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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Strange and Distant Land, February 17, 2006
This review is from: A Day in a Medieval City (Hardcover)
Scholar Chiara Frugoni has conveyed her expertise about the Middle Ages in a compelling and beautiful way in _A Day in a Medieval City_ (University of Chicago Press). Taking as a start articles written by her father and unpublished at his death in 1970 (used here as an introduction), Frugoni has focused on the important aspects of daily life chiefly in Italian cities of the time. Her book was originally in Italian, and is translated by William McCuaig, who also translated the extensive quotations from contemporary sources, most especially Boccaccio. Frugoni's text is well keyed not only to the translations, but vividly to the gorgeous color illustrations that show up almost one on every page. They are sometimes photographs of sculpture or architecture, but more often are paintings from churches and especially miniatures and illustrations from illuminated manuscripts. These last are wonderfully evocative of what average people spent their days doing.
There are many details here about shopping, bathing, clothes, education, and more. There is a great deal on the pervasive religiosity of the time. When we look at the age's moral pictures of Hell, we are liable to think them unreal, but for those for whom the pictures were new, they were documents not only of what was going to happen to sinners, but they were often not far from standard judicial punishments (public brandings, whippings, burnings, etc.). It was as if since God saw fit to arrange hellish tortures for the condemned, authorities thought He would be happy if they gave the process a kick start. In the medieval mind, the snares of Satan were always nearby physically. Devils were thought to live in the sky, about three miles up, where they could form hailstones or lightning. Demons who came closer perpetrated innumerable tricks. A big devil might come and snatch up a baby, substituting a little devil in its place. Such "changelings" were often sickly and failed to thrive, and suspicions that they were changelings did little to improve their health. They could be subject to tortuous tests to determine their actual nature, or even abandoned and left to die. Saints were summoned for every crisis, a particular saint being especially efficacious for the prayers in his department. St. Christopher was held to be especially powerful in keeping one safe from sudden death, and talismans were kept handy to ensure he was available for this service. In frescos, he is a large figure, for the same reason, and even looms as a colossal giant over small walled cities in some of them. If you could see him, you were guaranteed protection from that direst of fates, the sudden death that would usher you straight into Hell before you could perform the repentance, confession, and penance that would have kept you out. Other saints are depicted here as superheroes, swooping down to rescue falling workmen or babies. There are plenty of other miracles depicted here, including an old, paralyzed donkey that was being dragged to a place where it could be put down, only to be refreshed when it passed the church door. It thereupon entered the church and knelt in thanks before the Madonna and Child statue. It is clear that the times were theologically bustling.
There are so many wonderful details here. Italian cradles of the time rocked longitudinally, rather than laterally as we are used to. Iron was so valuable that horseshoes could be used as a showy decoration, and are shown fastened to a church door. Doctors practiced exactly two procedures for their examinations, taking the pulse and viewing the urine against the light; for the latter, they used a special elongated container which always denotes a medical man in the illustrations here. Kitchens were placed at the top of houses, even though that meant the foodstuffs, water, and wood had to be carried all the way up; if there were a fire, it might be restricted to the kitchen without burning further upwards. There was an ambivalent feeling about gambling; it wasn't condemned in the Bible, but people enjoyed it, which was enough to make it suspect. Gaming houses were valued by authorities, however, because they brought in money for the city treasury. This last reminds us that not much has changed, but Frugoni's handsome book is more usually a passport to a very strange land.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but feels incomplete (3.5 stars), December 27, 2005
This review is from: A Day in a Medieval City (Hardcover)
This book explores the medieval world in Europe especially Italy not through wars, alliances and religious controversies but through everyday life for city dwellers. It traces back customs, aspects of life and institutions in medieval city life and how things were. The book focuses on the countryside surrounding a city, supplies, planning, zones, the workday, crafts, the indoors, children etc. In all this it traces an arc through a typical day. It's also beautifully illustrated with heaps of source material which is discussed in the text.
However it's not of a good length. It feels like an overblown essay which is what it actually is (having been written as a paper first). Medieval history buffs would probably find it a little thin then because it's not a full-length treatment. It's probably better for those not very familiar with the subject, but even then it is filled with so much extraneous material (especially the Decameron) that one might as well read Boccacio.
The book is valuable for collecting countless anecdotes and visual sources, so if you like that it is great. But it could have been much more than an extended paper.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Touching tribute and command of the sources, November 23, 2008
This review is from: A Day in a Medieval City (Hardcover)
`A Day in a Medieval City` was first published in Italian in 1997 under a different title and translated into English in 2005. It is a touching tribute by a daughter to her father Arsenio Frugoni, an Italian Medieval scholar who died in a car accident in his early 50s. Before he died he wrote a short lively essay describing a typical day in an Italian medieval city between the 11th and 15th centuries. This forms the Introduction of the book. Chiara picks up from there relying mostly on pictures from the period to describe life in an Italian city - the big events such as birth, marriage, death - but also the mundane such as bathing, eating, reading, sleeping, etc..which in some ways are the most fascinating aspects since they are so familiar to us. The writing is a little encyclopedic but never boring, even though its a short book (177 pages of main text) it it not a fast read. The interpretation of medieval paintings is always fascinating since they are so loaded with iconography and the way stories flow through them, it's a visual story and this book provides the key to understanding some well known Gothic paintings. Only once did I see a mistake, regarding a rag held on a book to protect it from greasy fingers (pg.150) - this is actually something called a "Girdle book" (Wikipedia has more). There are pictures on almost every page. For this type of book, it is very good quality and has long often rewarding footnotes. I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about Medieval history at the ground level.
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