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Common Knowledge

Legal name: Frugoni, Chiara
Other names: Settis-Frugoni, Chiara (Nom d'alliance)
Birthdate: 1940-02-04
Date of death: 2022-04-10
Gender: female
Nationality: Italy
Birthplace: Pise, Italie
Place of death: Pisa, Italy
Places of residence: Pisa, Italy
Roma, Italy
Education: Ecole Normale Supérieure, Pise (Diploma di perfezionamento, 19 65)
Université de Rome La Sapienza (Doctorat, Lettres, Thèse "Le thème des trois vivants et des trois morts dans la tradition médiévale italienne", 19 64)
Occupations: professor, medieval history
Relationships: Frugoni, Arsenio (Père)
Settis, Salvatore (Ex-époux, 19 65 | ))
Settis Frugoni, Andrea (Fils)
Organizations: University of Pisa
Short biography: Nata a Pisa, figlia del grande medievista Arsenio Frugoni, ha studiato alla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Ha insegnato Storia medievale all'Università di Roma II e ha collaborato a La Repubblica e al Manifesto. Ha dedicato importanti studi alla figura di Francesco d'Assisi e all'iconografia medievale (http://www.zam.it/biografia_Chiara_Fr...)

Members

Reviews

Diccionario medieval (Spanish Edition) by Alessandro Barbero

69000

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filbo_2024 | 1 other review | Apr 23, 2024 |

Inventions of the Middle Ages by Chiara Frugoni

One of the most beautiful books I have. And, well written and informative.

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smith54a | 6 other reviews | Feb 7, 2012 |

A Day in a Medieval City by Chiara Frugoni

This book focuses on Italy -- unsurprisingly, since the authors came from there -- and relies heavily on art to tell the story. Almost every page is illustrated with pictures of one or more paintings from the period. I enjoyed it, and I got a good sense of the atmosphere of the Italian cities with their crowding and chaos. The book is necessarily superficial, however, and to get a really detailed examination of medieval cities (especially non-Italian ones) you will have to look elsewhere.

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meggyweg | 1 other review | Apr 19, 2010 |

A Day in a Medieval City by Chiara Frugoni

A Day in a Medieval City was first published in Italian in 1997 under a different title and translated into English in 2005. It is a touching tribute by a daughter to her father Arsenio Frugoni, an Italian Medieval scholar who died in a car accident in his early 50s. Before he died he wrote a short lively essay describing a typical day in an Italian medieval city between the 11th and 15th centuries. This forms the Introduction of the book. Chiara picks up from there relying mostly on pictures from the period to describe life in an Italian city - the big events such as birth, marriage, death - but also the mundane such as bathing, eating, reading, sleeping, etc..which in some ways are the most fascinating aspects since they are so familiar to us. The writing is a little encyclopedic but never boring, even though its a short book (177 pages of main text) it it not a fast read. The interpretation of medieval paintings is always fascinating since they are so loaded with iconography and the way stories flow through them, it's a visual story and this book provides the key to understanding some well known Gothic paintings. Only once did I see a mistake, regarding a rag held on a book to protect it from greasy fingers (pg.150) - this is actually something called a "Girdle book" (Wikipedia has more). There are pictures on almost every page. For this type of book, it is very good quality and has long often rewarding footnotes. I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about Medieval history at the ground level.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd… (more)