Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 122

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ISTITUTO STORICO ITALIANO PER IL MEDIO EVO

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Bullettino

DELL’ISTITUTO STORICO ITALIANO DELL’ISTITUTO STORICO ITALIANO PER IL IL MEDIO PER MEDIO EVO EVO 122

ROMA

NELLA SEDE DELL’ISTITUTO PALAZZO BORROMINI ___ 2020

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Gli organi della rivista valutano il valore scientifico dei contributi ricevuti e la loro coerenza con la tradizione del Bullettino. I saggi vengono poi sottoposti ad una doppia lettura al buio da parte di specialisti scelti nell’ambito del Comitato di lettura o individuati in base alle competenze necessarie. Gli autori vengono informati del giudizio sul contributo in modo riservato e debbono tener conto, ai fini della pubblicazione, degli interventi integrativi o correttivi suggeriti dai revisori anonimi.

Il Bullettino si ispira al Codice etico delle pubblicazioni scientifiche definito dal Committee on Publication Ethics, consultabile al sito: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines

Direzione Massimo Miglio

Comitato scientifico Anna Benvenuti, François Bougard, Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri, Rosario Coluccia, Emanuele Conte, David Falvay, Luis Adão da Fonseca, Julian Gardner, Francisco Gimeno Blay, Antonio Giuliano, James Hankins, Jakub Kujawinski, José Maria Maestre Maestre, Werner Maleczek, Michael Matheus, Gherardo Ortalli, Gabriella Piccinni, Berardo Pio, Charles Radding, Giuseppe Sergi, Salvatore Settis, Chris Wickham Segretaria: Anna Maria Oliva

Comitato editoriale Isa Lori Sanfilippo (responsabile scientifico), Salvatore Sansone (redattore capo), Antonella Dejure, Christian Grasso, Anna Maria Oliva

Contatti e info redazione@isime.it http://www.isime.it/index.php/pubblicazioni/bullettino-dell-istituto-storico-italiano-per-il-medio-evo ISSN 1127 6096

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Nonostante la grave situazione di emergenza, il Bullettino esce anche quest’anno regolarmente prima della chiusura estiva.

Roma, 3 giugno 2020

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contenuto del fascicolo

andare in ‘aéam, agiamia, Persia, per angelo Michele Piemontese . . . . cultura medica a Bari fra le età sveva e angioina. il contributo delle fonti scritte alla conoscenza di individui, sostanze, saperi, per Marco antonio siciliani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . la delazione e la conservazione dello stato (siena 1311-1325), per Roberta Mucciarelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lo stile delle lettere di lapo Mazzei a francesco datini tra formulari classici e modelli mercantili, per Gloria camesasca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Gli orsini del ramo di Manoppello nei documenti dell’archivio storico capitolino, per elisabetta Mori . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i negoziati di Venezia con abū al-‘abbās per il riscatto dei captivi (13861392). diplomazia, commercio e guerra di corsa nel Mediterraneo del trecento, per Riccardo facchini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the letters of Giannozzo Manetti: context and chronology, with an edition of four new letters, per Brian J. Maxson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . caterina da siena. epistolario Verso una nuova edizione delle lettere cateriniane. ulteriori rilevamenti sul rapporto tra i testimoni della raccolta Maconi, per francesca de cianni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ricostruire. dopo il terremoto. il Medioevo terremoti: distruzioni e ricostruzioni nel Medioevo italiano (secoli VXV), per emanuela Guidoboni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . le difficoltà tecniche e finanziarie della ricostruzione post-sismica: il terremoto del 1349 nell’italia centrale, per Bruno figliuolo . . . . . . . . .

Ricostruire dopo il terremoto fra tardo Medioevo e prima età Moderna. similarità e divergenze fra fonti storiche e lettura archeosismologica di alcuni contesti in Mugello (fi), per andrea arrighetti . . . . . . . . .

Paure immotivate, per Mario tozzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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MedieValisMo. centro studi Ricerche “tra un manifesto e lo specchio”. Piccola storia del medievalismo tra diaframmi, maniere e pretesti, per umberto longo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cinque altri modi di sognare il medioevo. addenda a un testo celebre, per tommaso di carpegna falconieri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ravenna lirica. Pietre, avori, mosaici bizantini in prestito alla Fiamma di ottorino Respighi, per Geraldine leardi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . «damsel in distress». Medioevo, medievalismo e ruoli di genere nella cultura audiovisiva contemporanea, per francesca Roversi Monaco . .

Medioevi inventati e medioevi alternativi negli stati uniti degli ultimi venti anni, per Matteo sanfilippo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

immagini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Summaries Angelo Michele Piemontese, Andare in ‘Aéam, Agiamia, Persia

Across the early Middle Ages disturbances in Eurasia, the Arabic term ‘Aéam, semantic mark of an alien person, spread as a main denomination of both heathen Persians and ancient royal Persia, which remains quite different from the particular place name Iran (8th-9th centuries).

