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Material worlds – the virtual salon at IMAREAL

On Wednesday, 8 June 2022, 17:00 to 19:00, the next lecture in the lecture series Material Worlds – the Virtual Salon will take place. Daniel L. Smail from Harvard University will talk about “Household Containers and Their Uses. Marseille and Lucca, 1250-1450”.

Here you can find a short description of the lecture:

Containers are a silent presence in every human society. Depending on what one calls a container, this has been true since the origins of the species some 200,000 years ago. In the vast repetoire of humanity’s material culture, containers are especially interesting as objects because of the role they play as entropy devices, either inhibiting or sometimes accelerating the natural tendency of things toward dispersal and decay. This talk explores the ecological role of the container with special reference to containers that appear in archival records from two later medieval cities, where the container can be seen as a signifier of social distinction and as a target of coercive practices.

Daniel Lord Smail is professor of History at Harvard University. His work has explored the social and cultural history of the cities of Mediterranean Europe, with a focus on Marseille in the later Middle Ages. His current research approaches transformations in the material culture of the later Middle Ages using household inventories and inventories of debt recovery from Lucca and Marseille.

The lecture will take place online via Zoom.

Afterwards, we invite you to a discussion in the virtual salon (via  wonder.me). You can find more about the lecture series  here.

Please register for the event via our  conference tool to get access to the Zoom meeting.

Banner virtueller Salon

Coffret, 15th–16th century.

MMag. Dr.in Elisabeth Gruber

Paris Lodron University Salzburg | Interdisciplinary Research Centre for the Medieval and Early Modern Period

Email to MMag. Dr.in Elisabeth Gruber

Photo: © The Met Collection API (CC BY)