During the sixteenth century, Verona was a large city with thriving trade routes and changing industries, which had over the course of the previous century witnessed a large population boom as people moved from the surrounding countryside to the city on the Adige. However, as a constituent part of the powerful Venetian empire, Verona has often been overlooked in anglophone histories of the Renaissance. This talk will draw upon my current book project, which explores the role of Verona in the development and consumption of Renaissance culture in the sixteenth century. My talk will discuss several important aspects of my research, including Verona’s geographical importance, the place of artisans within the city, and material culture in the artisan household and workshop. Based on a detailed archival study, this research foregrounds the role of artisans and the culture of work within the city, bringing everyday material culture to the fore whilst highlighting the role of a lesser studied city.
Zoe Farrell is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellow in History at St Edmund Hall. Prior to joining the University of Oxford, Zoe has been an Assistant Professor in Early Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and a Rome Awardee at the British School at Rome. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her current research as part of her Leverhulme fellowship explores the role of German immigrants in several cities in the Veneto region of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Feltre, and Belluno. The central aim of this project is to discover more about the cross-border exchange of people, ideas, and goods in the Renaissance.
