Technical Information
Garbage and manure have always been considered something negative, a taboo, an uncomfortable subject, not to talk about. This does not mean, however, that they do not deserve the attention and curiosity of scholars, even because "man is an animal that produces waste" (Viale G., 1994, A disposable world, Milan), it is necessary to understand waste to understand man. Today the idea of the Middle Ages is strongly associated with negative characters, with technological and moral backwardness and, above all, with dirt. Obviously the concept of dirt and the perception of decoration are relative and the solutions proposed in the past to regulate the aspects linked to hygiene in cities could appear banal and certainly insufficient to the eyes of a contemporary observer. But is it really true that the Middle Ages were so "filthy" and above all that the problem was not felt? To answer these questions, this book attempts to investigate the relationship of the medieval citizen with hygiene and does so through the analysis of strategies for waste disposal implemented in geographically different urban contexts (turning its attention to 'Emilia Romagna), chronologically (it goes from the XNUMXth century, the moment of the appearance in the city statutes of precise rules concerning the problem addressed, to the XNUMXth century) and socially. Not only garbage, therefore, not only discarded objects, but "dumps", landfills, latrines, sewers considered no longer just containers, but independent subjects of research, parts of processes and complex disposal strategies that allow shedding light on various aspects related to the daily life of the men of the past. The study of material sources is then flanked by the analysis of written sources, to understand which mechanisms and which logics have guided public action when, through statutes and legislation, an attempt was made to address the problem of decorum and cleanliness of urban environments and what has been the response of the communities to these dictates.
In collaboration with SAMI, Società degli Archeologi Medievisti Italiani
