In this illustrated lecture, Niall Atkinson maps the soundscapes of Renaissance Florence, taking Dante's cue about the relationship between the sound of a bell, the evocation of a social topography, and the maintenance of a collective memory embedded within the architectural present.
During the spring semester of 2016, Emory University's "MAP IT | Little Dots, Big Ideas" series featured lectures by humanists who are at different stages of their careers and are engaged in cutting-edge digital mapping projects.
Presentation
Question and Answer Session
About the Speaker
Niall Atkinson is Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Art History and the College at the University of Chicago. His publications include The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life(University Park: Penn State University Press, 2016), as well as articles and chapters in Grey Room, Senses and Society, and A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).
Recommended Resources
Text
Atkinson, Niall. "Thinking Through Noise, Building Toward Silence: Creating a Sound Mind and Sound Architecture in the Premodern City."Grey Room, no. 60 (2015): 10–35.
———. The Noisy Renaissance: Sound, Architecture, and Florentine Urban Life. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2016.
Burgess, Clive and Andrew Wathey. "Mapping the Soundscape: Church Music in English Towns, 1450–1550."Early Music History 19 (2000): 1–46.
Garrioch, Davie. "Sounds of the City: The Soundscape of Early Modern European Towns."Urban History 30, no. 1. (2003): 5–25. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.
Smith, Susan J. "Soundscape."Area 26, no. 3 (1994): 232–240.
Terpstra, Nicholas and Colin Rose, eds. Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence: Historical GIS and the Early Modern City. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis, 2016.
Wissmann, Torsten. Geographies of Urban Sound. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis, 2014.
Web
ECHOXIII. "How to Make a Sound Map: Cartographic, Compositional, Performative."Acoustic Ecology. University of Hull at Scarborough. December 4, 2013. https://acousticecologyuoh.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/how-to-make-a-sound-map/.
"Historical References to London's Sounds." London Sound Survey. 2016. http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/historical/.
Lafrance, Adrienne. "Hearing the Lost Sounds of Antiquity."The Atlantic. February 19, 2016. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/byzantine-angel-wings/470076/.
National Park Service. "Mapping Sound." Natural Sounds. Accessed October 25, 2016. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/soundmap.htm.
Ouzounian, Gascia. "Interactive Maps Provide New Tools for Mapping Cities."CityMetric. December 5, 2014. http://www.citymetric.com/skylines/interactive-sound-maps-provide-new-tools-mapping-cities-552.
"Sounds Map - Soundscapes." British Library. Accessed October 25, 2016. http://sounds.bl.uk/Sound-Maps/Soundscapes.
Soundscapes Links. The Acoustic Ecology Institute. 2008. http://www.acousticecology.org/soundscapelinks.html.