Thursday, Sep 19, 2024 , 4:00-5:30 pm
Victoria University Common Room, 91 Charles Street West
It is often said that to see the world from another person’s perspective, we must walk a mile in their shoes. To understanding a community’s cultural norms and responses, we must amplify that short stroll to capture the entire community, both its people, their spaces, and interactions. Historical geographic information systems are useful for investigating social geography of early modern cities. This presentation will explore how the DECIMA Project (PI Terpstra and Rose) can support investigating marginality, work, and gendered experiences. Combining the DECIMA Project’s residential and commercial census records with other documents/datasets – like town crier announcements, baptismal lists, and sex worker records – reveals more about neighbourhood communication and interaction in mid-sixteenth-century Florence.
Image: Sebastiano Serlio, “Della Scena Comica [Comic Scene] (from Serlio, On Architecture),” Tutte le opere di architettura, Book II (Venice, Francesco de’ Franceschi Senese, c.1584)
Jennifer DeSilva earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto and specializes in cultural and social history. Prior to returning to Toronto, she taught at Ball State University (Muncie, IN, USA) and Eastern Connecticut State University (Willimantic, CT, USA) from 2007 to 2023.She has edited several collections of essays on issues of space and religious reform, on the Borgia family, and on the papal possesso (with Pascale Rihouet).
Jennifer DeSilva also co-edits the Sixteenth Century Journal. She has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters related to identity, reform, festive studies, vice activity, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is also the author of The Office of Ceremonies and Advancement in Curial Rome, 1466-1528 (Brill, 2022).
