Dr. Niall Atkinson

In 1427 the fiscal crisis of the Florentine economy caused by its disastrous wars against the duchy of Milan prompted it to make a massive overhaul of is taxation policies. The resulting Florentine Census (Catasto) would become the first modern taxation policy in the Western world. Every household was required to file what we would understand as a tax return: an accounting of one’s assets and debts in order for the government to assess the net worth of each of its citizens. The result is a treasure trove of demographic information about the city at a specific moment in its history, precisely at the threshold of what we now understand as the Florentine Renaissance.

“Florence Illuminated” is a consortium of five separate digitally based projects focuses on reconstructing and mapping the city’s population in order to construct an online map that will allow anyone to investigate the wealth, poverty, and real estate holdings of the city’s individual and institutions. This talk will take the audience through this ongoing project that will produce a cartographic image of the city that has not ever seen before. It will also show how humanities-based research can harness the power of digital technologies to make historical data available to anyone interested in answering questions about one of the most dynamic urban communities of pre-modern Europe.