Planned Grandeur: A Comparative Study of Urban Expansion in Early Modern Italy and Mamluk Egypt

This dissertation explores similar trajectories in two diverse cultural milieus through an examination of the conscious redefinition of urban space during the late fifteenth century in Florence and Cairo. During this period two (sub)urban districts were developed: Via Laura in Florence and Azbakiyya in Cairo. Analyzing these building projects reveals remarkably similar motivations leading to their conception despite the obvious differences of the ruling groups-religious, social, and political. In these districts, both situated in areas beyond previously established boundaries of urbanized space and neither of which the result of organic urban growth, we find a systematic process in which the ruling elite deliberately sought to transform the urban landscape through the inclusion of distinctive, low-density settlement areas, well-suited to the affluent and expansive life they led. These projects were not, however, the result of one culture's influence or dominance over another-one was not dependant on the other-rather, these projects were parallel developments.