The name Persia (Pārs > Ar. Fārs) as well as the native Persian language (pārsī> Ar. fārsī) still persisted in extensive usage, while Aéam became a synonymy of the Persian country or people. Such recurring denomination is first of all noticed in several works, typical notions and significant contexts which were displayed by Persian geographical and historical literature itself (10th-14th centuries).

The same denomination in the meantime was widespread on an intercontinental scale. Persians or Persia were commonly named Aéam in Arabian and Turkic lands, for istance the strategic Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Siria, and the mighty Otthoman sultanate. They were among the rival enemies of the Ilkhanid, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid kingdoms of Persia.

The nominal form Azimia / Azemia / Agiamia, meaning Persia, spread over cities and regions of Italy through diplomatic relations, trade activities, reports by travellers, various works and historical books, during the Middle Ages and the Reaissance (14th-16th centuries).

The wide usage of similar denominations of Persia was extented as far as the 17th century.

As concerns Italy, the earliest evidence on the subject has been found about the name Azimi (i.e. Persians) which is quoted in a diplomatic document dated 1385, Pisa. A further investigation maybe will notice other documents and remarkable data on the same subject in history of medieval Italy.

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Marco Antonio Sicilani, Cultura medica a Bari fra le età sveva e angioina. il contributo delle fonti scritte alla conoscenza di individui, sostanze, saperi Investigating legal documentation, inscriptions and manuscripts, the paper aims to define origin and development of the medical milieu active in Bari during the last centuries of the Middle Ages. After discussing regulatory framework for studying, teaching and practice of medicine in regnum Sicilie, the article gives back names, social status and sometimes education of magistri regentes, physicians, surgeons and apothecaries which worked in Bari from the XIIIth to the XVth century. Moreover, in just one occurence it has been possibile to find evidence of current use of pharmacological compunds. Finally, the survey of books – actually remained or known through ecclesiastical institutions inventories or private citizens testaments – producted or circulated in Bari during the last Middle Ages allows to draw up a list of texts studied and used by these previously mentioned professional roles for their activities in medical field.

Roberta Mucciarelli, La delazione e la conservazione dello stato (Siena 13111325)

The essay analizes the central role of secret informer in the rise of hegemonic justice in the 14th century Italian city-states, focusing on a case-study: Siena. Thanks to two “ordinamenta” promulgated in 1311 and 1325, after subverted attemptos against the government of “Nine” (and so the “pacifico stato” of the city-state), we may follow the use of secret information tool in the communal repressive policy and the work of progressive refinement and improvement of the device which played a central role in suppressing organized political dissent and dismantling conspiracy activities.

Gloria Camesasca, Lo stile delle lettere di Lapo mazzei a Francesco Datini tra formulari classici e modelli mercantili

The notary Lapo Mazzei (1350-1412) was a friend and a correspondent of the merchant of Prato Francesco Datini (1335 about1410). Mazzei’s letters written to Datini are an important source

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because they return a significant cross-section of life and personal relations of a merchant and a notary lived in Tuscany at the end of the fourteenth century. The article analyzes letters’ structure and style, comparing Mazzei’s language with classical models (such as artes dictandi) and forms typical of the mercantile world. In particular the essay focuses on layout, annotations shown on the reverse (superscriptions, receipt indications) and expressive methods used especially in the initial and final parts.

Elisabetta Mori, Gli Orsini del ramo di manoppello nei documenti dell’Archivio Storico Capitolino

Among the document collections that emerged during the reorganization of the Orsini Archive, one of the most important is the one concerning the lords of Manoppello. The aim of this essay is to reveal the registered documents, place them within their historical and genealogical context and lay the path for more thorough studies on the subject in the future. The history of this branch of the Orsini, but also the ancient families that intermarried with them over time and thus inherited their documents, invite one to revisit the tumultuous history of the Kingdom of Naples – a Kingdom in which the Orsini of Manoppello fell and arose more than once as they sought to avoid succumbing during the various phases of the contest for the Kingdom of Naples among the Dukes of Anjou, Anjou of Durazzo and the Aragona up until the final dèbacle in the third decade of the sixteenth century, with the final dominion of the Spanish crown in Italy.

Riccardo Facchini, i negoziati di Venezia con Abū al-‘Abbās per il riscatto dei captivi (1386-1392). Diplomazia, commercio e guerra di corsa nel mediterraneo del Trecento The present paper investigates the diplomatic relations between Venice and the Hafside Emir Abū al-‘Abbās (1371-1394), with an eye to the negotiations aimed at obtaining the release of Venetian prisoners. The ransom of the captives will be studied as a part of the flexible Venetian diplomacy, with the aim to study the original sides of this activity and their practical aspects, such as the role of the diplomatic

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actors, the impact of privateering, and the economic resources requested.

Brian J. Maxson, The Letters of Giannozzo manetti: Context and Chronology, with an edition of Four New Letters This article pieces together the extant, private letters written to and from the humanist Giannozzo Manetti. It analyzes each letter within Manetti’s broader historical and biographical contexts. The article concludes with two appendices. The first appendix lists all of the known private letters to or from Manetti, as well as leads on known manuscript witnesses and printed editions of each letter. The second appendix publishes four new letters.

