Author: Valentina Costantini
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This New Year’s post begins with a homicide. In March 1389, early in the morning, the notary Giovanni Gini and the second-hand dealer (rigattiere) Romolo Bartolini were sent by the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria Nuova to the house of Gemina, located opposite the residence of the noble Agnoli family. Gemina was the third wife and…
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Expats have loosen roots and look for peers to reconstruct a sense of community and navigate everyday life together. Here is Augustinus’ story… from 1450s. Augustinus de Lovana was a 15th c. baker from today’s Flemish Brabant, in Flanders. This area has long been a crossroads of cultures, languages, and travellers. In the Middle Ages, artisans, merchants, and workers frequently…
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Medieval wills are precious mines of information for historians, art historians, scholars of fashion and material culture, but also for sociologists, anthropologists, economists.Behind the dryness of notarial formulas lie glimpses of real life—human relationships, emotions, hopes for life after death, and for the lives of those who would remain on Earth. Journeys and ventures of various…
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Waste and reuse are key topics in modern consumer society, but in the Middle Ages, there was no discussion around them. Considering the high cost of producing new objects, everything had to be reused, recycled, or transformed down to the very last bit. Parchments were made from animal skins (sheep, goat, or calf) and were…
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Dr Matko Marušić holds a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Zagreb (2019). His work centres on late medieval and early modern art and devotional culture across the wider Adriatic region, with an emphasis on the analysis of archival sources on the lost works of art. He is also interested in the intersections between traditional approaches…