Contents
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Journey into the Noisy Renaissance
Chapter 1: The Acoustic Art of City-Building
Chapter 2: Florentine Soundscapes
Chapter 3: Sound, Space, and Meaning in Renaissance Florence
Chapter 4: Suoni, Voci, Rumori: Listening to the City
Chapter 5: Sonic Discord, Urban Disorder
Epilogue: Ephemerality, Durability, and Architectural History
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Niall Atkinson is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago.
“Finely written, closely argued, and well documented by textual and
visual sources, full of fresh ideas, wonderful formulations, and
turns of phrase. It truly deserves the descriptive ‘lavishly
illustrated,’ with high-quality grayscale and color images of
cityscapes and monuments, painting, prints, maps, diagrams, and
digital enhancements.”—Ronald G. Musto Renaissance Quarterly
“Atkinson’s study expands our understanding of what it was like to
be alive in Renaissance Florence; with each such enrichment we can
feel more confident about our perception of the roles that art,
architecture, urban planning, and material culture played in the
lives of citizens. . . . While the emphasis on material culture
encouraged me to study objects that lie beyond the elitist
limitations of ‘great art,’ Atkinson’s work goes beyond the
material realm, bringing into our consciousness the noises that
flowed through the windows of artisans’ workshops.”—David G.
Wilkins caa.reviews
“This is a provocative book in the best sense of the word. It
provokes readers to rethink Renaissance urban culture and the role
architecture has to play in creating urban experiences. Most
importantly, by combining insights and methods from architectural
history, cultural history and sound studies The Noisy Renaissance
eloquently cuts through traditional disciplinary boundaries and
thus vigorously defies what Aby M. Warburg once scolded as the
‘restrictions of border police’ in the humanities.”—Jan-Friedrich
Missfelder Renaissance Studies
“In this compelling study of the lost soundscape of early
Florence—a dynamic field of aural signals and celebrations rung
from its many church and civic bells—Niall Atkinson combines
wide-ranging research, deft analysis, and imaginative writing.
Anything but noise on a highly original and important
subject.”—Marvin Trachtenberg, author of Building-in-Time: From
Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion
“Basing his work on contemporary diaries and legislative records,
Atkinson changes the way that we think about architecture as space,
movement, and social structure by listening astutely to the
language of the bells of Florence, as well as the telling messages
of their silences. His ‘acoustic topography’ of Renaissance
Florence—with comparable examples from other city-states—gives new
meaning to the organizational structures of Renaissance cities and
the powerful social and political control that regulated sound
exerted on human populations.”—John Paoletti, author of
Michelangelo’s “David”: Florentine History and Civic Identity
“Atkinson’s bold reimagining brings us directly into the lives of
Renaissance Florentines through their shouts and whispers, their
ringing bells and riotous rebellions, their stories, prayers, and
songs. This innovative use of sound to understand how Florentines
constructed and occupied space gives acute insight into the messy
and conflicted dynamics of a city usually approached through texts
and images. This is a new and deeper Florence, infinitely richer
for mapping the sensory lives and horizons of its people.
Soundscapes were not just a consequence of daily life—they built
and organized it, and at times even overturned it.”—Nicholas
Terpstra, author of Religious Refugees in the Early Modern
World
“A brilliant exploration of the dialogue between buildings and
bodies. Exploiting the power of new digital tools to visualize the
Florentine soundscape, Atkinson shows how sound—from the acoustic
regime of bell ringing to the cacophony of the street—brought the
Renaissance city into being. In this original and imaginative book,
the stones of Florence not only come alive but are made to
speak.”—Sharon Strocchia, author of Nuns and Nunneries in
Renaissance Florence
“Renaissance Florence is a place and time that has received massive
attention from scholars, although none appear to have asked, What
did the city sound like and how did noise shape the urban
environment? In this highly original book, Niall Atkinson builds a
compelling and beautifully written argument that puts sound firmly
back into the urban sensorium and recovers not only the instances
and ways in which the city and its life were marked by sound but
also the social interactions that were crucially mediated through
the soundscape.”—Fabrizio Nevola, author of Siena: Constructing the
Renaissance City
“Gracefully written and superbly designed, this landmark study of
Florentine soundscapes reveals how listening and hearing influenced
everything from life on the street to the ways that citizens
understood and experienced the passing of time itself. Niall
Atkinson does not simply move the history of Renaissance Florence
onto new ground with The Noisy Renaissance—he reorients our
thinking about how lives were lived in all late medieval and early
modern European cities.”—Nicholas Eckstein, author of Painted
Glories: The Brancacci Chapel in Renaissance Florence
“Written throughout in elegant and effective prose, Atkinson’s
monograph is the work of a truly original thinker and is certain to
hold great interest for scholars of Renaissance urban history,
architectural history, and the history of communication. Florence,
which has been the focus of so many important studies, emerges
afresh in these pages in all of its boisterous splendour.”—Rosa
Salzberg Annali Reviews Online
“Provides the reader with a refreshingly democratizing study of
Florentine sonic life. Seeking out forgotten, discordant and noisy
sounds and sensory experiences, The Noisy Renaissance draws our
attention to the complex interplay of sound, space and the body in
the streets and squares of early modern Florence. In doing so, it
heralds the emergence of ‘noise’ as a valuable new object of
historical enquiry in Renaissance studies.”—Emanuela Vai Art
History
“Atkinson is a brilliant, compelling writer. Most of all, he offers
a model for listening to lost historical worlds.”—Tracy Ehrlich
Design History
“Niall Atkinson’ s The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and
Florentine Urban Life is an inventive and insightful addition to
the recent bibliography on early modern urbanism.”—Janna Israel
Architectural History
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