Abstract
Adopting the gaze of the recluse allows us to disassemble the civic space of the Italian piazza. Last year's lecture attempted to theorize the notion of emplacement (from Adrien Goetz's architectural conception of dislocation) as the capacity of space to turn itself inside out, to lift itself up, to become something other than itself. In this case, we would have to understand that spacing is what makes room for the freedom of women and men, what gives them space and a place, insofar as this place will never be assigned in advance and once and for all. We attempt to re-understand the entire political history of public squares in urban Italy from the 13th to the 15th centuries in the light of this concept, showing in particular that their monumentalization and architectural embellishment in no way signify the intensification of their civic functioning, but on the contrary - and most often in a post-communal and then princely context - their depoliticization. In this way, the space of deliberation is turned into a space for the celebration of power, which ultimately raises questions about the archaeological paradigm and the principle of analogy that govern political analyses of urban spaces.
