Bologna 2019
AISU, IX Congress
Bologna, 11-14 September 2019
Macrosession 1: Mobility and Interculturality. The city facing new relational systems
Session A.1: The medieval city, the city of the friars: places and spaces for intercultural exchange
Coordinators: Catarina Almeida Marado (Social Studies Center (CES),University of Coimbra – Portugal), Silvia Beltramo (Politecnico di Torino, DIST), Emanuela Garofalo (Università degli studi di Palermo), Gianmario Guidarelli (Università degli studi di Padova).
In the European city of the thirteenth century, the arrival of the communities of the Mendicant Orders involves a revolution from a social and urban point of view. The development of the city, in fact, is profoundly influenced by the establishment of convents in the suburbs, where the new “borghi” develop. The “crown” of convents around the center of the city forms a “belt” of urban hub from which new neighborhoods develop, but also a place for the exchange of ideas and people. The convent, in fact, is an important place of passage in the medieval city: on the contrary that the monk, the friar does not have the bond of “stabilitas” and moves from one city to another, importing ideas, styles of preaching, social issues. Moreover, the convent is an open space that functions as a place of study, but also as a place of welcome for the masses of the poor who come from their companions and for the pilgrims who use it as a stop on their journey. The session (born from the project “Medieval city, the city of the friars”, funded by the 2018 AISU Networking Call for Proposal and the project Medieval Heritage Platform, Politecnico di Torino DIST) proposes to explore all these aspects of the role of convents in the medieval city, considered as a place of interchange between cultures - even artistic- and people, in a multidisciplinary and international perspective. They are invited to present proposals of different historical disciplines (religious, economic, social, artistic and architectural history) aimed at investigating the theme proposed in the session.