Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550-1860
presents new perspectives on the role music played in the physical, cultural, and civic spaces of Italian cities from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Across thirteen chapters, contributors explore the complex connections between sound and space within these urban contexts, demonstrating how music and sound were intimately connected to changing social and political practices. The volume offers a critical redefinition of the core concept of soundscape, considering musical practices through the lenses of territory, space, representation, and identity, in five parts:
Soundscape, Phonosphere, and Urban History
Urban Soundscapes across Time
Urban Soundscapes and Acoustic Communities
Urban Soundscapes in Literary Sources
Reconstructing Urban Soundscapes in the Digital Era
reframes our understanding of Italian music history beyond models of patronage, investigating how sounds and musics have contributed to the construction of human identities and communities.