Memorie
Riccardo Rao, Una civiltà del castagno: uomini e boschi nell’Appennino ligure-piemontese durante l’apogeo del medioevo (secoli XII- metà XIV)
The contribution is focused on the woodland changes of the Piedmontese Ligurian Apennines during the prime of the Middle Ages (12th – 14th centuries). It outlines a picture which proves the well-known pressure on uncultivated land in the demographic expansion phase of mediaeval Western countries and the process of woodland domestication. It also highlights a few original aspects: in particular the chestnut tree takes on a decisive role in local economies, both in the large Cistercian property, which promotes its diffusion through graft contracts with peasants, and among the weaker ranges of population, like women.
Elena Maccioni, L’utilizzo della rappresaglia nella Corona d’Aragona alla fine del Trecento: dai registri Marcarum di Giovanni I il Cacciatore
Reprisals in the late medieval age were a violent way to reintroduce a sort of international justice, especially in the Western European and Mediterranean states. In the fourteenth century, while the merchant community became aware of the risks of this practice, political authorities realized that reprisals could have a political and military importance for the states with an expanding commercial sector. The interest of central powers in a tighter control of this legal institute gave birth to the Marcarum books, which nowadays make possible the research of the history of reprisals used both as a compensation system, and as international and local political instruments, in particular in the Crown of Aragon.
Monica Santangelo, Preminenza aristocratica a napoli nel tardo medioevo: i tocchi e il problema dell’origine dei sedili
This article aim is to insert the issue of medieval Naples Seggi in the reflection concerning the relationship between space, institutions and social preeminence. It reviews the topic of Seggi nobility and the tradition which recognized her inception in the first Angevin time, marking a clean difference between the informal socio-topographic units (tocchi), organizing the eminent families in Norman and Swabian Naples, and the Angevine Seggi, as institutional and aristocratic frameworks. Through the analysis of the balance between space and preeminence in the XII and XIII century, it is possibile to scrutinize the making of Seggio identity, by joining the logic of the regis servitium with the legitimization practices in a urban enviroment, and recognizing the usage and control of the urban space by eminent families as an essential tool for framing aristocratic identity.
Franca Bellucci, Fissare l’origine dell’Italia-nazione: un problema del romanticismo italiano. Una lettura dell’ «Antologia» di Vieusseux e della «Nuova Antologia» 1866-1915
L’argomento del saggio è seguire la revisione dell’idea d’Italia nel Medioevo, quale si diffuse durante il Risorgimento italiano. Due i punti-fulcro del saggio: che il tema non interessò solo gli storici, ma coinvolse tutte le arti e diffuse nel sentire comune la convinzione che lo stato italiano fosse una naturale unità dall’antichità romana al presente. Inoltre, che Roma fosse un’entità viva, indenne durante le varie fasi storiche, capace di dare nuovo incitamento ai contemporanei. L’autrice basa la sua tesi su letture di riviste importanti e affidabili dell’Ottocento.
The subject of the essay is the revision of the idea of Italy in the Middle Age which spread during the Italian ‘Risorgimento’. The two main purposes of the essay are: the topic didn’t interest only historians, but all arts were involved and so the convinction that the Italian nation was a natural unity lasting from ancient Rome to the present spread into the feelings of people. Futhermore, that Rome was considered a living being throught the various historical processes able to give new incentive to the contemporaries. The author founds her theses on the reading of important and reliable magazines of the nineteenth century.
Documenti
Matteo Duni, Un manuale inedito per cacciatori di streghe: il Formularium pro exequendo inquisitionis officio di Modesto Scrofeo (c. 1523)
Il domenicano vicentino Modesto Scrofeo fu uno dei protagonisti principali della caccia alle streghe in Italia agli inizi del ‘500. Inquisitore di Como negli anni ’20, Scrofeo mandò al rogo non meno di sette persone nel corso di una repressione durissima in Valtellina. Il Formularium ed altri notevoli scritti inediti di fra Modesto – analizzati per la prima volta in questo articolo – sono un condensato di quell’esperienza, pensato con il doppio fine di fornire una guida ai colleghi inquisitori e di rispondere alle forti proteste suscitate dal suo operato. L’opera rappresenta dunque una preziosa fonte d’informazioni su di una caccia finora poco nota, e al tempo stesso permette di ricostruire il profilo personale e dottrinale di un ecclesiastico convinto che lo sterminio delle complici di Satana fosse la priorità assoluta.
Modesto Scrofeo, a Dominican friar from Vicenza, was one of the main protagonists of the witch-hunt in Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In his capacity as inquisitor of Como in the 1520s, Scrofeo sent to the stake no fewer than seven persons during a violent hunt in the Valtellina area.The Formularium as well as other remarkable unpublished writings by fra Modesto – analyzed here for the first time – are a summa of that experience, aiming both to provide a guide to fellow inquisitors and to respond to the strong protests aroused by his campaign. This work thus provides precious information on a lesser-known witch-hunt, and at the same time it permits to reconstruct the personal and doctrinal profile of a churchman convinced that the extermination of Satan’s accomplices was the absolute priority.
Recensioni
Katharina Winckler, Die Alpen im Frühmittelalter. Die Geschichte eines Raumes in den Jahren 500 bis 800 (Thomas Szabó)
Duilio Caocci, Rita Fresu, Patrizia Serra, Lorenzo Tanzini, La parola utile. Saggi sul discorso morale nel Medioevo (Giovanna Murano)
Leardo Mascanzoni, Guido Deotaiti e Flordebella. Antroponimia romagnola nel ‘200. Il Quaternus fumantium comitatus Ymole (1265 ca.). Edizione e studio (Massimo Giansante)
Rosario Villari, Un sogno di libertà. Napoli nel declino di un impero. 1585-1648 (Leandro Perini)
Barbara Ann Naddeo, Vico and Naples: the Urban Origins of Modern Social Theory (Emanuele Salerno)
Giovanni Borgognone, Come nasce una dittatura. L’Italia del delitto Matteotti (Jacopo Tisato)
Notizie
Archivio Storico Italiano – ISSN 0391-7770