Medieval Naples: A Documentary History, 400-1400 (A Documentary History of Naples) - Softcover

This is the first comprehensive English-language collection of sources yet to treat the city of Naples from late antiquity to the beginning of the Renaissance. Sources are drawn from its historical, economic, literary, artistic, religious and cultural life from the fall of Rome through the Byzantine, ducal, Norman, Hohenstaufen and Angevin periods. The Introduction offers a comprehensive survey of the periods covered, with a discussion of the historiography and of important research and interpretive issues. These include the material development of the city from late antiquity through the end of the Angevin period, the condition and use of the available primary sources and archaeological evidence, with particular attention given to the wide variety of recent excavations and of archival materials, the question of the ruralization and recovery of its urban core through the little known ducal period, Naples' importance as a commercial and political capital, its developing economic and material base, and the issue of its relationship to its hinterland on the one hand and to broader Mediterranean contexts on the other. It also surveys changes in Naples' urban plan, its walls, fortifications and port and its commercial and residential development. For the later Middle Ages, Musto traces Naples' intellectual life and the complex historiography of what he terms the "black legend of the Angevins" and its continued impact on perceptions of Naples and the Italian South. Documents include chronicles and histories; archival materials, accounts, financial and commercial records, contracts, wills, notarial and legislative documents; poetry, romances, biographies, letters, travelers' accounts and legends; liturgical and hagiographical texts; as well as examples of manuscript production and illustration, painting and architecture. 460 pages. Preface, introduction, notes and bibliography; appendices, including the Tavola Strozzi with key, Map of Medieval Naples with thumbnail key; index. 82 readings, 74 b&w figures, plus 60 thumbnail images. Links to online resources from A Documentary History of Naples, including image galleries with over 460 additional images in full color; and to full bibliographies with ongoing supplements.

Ronald G. Musto holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and specializes in the Italian trecento. He has served as an adjunct professor at Columbia, NYU and Duke universities. He has held New York State Teaching, American Academy in Rome, NEH and Mellon Foundation fellowships and is the winner of the Marraro Prize of the American Historical Association (2004) and of the Catholic Book Award (1986). Among his publications are "Queen Sancia of Naples (1286–1345) and the Spiritual Franciscans" (1985); ed., with John Monfasani, "Renaissance Society and Culture" (1991); ed., with Eileen Gardiner and Caroline A. Bruzelius, Enrico Bacco, C. d’Engenio Caracciolo, "Naples: An Early Guide" (1991); "Franciscan Joachimism at the Court of Naples, 1309–1345: A New Appraisal" (1997); and "Apocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age" (2004). He is the series editor of A Documentary History of Naples. He served from 1999 to 2011 as co-director of ACLS Humanities E-Book and is currently Co-Executive Director and Editor of Speculum at the Medieval Academy of America.