Memorie
Giuliano Pinto, Beneficium civitatis. Considerazioni sulla funzione economica e sociale dell’arte della lana in Italia (secoli XIII-XV)
This essay focuses on the different functions of the wool industry in the cities of late medieval Italy. At that time the production of woolen fabrics was by far the most important manufacture. It produced wealth and fame; it employed a large part of the people, artisans and wage earners, especially the subordinate workers. For the ruling class, the increase in the wool industry meant to reduce social tensions and prevent riots: it was truly a beneficium civitatis.
Emanuela Ferretti, Fra Leonardo, Machiavelli e Soderini. Ercole I d’Este e Biagio Rossetti nell’impresa «del volgere l’Arno» da Pisa
This essay examines a famous episode of Florentine history: the attempt to deviate the Arno upstream of Pisa in order to deprive the rebel city of the river’s waters (1503–1504). The enterprise, well documented in the accumulated studies on Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli, is analyzed along two avenues: for the first, the copious published documents are reread and contextualized, seeking to separate the certain elements from the numerous hypotheses that have filtered down in the literature and that too often have become real historiographic myths; for the second, new sources are presented that clarify the final phases of the project while also shedding light on the entire affair and the role played by each character: not just Leonardo (whose presence was limited to one initial phase, separate from the building site), Pier Soderini, and Niccolò Machiavelli, but in particular, the Duke Ercole I d’Este and his trusted architect Biagio Rossetti.
Francesco Baldanzi, Nell’Ospedale di «Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze a imparare il cerusico»: origini e primo consolidamento della Scuola Medica e Chirurgica (XVI-XVIII secolo)
The paper focuses on the reconstruction of theoretical and practical teaching for surgeons as well as practical training for physicians in the Florentine Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Heterogeneous and unpublished sources are discussed that confirm the hypothesis of an educational function already present at the end of the sixteenth century under the Grand Duke Francesco I (the oldest document has hitherto been from 1630). These documents integrate the names of the first doctors with explicit teaching assignments and suggest that ‘medici astanti’ could be assigned didactic tasks as early as the seventeenth century.
Christian Satto, Una memoria pubblica difficile: il caso del monumento fiorentino a Bettino Ricasoli
The present essay aims to analyze the reasons behind the eighteen years (1880-1898) that Florence employed to inaugurate the statue of Bettino Ricasoli in Piazza dell’Indipendenza. The monumental consecration of Ricasoli, which at least apparently should not have provoked neither lengthy nor controversy for the undisputable patriotic merits of the baron, was an interesting example of the contradictions, divisions and perplexities that the definition of a public memory, in his relationships with contemporaneity, brought out. In this framework emerged a private place of memory, prepared by Ricasoli himself during his lifetime: the Castle of Brolio in Chianti.
Documenti
Jacopo Paganelli, «Pretiosum pannum cum Dei et beate Marie Virginis adiutorio Vulterras deferret». Un furto sacro nella Volterra dei guelfi e dei ghibellini
The essay analyzes the theft of a relic happened in 1277: in the city of Saint John of Acre, Arnaldo from Volterra stole a strip of the garment that was said to belong to the Virgin, and subsequently brought it to the bishop of the Tuscan city. Studying the production, the tradition and the fruition of the text which tells the story allows to shed light on the political context of Volterra between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
Discussioni
Maria Teresa Dolso, Francescani, politica e città: qualche riflessione a proposito di un recente volume
The present work examines the proceedings of the conference held in Ascoli Piceno in 2014 and published in 2017 by Isa Lori Sanfilippo and Roberto Lambertini under the title Francescani e politica nelle autonomie cittadine dell’Italia basso-medievale. The work aims to highlight the fundamental and indissoluble link – translated in various manners and degrees – between Franciscans and various cities. In the political sphere, this dialectic finds one of the most significant fields in which to exert influence and provoke consequences.
Recensioni [scarica PDF]
Alessio Fiore, Il mutamento signorile. Assetti di potere e comunicazione politica nelle campagne dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (1080-1130 c.) (Stefano Bernardinello)
Note e quaderni di Meglioranza da Thiene notaio dei patriarchi di Aquileia (1302-1310, 1318-1319), a cura di Martina Cameli; Nicolò da Cividale e Francesco di Nasutto da Udine notai patriarcali, a cura di Sebastiano Blancato – Elisa Vittor (Pietro D’Orlando)
Sandra de la Torre Gonzalo, Grandes mercaderes de la Corona de Aragón en la baja Edad Media. Zaragoza y sus mayores fortunas mercantiles, 1380-1430 (Sergio Tognetti )
Cécile Caby, Autoportrait d’un moine en humaniste. Girolamo Aliotti (1412-1480) (Francesco Salvestrini)
Giovanni Minnucci, Alberici Gentilis De papatu Romano Antichristo recognovit e codice autographo bodleiano D’Orville (Dennj Solera)
John Callow, Embracing the Darkness. A Cultural History of Witchcraft (Fabiana Ambrosi)
Federico Robbe, “Vigor di vita”. Il nazionalismo italiano e gli Stati Uniti (1898-1923) (Francesca Puliga)
Nicola Labanca, Caporetto. Storia e memoria di una disfatta (Piero Gualtieri)
Notizie [scarica PDF]
Archivio Storico Italiano – ISSN 0391-7770