Indispensable Immigrants: The Wine Porters of Northern Italy and Their Saint, 12001800

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Description

Indispensable immigrants recreates the world of peasants who streamed into the cities of late-medieval and early modern northern Italy to carry crushingly heavy containers of wine. Written in an easily accessible and unassuming style, it is solidly grounded in previously untapped archival and visual sources. In this first ever reconstruction of the

Reviews

The book is a sheer delight, perfect for leisure reading by all historians no matter their chronological or geographic specialization, a testament to the joys of what we do. - Rudolph M. Bell, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Journal of Social History June 2016

It is a welcome contribution to his already-renowned scholarship and a tribute to a little-known Italian medieval saint. As a consequence the book itself will be indispensable to medieval and early modern scholars who work on Italy, saints, cults, the papacy, lay piety, and town life.
Janine Larmon Peterson, Marist College, The Medieval Review, 2016

This study, a pleasure to read, should engage a wide range of scholars, of medieval and early modern Italy, of religion and society, of popular piety, of memory and its construction, and of cultural and economic history.
Thomas Worcester, College of Holy Cross, Renaissance Quarterly Review, Vol LXX, No. 4

'Indispensable Immigrants is a masterclass in the integration of archival work, historiography, rhetorical skill, and imagination, four ingredients indispensable to the craft of writing engaging and informative history.'
Speculum

Author Bio

Lester K. Little is Professor Emeritus of History at Smith College and a former Director of the American Academy in Rome