This volume deals with natural disasters in late medieval and early modern central and southern Italy. Contributions look at a range of catastrophic events such as eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, floods, earthquakes, and outbreaks of plague and epidemics. A major aim of this volume is to investigate the relationship between catastrophic events and different communication strategies that embraced politics, religion, propaganda, dissent, scholarship as well as collective responses from the lower segments of society. The contributors to this volume share a multidisciplinary approach to the study of natural disasters which draws on disciplines such as cultural and social history, anthropology, literary theory, and linguistics. Together with analyzing the prolific production of propagandistic material and literary sources issued in periods of acute crisis, the documentation on disasters studied in this volume also includes laws and emergency regulations, petitions and pleas to the authorities, scientific and medical treatises, manuscript and printed newsletters as well as diplomatic dispatches and correspondence.

How did early modern societies think about disasters, such as earthquakes or floods? How did they represent disaster, and how did they intervene to mitigate its destructive effects? This collection showcases the breadth of new work on the period ca. 1300-1750. Covering topics that range from new thinking about risk and securitisation to the protection of dikes from shipworm, and with a geography that extends from Europe to Spanish America, the volume places early modern disaster studies squarely at the intersection of intellectual, cultural and socio-economic history. This period witnessed fresh speculation on nature, the diffusion of disaster narratives and imagery and unprecedented attempts to control the physical world. The book will be essential to specialists and students of environmental history and disaster, as well as general readers who seek to discover how pre-industrial societies addressed some of the same foundational issues we grapple with today.

This edited collection explores what trauma—seen through an analytical lens—can reveal about the early modern period and, conversely, what conceptualizations of psychological trauma from the period can tell us about trauma theory itself.

What was published in Naples during the Spanish Vicerealm? How did books, pamphlets, broadsheets and newspapers contribute to the political awareness of the Neapolitan people? To what extent did the authorities engage with this politically-charged literary world? This book aims to answer these questions by discussing an untapped body of sources, in manuscript and printed form. What emerges is a vivid picture of a vibrant printing industry and a rich cultural landscape. Three moments of crisis of the seventeenth century – the eruption of Vesuvius, Masaniello’s revolt and a major plague epidemic – are used as a test of the capability of the Spanish authorities in regards to political and propagandistic communication.

Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have revised received understanding of the political and economic significance of the city of Naples and its rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its importance in the history of science, however, has remained relatively unknown. The Science of Naples provides the first dedicated study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English language. Drawing on contributions from leading experts in the field, this volume presents a series of studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold contributions to European scientific culture in the early modern period and considers the importance of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories for the production of new knowledge. Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to debates within the Republic of Letters that continued until deep into the nineteenth century. They also show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters yielded unique insights that contributed to the development of fields such as medicine and earth sciences. Taken together, these studies resituate the city of Naples as an integral part of an increasingly globalised scientific culture, and present a rich and engaging portrait of the individuals who lived, worked and made scientific knowledge there.

International tragedies, national disgraces, and local dangers: reporting can magnify trauma. But how can we gain a deeper analytical understanding of episodes seemingly too immediate for detached observation by our sources or even, perhaps, by ourselves? This volume brings together a broad range of current research in Europe and abroad, regarding an issue of crucial importance for understanding past cultures and our own. Papers discuss the ramifications of media-induced anxiety and anxiety-induced mediality, engaging the humanities, including history, film studies, literature, folklore, creative writing and adjacent fields intersected by sociology, politology, psychology, & anthropology. News media here include all means of mass communication impinging on daily experience, from books to music, from the social web to films, on multiple platforms and in multiple languages across municipal, state, and regional boundaries.

For decades historians argued for the downfall of communication, when early modern societies were hit by a natural disaster. After all, earthquakes caused the destruction of infrastructure, which hindered the spread of news. Instead, the last investigations opened a new point of view about the political communication: every crisis was a catalyst for news. The book widens this reading through a comparative analysis of several earthquakes in the Hispanic Monarchy territories, from Asia to America. However, the examination of communications provided in this volume is not an end in itself but is offered as a basis for reflection and to propose the notion that earthquakes trigger change in social and political dynamics. Earthquake-related crises exposed the underlying contradictions that the court of Madrid needed to address in the most effective way, and, if possible, swiftly. Earthquakes not only destroyed buildings and infrastructure but also social norms. Urgency reduced the distance between interlocutors, to some extent blurring the boundaries of self-censorship. Tremors therefore offer a rare opportunity to observe the political and military crises faced by the Hispanic Monarchy, the global empire of the time.