So much is the Italian word piazza a commonplace of how we understand public space that we use the word in English - especially when describing a form of urban space that is rich in public amenities and used for leisure activities. Fabrizio offers a wide-ranging discussion based on his recent book Street Life in Renaissance Italy (Yale University Press, 2020) to talk about how the often grand set-pieces of Renaissance urban design came to life during that period through grand ceremonials but also everyday use. We will see how the piazza was a place of entertainment, trade, surveillance, devotion, but also a beautiful frame for the transaction of day-to-day life. A brief detour into some of Fabrizio’s ongoing digital projects will also illuminate how we can recover some of these meanings as we move around the city today.

Prof. Fabrizio Nevola is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter. He specializes on the urban and architectural history of Early Modern cities, with a particular focus on public space and the Italian peninsula. Recent work has involved significant elements of digital humanities approaches, also applied to public engagement: try out the Apps, Hidden Florence and Hidden Florence 3D (App Store and Google Play). He is the author of the prize-winning Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City (Yale University Press, 2007) and Street Life in Renaissance Italy (Yale University Press, 2020).