Une écologie au travail : la ville médiévale face à son empreinte environnementale

The history of the relationship between the medieval city and the environment remains to be written. The essay goes on to analyse – in a comparative dimension – situations relating to central and northern Italy. It leads the reader, through an analysis of sources, especially regulatory and deliberative ones, to grasp the environmental sensitivity and concerns of the legislators and their awareness of the need to exercise control over the environment in order to guarantee the health of the urban community, as well as it prosperity and well-being. These policies then become the basis for identifying models of intervention, thus suggesting new avenues for the study of urban ecology and actually reformulating its main questions. [Publisher's text]