Event Description
In the early modern period, necrologies—lists of the dead— had a living function for states. They were data meant to be used, mostly to track plague and other infectious diseases, but also as a source of history. This presentation tracks two state-level death registers, in Milan and Venice, over the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Hannah Marcus compares the terms and meanings associated with deaths caused by “old age” as they morphed over time and varied by context. Like extreme old age itself, this kind of research invites reflection on the place and meaning of exceptionally long lives in unusually turbulent times.
Event Speaker
Hannah Marcus, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University
Event Information
This event is free and open to the public; Registration required. Please contact [email protected] with any questions.
This event is part of the New York History of Science Lecture Series.
Sponsoring Organizations:
- The University Seminars at Columbia University
- Columbia University in the City of New York
- NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study
- The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- The New York Academy of Medicine
- The New York Academy of Sciences
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