Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (1200-1700)

International Conference : Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (1200-1700) - 03-05.09.2025

Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels (KBR)
Kunstberg 28, 1000 Brussels
Salle Panorama

Programme

Wednesday 3 September 2025

13:00 Welcome

13:30-15:15 Session 1
Governing and Building the City: An Introduction (Session chair: Jan Dumolyn)
- Nele De Raedt (UCLouvain) - Good Governance and the Built Environment: Central Themes and Questions
- Philip Muijtjens (UCLouvain) : A Curriculum for a City ? The Library in the Palazzo Comunale of Pistoia (1458-1461)
- Minne De Boodt (KU Leuven/UCLouvain) - Building Brussels in Time of Political Transformation: Dialogues on Good Governance and the Built Environment (1400-1466)

15:45-17:00 Session 2
Governing Ideals and the Built Environment (Session chair : Jelle Haemers)
- Niklas Groschinski (Oxford University) - Leisure Spaces, Sensorial Pleasure, and Public Health in Premodern City Planning
- Julien Régibeau (ULiège) - Order and Architecture : Policing the City of Liège during the Chiroux–Grignoux Conflict

Thursday 4 September 2025

09:00-10:15 Session 3
Municipal Authorities and the Design, Instrumentalization and Regulation of the
Built Environment (Session chair: Chris Fletcher)
- Frans Camphuijsen & Nathan van Kleij (Amsterdam University) - A Matter of Morals: Stone Fines, Good Governance and the Urban Fabric in Late Medieval Towns
- Anna Pomierny-Wąsińska (University of Warsaw) - Just Measures: Surveyors, Space, and Urban (Good) Governance in Late Medieval Florence
 

10:45-12:30 Session 4
The Endowment of Semi-Public Organisations (Session chair: David Napolitano)
- Angela Isoldi (Radboud University) - Spatial and Social Networks: Endowments Shaping the Urban Fabric in Mamlūk Cairo (1250-1517)
- Theodora Giovanazzi (Swiss Federal Technology Institute Lausanne) - Governing through Housing: The Scuole Grandi and Urban Welfare in 16th-Century Venice
- Emine Öztaner (Ibn Haldun University) - Nurbanu Sultan’s “Waqf Neighborhood” in Üsküdar: Constructing, Populating and Governing Ma‘mûre (16th and 17th Centuries)

13:30-15:00 Visit to collections of the KBR

15:00-16:45 Session 5
Collaborating Social Groups (Session chair: Minne De Boodt)
- Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven) - “Civic” and “Royal” Meat Halls in the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th Century
- Emmanuel Joly (UCLouvain/IRPA) - The Prince and the Canons: Collaboration and Decision-Making in the remodelling of Liège’s Built Environment in the First Half
of the 16th Century
- Giuliana Mosca (Independent Scholar) - “In grande honore de la cità”: Government, Urban Space, and Architecture in 15th-century Perugia

Friday 5 September 2025

09:00-10:15 Session 6
The Representation of Governance (Session chair: Philip Muijtjens)
- Elizabeth Den Hartog (Leiden University) - Local Lords on the Façade of Veere’s Town Hall (Netherlands). The Lords of Veere and their Relations with the Habsburg Regime in the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries
- Susan Tipton (Independent Scholar) - Good governance and the Built Environment: The Great Map of Augsburg (1626) and the Renewal of Civic Architecture in the Imperial City around 1600

10:45-12:00 Session 7
Ideal of Good Governance and Architectural Theory (Session chair: Nele De Raedt)
- Miara Fraikin (KU Leuven) - “Building on the Foundations of Piety”: Architecture and Female Governance in 16th-Century France and the Low Countries.
- Mats Dijkdrent (UCLouvain) - Engelbert of Admont as an Architectural Theorist: Ideas on Morally Good Architecture in 14th-Century Mirror Literature

13:30-15:00 Final discussion

https://governingandbuilding.com

Registrations