A Companion to Medieval Palermo: The History of a Mediterranean City from 600 to 1500, ed. Annliese Nef

Abstract

Amid the growing number of histories of medieval Sicily, there are few works dedicated to Palermo, even though other Mediterranean capitals such as Naples, Barcelona and Valencia have been well favoured with single-author and collaborative studies. This book therefore fills a notable gap, and, by taking as its time-span the entire millennium from the early Byzantine town to the end of the fifteenth century, it also offers a panorama of Sicilian history across the many conquests and invasions that repeatedly transformed the ethnic, religious and cultural character of the island; moreover, by stressing often ignored continuities, this book shows that the history of Palermo was not simply defined by its conquerors. The editor, Annliese Nef, who is fast establishing herself as a major French expert on medieval Sicily alongside Henri Bresc, has had the idea of introducing work by French and Italian scholars to the English-speaking world. Most of the articles have, therefore, been translated by Martin Thom (though not always consistently—‘economical’ is not the same as ‘economic’, and it makes no sense to call the chronicler known as Hugo Falcandus sometimes by that name, and sometimes by the name Ugo Falcando). The ‘indicative bibliography’, whatever that term means, is far from adequate, although one would expect a good bibliography to be a major feature of a volume in the series of ‘Brill’s Companions to European History’. On the other hand, the book is very beautifully produced, with colour plates and good maps. Sometimes one has the impression that the liveliest scholarship concerning the kingdom of Sicily is being conducted in Naples rather than Sicily, so it is good to see work here by several of the more productive and stimulating Sicilian historians, such as E. Igor Mineo and Fabrizio Titone, both of whom are especially interested in the problem of urban autonomy in late medieval Sicily. Archaeologists and art historians have combined with more traditional historians of the economy, religion and culture to provide a really useful source of reference.