This project looks at several ancient European cities and examines how their public spaces such as street corners and major city squares were influenced by the everyday activities of the inhabitants there between 1450 and 1700.
The cities they examined were Exeter, United Kingdom, Deventer, Netherlands, Hamburg, Germany, Trento, Italy, and Valencia, Spain. Each city is on an interactive map in which you can click on landmarks to get more information about the city’s history.
Exeter, United Kingdom:
In the 16th century, most people lived in the countryside of England with cities like Exeter being the exception. It was then the 5th largest city and a regional capital. Though this city was so large, it still kept its medieval street pattern and it was mostly still contained in its city walls from the time of the Roman Empire.
Deventer, Netherlands:
Deventer was a flourishing commercial town in the late Middle Ages. This city was known for hosting several annual fairs. It was also an important city for merchants specializing in the import of stockfish or dried cod and herring from Norway and Sweden. The two merchant guilds that were a result of this stockfish trade and their coat of arms were present in architecture of the city.
Hamburg, Germany:
Hamburg was an important trade center that remained a free and imperial city of the early modern Holy Roman Empire. In the 1680s it was considered by many to be the “German Amsterdam.”
Trento, Italy:
In its early history Trento was the chief city of a prince-bishopric, part of the broader political sphere of the Holy Roman Empire. It was a crucial stop on the commercial route between Italy and Germany, located on the road to the Brenner pass. It was an important linguistic, political and cultural border city. In the 16th century it had a population of around 5,000 the majority of whom were Italian speaking.
Valencia, Spain:
The city of Valencia has origins from the Roman Empire, when the Roman consul Decimus Junius Brutus Galacius established it as a colony for veteran soldiers who had fought in wars against the Lusitanians. Recent archeological findings have revealed that there were human settlements prior to the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C when the presence of Iberian and Carthaginian peoples were documented.
