Mortality Crises in Giovanni Villani's Nuova Cronica

• Grant number: 23/11627-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• End date: January 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Neri de Barros Almeida
• Grantee: Lavínia dos Anjos de Sousa da Cunha
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/02912-3 - A connected history of the Middle Ages: communication and circulation from the Mediterranean Sea, AP.TEM

Abstract

The general aim of the research is to inventory mortality crises and understand their different dimensions (material, human, political, cultural, economic). These will be identified using traditional historical research methodologies - such as defining the joint application of discourse structuring categories and the semantic analysis of the terms and techniques involved in their construction (rhetoric, narrative genre, references, etc.), as well as identifying sociological elements that update and shape them (political commitments and constraints, interest groups, etc.) - and comparing them with data from other sciences such as archaeology, paleoclimatology and epidemiology, which provide relevant information on the events recorded in the texts. Through the interaction between the natural environment and society in the context of the crisis, it is hoped to shed new light on living conditions in the period and to define the material impact and sociological effects - episodes of cooperation, social disorganization, political measures and other social reactions - of the events inventoried.