ABSTRACT
Towns are primarily defined by their very materiality – their walls, their streets and places and their buildings, religious or secular, public or private. The lives of their human inhabitants are also largely shaped by the material environment in which they live, and their interplay with other individuals is continuously mediated by the use of material objects. In all this, gender plays a primary role. Thus, this chapter will use a specific case study – that of early modern Rome – in order to explore some general issues concerning the relationship between gender, materiality and urban experience.
