studies.

City dwellers.

Lucca (Italy)--Social conditions--To 1500.

Lucca (Italy).

Bologna (Italy)--Social conditions--To 1500.

Bologna (Italy).

Pinerolo (Italy)--Social conditions--To 1500.

Pinerolo (Italy).

Genre:

Études de cas.

Case studies.

History

Case studies

Case Reports

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 320 pages).

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In 'Roads to Health', G. Geltner demonstrates that urban dwellers in medieval Italy had a keen sense of the dangers to their health posed by conditions of overcrowding, shortages of food and clean water, air pollution, and the improper disposal of human and animal waste. He consults scientific, narrative, and normative sources that detailed and consistently denounced the physical and environmental hazards urban communities faced: latrines improperly installed and sewers blocked; animals left to roam free and carcasses left rotting on public byways; and thoroughfares congested by artisanal and commercial activities that impeded circulation, polluted waterways, and raised miasmas. However, as Geltner shows, numerous administrative records also offer ample evidence of the concrete measures cities took to ameliorate unhealthy conditions. Toiling on the frontlines were public functionaries generally known as viarii, or "road-masters," appointed to maintain their community's infrastructures and police pertinent human and animal behavior. Operating on a parallel track were the camparii, or "field-masters," charged with protecting the city's hinterlands and thereby the quality of what would reach urban markets, taverns, ovens, and mills.

Contents:

Rome, 1306: A Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1. Roads to Health

Chapter 2. Lucca's Viarii

Chapter 3. Bologna's Fango Officials

Chapter 4. Piedmont's Camparii

Chapter 5. Healthscaping in Medieval Europe and the Premodern World

Conclusion

Appendix 1. Fines to Be Imposed by Lucca's Roads Masters

Appendix 2. Text and Translation of Vernacular Promulgations by Lucca's Roads Masters.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780812296310

0812296311

OCLC:

1134076580