Architecture, festival and order: the history and persistence in the Florentine Feast of San Giovanni and its significance to the city's civic identity

The Feast Day of San Giovanni is still a significant day for Florence. Since its revival in the 1930s - but also throughout much of the city’s history - every year church processions and civic parades have been augmented by a series of other events that together combine to represent the city to itself and to others. This re-presentation is not a mask that conceals Florence’s "true" identity, or one that invents something that is not present, but, even in today’s information driven world, an authentic manifestation of the city where everyday relationships and actions - both historic and contemporary - are elevated to become the focus of different representations. This thesis examines these ritual and ceremonial settings - from an urban to an architectural scale - particularly in relation to the evolution of the Feast of S Giovanni - first documented in the thirteenth century by Villani (1276-1348) - with the intention of discovering how this order helped to structure the transformation of civic identity from its Roman and feudal origins into late medieval humanism, and how this then established the basis future manifestations of civic order, such as that of the Medici Dukes from the sixteenth century onwards, and the fascists of the twentieth century.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

London Metropolitan University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Frost, Christian W.

• 720 Architecture

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

N/A

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.londonmet.ac.uk:4715