Humans, Animals, and Artisanal Activities in Late Medieval Bologna

Taylor Zaneri, International Institute of Social History
Rosa Smurra, University of Bologna

This paper investigates the relationship between humans and animals in late 13th and early 14th century Bologna, by mapping and correlating late medieval sources using GIS. Our analysis will focus on artisanal activities involving animals and animal products, as seen in several sources including the 1296 Estimi and the registers of the Ufficio del fango from the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The Estimi are tax records and contain over 10,000 documents; they provide information about the head of each household, including the parish in which they resided as well as information about their occupation and financial holdings. The Ufficio del fango was the office responsible for enforcing the city’s health statutes, and their registers recorded health and safety violations documented by officials. These offenses were localized by church parish and include information about the offenders, including their profession, as well as short summaries of the problem – not surprisingly offenses involving animals and animal products are very common. By integrating multiple sources, we will look at the spatial patterning of animals and activities involving animal products across the city, and how this informs our understandings of human-animal interactions in late medieval Bologna.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 123. Urban Historical GIS: Public Health