New Book by New College Professor Beneš Addresses Cutthroat Politics in Medieval Italy

April 18, 2011 — New College of Florida Associate Professor of History Carrie Beneš has penned a new book titled Urban Legends: Civic Identity and the Classical Past in Northern Italy, 1250–1350. The book, recently published by Pennsylvania State University Press, examines the use of classical symbols, ancient materials and Roman myths in medieval Italy as a source of political power.

In Urban Legends, Beneš explores the ways that 13th- and 14th-century Italian city-states used the classical Roman past as propaganda in a cutthroat political climate. Each city-state’s use of these classical symbols to legitimize the regime as a logical successor to Roman rule cemented its urban identity.

“Carrie Beneš has emerged, through a series of important articles, as a leader—in fact, a pioneer—in a new and fruitful field of scholarly endeavor: the medieval history of classical, which is to say Greco-Roman, symbols, myths and objects,” said Christopher S. Celenza of the American Academy in Rome. “This book—as thorough, information packed, and clearly written as it is—will help redraw the picture of the history of medieval Italy, and it will serve as a model for engagement and debate regarding a period and a region often overlooked.”

In addition to research on late medieval Italy, Professor Beneš focuses on intellectual networks and how people throughout history have used and manipulated the past to suit their own ends. Beneš has received numerous professional honors including a Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, Italy.

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