Ever since the publication of Surveiller et Punir by Michel Foucault, a book of theorizing luster and poor historical research, medievalists have set out to straighten out yet another claim laid at their door, this time concerning the premodern mentality with regard to the punishment of criminals. Foucault suggested that the use imprisonment as a punitive measure is mainly a product of the Enlightenment, and therefore absent in the premodern state, which preferred corporal punishment. The Medieval Prison leaves no doubt that such an assertion is simply false, and ahistorical.

The book, born out of a Princeton dissertation, is essentially based on original research in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century documents at the state archives of Florence, Venice, Bologna, and Siena. The title of the book is a misnomer, as non-Italian prisons are rarely referred to, and then only for comparative purposes. Yet, this is hardly a blemish on the value of this fascinating study. Its contribution to medieval social and legal history is substantial, as there is no comparable recent study in this field. In the words of the author, the goals of this study are twofold: “First to delineate the variety of processes by which medieval society developed practices of punitive imprisonment,” and second, “to offer a living image of medieval imprisonment by focusing on the various persons comprising the human fabric of these institutions and the relations among them” (4). The narrative is framed in four chapters followed by a conclusion. The first and second chapters respectively discuss profiles of the prisons in Venice, Florence, and Bologna, and aspects of imprisonment. The third chapter, which describes life in medieval Italian prisons, is full of fascinating details, and is a must in the syllabus of both undergraduate and graduate courses on medieval crime and punishment. The fourth chapter is of particular interest for scholars of medieval literature, as it focuses on the use of “prison” as a metaphor in medieval Italian literature starting from early Christian texts all the way to fifteenth century.

The differences between the medieval and modern prisons are striking. We learn for example that medieval prisons were right at the heart of urban centers, unlike modern ones that are tucked away in some remote countryside. Medieval prisoners were allowed to go out occasionally to ask for alms. The sanitary conditions inside the prisons were not exactly ideal, but they were tolerable—and there was some care for the health and well-being of the prisoners. This is illustrated in the prologue, where the administrators of Florence are shown to have made a real effort to save the prisoners at the public prison Le Stinche during the 1333 flooding of Arno. Although Geltner agrees with recent historiography suggesting that most inmates were imprisoned due to unpaid debt, he calls attention to the many facets of the concept of “debt.” There were public debtors and private debtors—private debtors constituted a straightforward category, public debtors (those who owe money to the commune) did not. The poor public debtors in the prisons, for example, were largely those who were unable to pay pecuniary penalties and hence became debtors to the treasury.

Despite being a feat of scholarship, the book is not without shortcomings. It is very disappointing that often there are no transcriptions of the related passages in the archival documents, on which Geltner's facts and arguments are based. The only content of the endnotes are the simple references to the archival material. Perhaps, this was an editorial decision and not Geltner's own choice, but the absence of transcriptions prevents the reader from verifying Geltner's conclusions and from examining the language and terminology of the medieval prison records. A great opportunity is therefore missed, as it is extremely difficult and/or unlikely for many readers to consult the original records in the archives.

In the second appendix, Geltner gives some examples of prison-related poetry with the Italian text and English translation juxtaposed. It is not clear who did the English translations, as some of them are puzzling. Ariosto is translated as Aristotle (113), which is quite odd and requires some convincing argumentation. One would rather naturally think of Ludovico Ariosto, the author of Orlando Furioso, which has quite a few references to prison life. (If it is indeed Ariosto, the poem must date from the sixteenth century instead of fourteenth, and its author cannot be Dino di Tura.)

The medieval Italian communes are quite fascinating with their extensive criminal law, as Trevor Dean has shown remarkably well. Geltner's study of prisons confirms this degree of sophistication, unmatched anywhere else in Europe, and also reminds us of the sheer amount of surviving material in the Italian archives whose study will continue to revise our understanding of the Middle Ages.