Abstract
Historians have long assumed that Maryland’s 17th century capital was an unplanned, scattered village with little urban character. In this paper, new archaeological evidence is presented which demonstrates that St. Mary’s City was actually an elaborately planned settlement, laid out according to principles of Baroque design. This is the earliest known use of Baroque urban planning in America. Comparison of the St. Mary’s layout with that of other colonial cities reveals that these Baroque urban concepts were only employed in the Chesapeake region. Possible reasons for this unusual distribution are presented and the implications of this finding regarding the relationship between society, economy, settlement system and urban form are discussed.
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Miller, H.M. Baroque cities in the wilderness: Archaeology and Urban development in the colonial Chesapeake. Hist Arch 22, 57–73 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374088
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374088