CITIES UNDER SIEGE
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
MONTALCINO ( Province of Sienna - Italy )
July, 7th / 10 th - 1999
CITIES UNDER SIEGE
"Besieged populations and the construction of historical memory"
July 30th 1999 will mark the 440th anniversary of the end of the Republic of Siena as established in Montalcino. The event, which was felt throughout Europe to be highly significant at the time, meant the end of an era for the town of Montalcino, as well as for the old Sienese State.From 1526 to I559, Montalcino - then the second largest city in the Sienese State, and drawing its wealth from the intense trade generated by its master craftsmen - was in the forefront of the international scene. On July 11th and 12th I526, the town was attacked by the armies of the Pope and those of Florence; between March 7th and July I5th I553, the imperial troops under Viceroy Garcia da Toledo tried to capture it but failed in the attempt; finally, between April 21st 1555 and July 30th 1559, Montalcino was the last refuge of the Sienese Republic. The great armies of the time, imperial, French, Florentine and others, fought under the city walls and all over its territory; the camps swarmed with mercenary soldiers hailing from every quarter; the leading captains of the time, Blaise de Monluc, Piero Strozzi, Cornelio Bentivoglio, Aurelio Fregoso among others, join one side or the other. So that the name of the town becomes famous all over Europe, in princely courts as well as in tales retailed among the common people.
In the collective consciousness of the Montalcino town-folk and of Sienese people at large, the events have left enduring scars to this day.
The theme will be "Cities under siege", its various aspects being dealt with by scholars using different approaches.
The siege of cities has been a recurrent situation throughout modern and contemporary history right down to our time. The feature common to all siege situations is that a civilian population - or one that does not usually fight wars - gets involved in military operations between opposing sides. In fact, a siege is a wartime situation in which such sections of the population as women, children and old people find themselves on the front line, suffering from the actual fighting and not infrequently taking part in it.
The duration of a siege - which may vary from a few days to several years - cannot fail to influence, to some extent, the social attitudes of the population concerned, as general conditions, for instance health standards and food supplies, are affected. Moreover, if the siege proves to be a protracted one, significant changes in the economy and demography may occur as well. Whatever the case, a siege leaves a deep imprint in historical memory, and often in the collective social memory of the inhabitants of the besieged town, but its after-effects do not stop there.
The aim on the 1999 Symposium is to study the characteristics of a siege situation from different angles: a comparative approach will provide a wider background.
5 panels are proposed:
PANEL 1: GETTING READY TO FACE A SIEGE (16th-I9th centuries)
Fortifying a city means that you think it may well be besieged and/or that you intend to deter, as much as you can, enemy forces from attacking your part of the country. In modern and contemporary times, the art of fortifying towns has been a branch of military engineering on which immense resources have been lavished.
There will be special emphasis on: first, the parties who commandeered the fortification and the engineers they employed; on the other hand, the technical characteristics of the fortifications as such, so as to provide answers to questions like:
- What sort of man is a military engineer in the period under review (16th-19th centuries)? How does he get his training? What measure of mobility does he enjoy within the "market" of military construction?
- What are the consequences of the introduction of fire weapons on a massive scale, and those of the technical improvement in that field?
Panel 2: THE SIEGE AS EXPERIENCED BY THE BESIEGERS (16th-19th century)
For a given historical period, the length of a siege and the way it is conducted, induce many variants in the situations the besiegers themselves have to face.
- mercenary troops being superseded by national armies: social military and economic consequences;
- different military tactics and different set up of the besieging forces as seen in different campaigns;
- daily life in the besiegers' camp: sanitary conditions, social dynamics in relationships between various contingents, billeting conditions, supplies, non-military elements present in the camp.
Panel 3: THE BESIEGED (16th -19th century)
The sequence of events in the different sieges will be viewed essentially in so far as it helps to understand some particular aspects of the life of the population under siege, military as well as civilian, for instance:
- their reactions, economic, alimentary, demographic and social; how far they diverge from what they used to be before the siege, and from what they will be afterwards;
- health and sanitation: new attitudes to food, to sanitation and medical problems, in particular to various epidemics;
- co-habitation with defending troops: problems and social ways of dealing with them locally.
Panel 4: AFTER THE SIEGE (16th -20th century)
Inevitably, a siege makes an impact, both immediately and for a long time afterwards. Our purpose here is to examine this aspect of the economic and social consequences to a town under siege, short term as well as in the long run.
We will try to assess to what extent this has been proved true in the case of different cities under siege, contrasting the situation before and after it took place, and viewing each particular case in a broader perspective.
As regards sieges in contemporary times, it will moreover be possible to draw upon the experience of survivors, in particular concerning the medical and psychical aspects.
Panel 5: MEMORIES, RITES AND MYTHS CONNECTED BY SIEGE SITUATIONS (16th -20th cent.)
Not infrequently, in fact, almost always, the memory of a siege, being part of the collective historical memory of a given population, becomes, as time passes by, a fundamental element of its social consciousness. The events, the very facts of the siege assume new shapes and become a legend. This is how it has been possible to set up a typology of siege situations valid for some countries, with significant recurring elements, showing how myths about the siege are constructed and kept in mind.
Besides the siege viewed as an event, one also often finds genuine rites, which may be observed or ignored by the parties involved, and which change according to the period considered and the general historical context. This is why everything connected with memory, with rites and myths about a siege legitimately falls within the scope of our symposium.
All those themes will be studied in a pluridisciplinary way, an approach we think is particularly profitable. Our Conference therefore, should be of special interest, not only to scholars in different fields of history - such as social history, the history of mentalities, urban history, art history, historical demography but also to experts in architecture, military engineering; medical statistics, epidemiology and the history of medicine, urban sociology, demography, historical and social anthropology, psychology.