Licenziate per rappresaglia nella guerra fredda : rappresentazioni e memorie nel capoluogo dell'Emilia rossa

Travel stories are very important to reconstruct the historical aspect of the Mediterranean coastlines. One of the most important travel stories is the manuscript entitled: Itinerario e viaggio dell'armata navale di Barbarossa sino in Levante, preserved in the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine of Carpentras. In the manuscript, the author, the learned priest Jérome Maurand, describes the journey by sea from Antibes to Constantinople in 1544. Maurand was the chaplain of the French fleet, commanded by Antoine Escalin des Aimars, also known as Polin, which, after the Siege of Nice, had to take back home the Ottoman galleys and their captain, Khair ad-dın, better known as Barbarossa.

During the journey, Maurand recounts the events and, in particularly, describes the many lands and cities that he sees, and composes 32 drawings of them. The manuscript is an important historical evidence, even for the presence of its rich iconography, which consists in original drawings. The research aims to demonstrate that these images, taken together, constitute an interesting historical documentary source of the layout of Mediterranean cities, by the point of view of a French savant of the sixteenth century. [Publisher's Text].