As far as cities go, Naples, Italy has had some pretty rotten luck when it comes to history. Between multiple invasions, world wars, and natural disasters like volcanoes, earthquakes and flooding over the centuries, the city has managed to survive through it all.
From antiquity through the 18th century, Naples experienced waves of conquest and invasion. From the Romans and Byzantines to the Swabians, Normans, Angevins, Aragonese, French, and Spanish, each wave left its mark on the city’s culture, architecture and political life.
These upheavals continued through the War of the Spanish Succession, when the Austrian Habsburgs took control, and into the era of the French Revolution.
And in the modern era, the city experienced extensive bombings during the Second World War, leaving much of its historic buildings in ruin.
“This poor city has been through so much and it’s still standing,” says Claire Jensen, a PhD candidate with the Department of Art History. “There’s something just so impressive about such a resilient city.”
And it’s exactly because of this tumultuous history that Jensen picked Naples for her fourth-year experiential learning course, Studies in Medieval Cities.
“Since our first class, I was telling the students, ‘You're part of something that’s not often taught. This is pretty new,’” she says. “I'm trying to bring the research up to the level of other cities in Italy.”
Twelve students examined and explored Naples’ art, architecture and urban development from 400-1400 CE as it transformed from an Ancient Greek and Roman port city to the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily.
For the semester-long project, each student selected a historic illustration from a lithographic print that featured a medieval monument that was destroyed or damaged in the late-19th and early 20th century.
By comparing old and new images of the city and conducting research on its art and architectural history, the students tracked the historic locations of each structure in 2025, many of which have been lost in time.
They also practiced writing metadata — data that describes and explains other data such as an image, providing context, details and characteristics to make the data easier to understand, and use. The class then pooled their findings to create an interactive class map that pinpoints the original location and fate of each monument and building from the past to the present.
Gabrielle Founier, a master’s student studying European affairs at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, focused her research on the church of Sant’Eligio Maggiore.
Considered one of the most French Gothic structures in Southern Italy, the church — whose construction began in 1270 — stands in the heart of Naples’ historic centre.
“This project gave me the chance to explore how architecture not only reflects broader historical changes, but also embodies the complex layers of power that played out so dramatically in medieval Naples,” says Fournier.
“Through my analysis of these architectural features, I explored how they reflect the shifting political and social currents in the city during the medieval period, particularly the transition from sacred authority to secular civic identity.”
Sophia van Run will graduate this fall with a major in art history and a double minor in human geography and Christianity and culture, as a member of St. Michael’s College.
Her research focused on the medieval church of San Domenico Maggiore. Built between 1283 and 1324, this church was one of Naples' most recognized places of worship, founded by the friars of the Dominican Order.
“As I’m quite interested in the history of the Dominican religious order, the angle I took was to research how the changing presence and activities of the Dominican friars inhabiting the church of San Domenico influenced adaptations made to its structure, as well as the structure of surrounding spaces and streets over time.”
In addition to the interactive class map, the students also collaborated with an international public digital humanities project: The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database (KOS).
Launched in 2016, KOS brings together drawings, prints, maps, ground plans and elevations, manuscript illuminations, paintings, early photographs, and other pre-1950 images to document sites in the medieval Kingdom of Sicily.
“Team members from KOS Zoomed into class from Italy and the U.S. to give students tips about how to study and write about historical images,” says Jensen. “The text of the class’s interactive map mimics the style of database entries, and students were encouraged to use KOS materials for their individual projects.”
In fact, Jensen sent some of her students’ completed projects to the KOS team who are considering adding the students’ research to the KOS database.
“Working with these databases made the project feel very international,” says Fournier. “It was exciting to collaborate with colleagues across the globe, especially as we shared insights and accessed resources that connected us to various historical periods and regions.”
“The prospect of potentially submitting my research to this database, where it could benefit others studying the same monuments, gave me an exciting taste of being part of a scholarly community,” says van Run.
With the project and course complete, Fournier, van Run and the other students gained valuable skills and new perspectives.
“This project definitely enhanced my research skills, especially in integrating primary sources into scholarly analysis,” says Fournier. “The interdisciplinary nature of the project — combining architectural history, urban studies, and medieval studies — helped refine my ability to approach complex topics from multiple angles.”
For van Run, the project “expanded my conception of what forms good research can take beyond simply books and articles. Consulting interactive maps and databases — which are continuously being updated by scholars — gave me the sense that I was interacting with experts in the field of art history in real time.”
“It's all about trying to give them a skill that they can use elsewhere,” says Jensen. “This is something they can put on their CV, especially right before they graduate.”