Merchants in the City of Art: Work, Identity, and Change in a Florentine Neighborhood
© 2016
This lively and engaging ethnography, written and designed with students in mind, uses the experiences and perspectives of a set of long-time market vendors in San Lorenzo, a neighborhood in the historic center of Florence, Italy, to explore how cultural identities are formed in periods of profound economic and social change.
Product Details
- Series: Teaching Culture: UTP Ethnographies for the Classroom
- World Rights
- Page Count: 176 pages
- Illustrations: 25
- Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.5in x 9.0in
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Reviews
Like Schiller, I, too, love Florence and have visited it many times, and taught there as well. So I feel very confident in saying that hers is a well-done book, her portrait of the San Lorenzo Market exactly the one I know, too. She cites all the relevant experts: Barth, Bourdieu, Geertz, Goffman, Herzfeld, Kertzer, Turner, as well as many more recent Italian articles and books on Florence. Her knowledge of spoken Italian, particularly its proverbs, appears extensive.
Gloria Nardini, Journal of Folklore Research
This fascinating and accessible ethnography provides an insider's look at Florence's San Lorenzo market—one of Italy's most well-known, and traditional, local marketplaces. Like markets throughout Italy, San Lorenzo is undergoing rapid change, and even decline, as the country deals with immigration and globalization pressures, and Schiller effectively captures both the romanticism and the conflicts involved. We tend to forget that iconic sites like San Lorenzo are living things, and that they, too, undergo shifts that reflect the transformations and tensions of the time. This book reminds us of this fact in an empathetic and nuanced way.
Michael Digiovine, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Merchants in the City of Art visits the quotidian side of Florence beyond Renaissance art and architecture to illuminate a fascinating portrayal of history and uncertainty. In a mélange of global tourists, immigrants, and shifting ideas about heritage, Schiller artfully describes the complex politics that mutually threaten, change, and maintain the vibrancy of the San Lorenzo marketplace and the neighborhood surrounding it.
Walter Little, University at Albany-SUNY -
Author Information
Anne Schiller is Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University and Fulbright-Con Il Sud Visiting Professor at the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. She has conducted research and published extensively on identity and social movements in Italy and Indonesia. She is also active in the field of international education, and writes and presents on issues of cross-border collaboration among universities. -
Table of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments1. San Lorenzo Neighborhood and Its Globalized Market
A Marketplace in Transition
Migrations and Complications
Civic Administration and Politics in San Lorenzo
Fieldwork as an Apprentice Vendor
Marketplace Performance in the Theater of Sales
Some Dilemmas of Fiorentinità2. A Mercantile Neighborhood across Time
A City of Merchants
San Lorenzo in Medieval and Medicean Times
Old, New, and Newer Markets
From Traveling to Stationary Peddlers
Diversity in the Most Cosmopolitan Part of the City
Choosing the Right Vendor
Identity and Heritage in a World Heritage Site3. Lives and Livelihoods on Silver Street
How Some Vendors Got Their Start
Merchants and Their Merchandise
Finding Work in San Lorenzo
Competition in Close Quarters
The Best Work
Customer Relations
Making Cents in San Lorenzo4. Into the Heart of Florence
Long-Term Vendors and Newcomers
Fixed Merchants and Infringers
Unlicensed Vending in the Marketplace
Talking to the Neighbors5. Saving San Lorenzo
A Neighborhood Association
The Saint Orsola Project and the Search for "Monna Lisa"
Tsunami on the Market Stands
Fiorentinità and Its Discontents6. Fiorentinità in a Post-Florentine Market
Bibliography
Index
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Subjects and Courses