Francesca De Cianni, Verso una nuova edizione delle lettere cateriniane. ulteriori rilevamenti sul rapporto tra i testimoni della raccolta maconi

The article intends to reconstruct the manuscript traditions of the Fourteenth Century collection of epistles arranged by Stefano Maconi, one of Catherine of Siena’s main secretaries, and preserved in a corpus of codices which transmits the text of Catherine’s letters.

The philological investigation of this article focuses especially on forty letters transmitted only from the Maconi’s sylloge. The present investigation identifies the relationship between the surviving witnesses, which form this collection, but it also underlines the important results regarding the initial study conducted during the first half of the Twentieth Century by Eugenio Dupré Theseider, who edited a single volume of a critical edition of Catherine’s letters in 1940. At the end of the article will be presented a discussion of some textual choices from Dupré’s edition.

Emanuela Guidoboni, Terremoti: distruzioni e ricostruzioni nel medioevo italiano (secoli V-XV) Why study earthquakes of the past? After more than three decades’ research, what results do we have to show concerning the

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Middle Ages? What has medievalist research contributed (or has still to offer) to our knowledge of seismic hazard? These are questions that this article sets out to answer, targeting historians who are all too often quite out of touch with such multidisciplinary research. With the help, since 2009, of an international guide to the techniques of historical seismology, these studies set themselves a twofold task: to provide seismology and geophysics with precise quantifiable data on the course and energy of earthquakes past (chronology, geographic location, assessment of impact on the territory and on specific places); and also to highlight the more-than-millennial relationship between the natural features of a geological environment and the world inhabiting it. That relationship lay behind the seismic disaster in history, an unforeseen result of the riotous growth of Italian towns from the 12th century on. After a destructive earthquake, the human casualties of which used hardly ever to be mentioned before the 13th century, governments would only intervene to restore places of public utility (palazzi and churches) or those serving to control the land (forts and bridges). Often the population were prevented by armed force from abandoning the town in ruins, and pressed into reconstruction work, supplying their own means and labour. As well as providing overall data, maps and graphs of patterns across the centuries, the author presents various cases of earthquakes (723, 801, 854, 951, 1117, 1169, 1273, 1275, 1346, 1349, 1456, 1461), that illustrate the complexity of this field of medieval studies, and the value of such data for presentday assessment of hazard and risk.

Bruno Figliuolo, Le difficoltà tecniche e finanziarie della ricostruzione post-sismica: il terremoto del 1349 nell’italia centrale The study of the great earthquake that stroke central Italy in September 1349 was deepened thanks to the rich and unpublished body of documentation consisting of Orvieto’s council minutes and an account book of a church in Viterbo. The study is especially focused on the consequences of the quake together with times and methods of a very long and difficult reconstruction hindered by financial difficulties.

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Andrea Arrighetti, ricostruire dopo il terremoto fra Tardo medioevo e prima età moderna. Similarità e divergenze fra fonti storiche e lettura archeosismologica di alcuni contesti in mugello (Fi)

The paper outlines the post-seismic scenarios of some contexts in Mugello relating to one of the most destructive events known to date in this area: the earthquake of 13 June 1542. The historical sources and evidence found by the stratigraphic analysis of the buildings act as a common thread to outline what were the social, cultural and political aspects that followed the disastrous event. The archaeological reading has also made it possible to recognize and periodise some instabilities prior to the earthquake of the sixteenth century, probably attributable to an event that occurred in the mid-thirteenth century.

Mario Tozzi, Paure immotivate

The history of homo sapiens is a history of disasters, whether the consequences of natural events or the failure of human actions (man made disaster). Today there is a science of disasters (disastrology).

Disasters are scary because they seem totally out of our control, unpredictable, they are scary because they release large quantities of energy and because they generate uncertain and difficult to estimate consequences. The result is that today the damage caused by them is more serious than in the past. We can reasonably save ourselves from unmotivated fears simply through basic scientific knowledge and by adopting harmonious behaviours towards the planet to avoid the catastrophic consequences of natural events.

Umberto Longo, “Tra un manifesto e lo specchio”. Piccola storia del medievalismo tra diaframmi, maniere e pretesti

What are the relationships between medievalism and medieval history. It is possible to reconstruct the history of medievalism as a field of studies and as a discipline starting from the study of the history of the term to reach to the current definition of medievalism in relation to Cultural Studies. These are the assumptions from which the essay, placed at the introduction of a section explicitly dedicated to

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medievalism, intends to consider the evolution of studies on medievalism in recent decades and the way this has led to a progressive expansion of the themes, approaches and an inexorable trespassing of the traces of the history of historiography.

These multifaceted characteristics of medievalism, which cannot be completely traced back to the parameters of the history of historiography, can also be assessed as an opportunity to examine the possibility of updates and possible extensions of the methodological agenda of medieval historiography and may represent an opportunity to explore the disciplinary boundaries related to the study of medievalism. Medievalism, intended as “continuing process of creating the Middle Ages”, can constitute a laboratory aimed at verifying the functions and relationships of the discipline of medieval history in Italy with contemporary society. Starting from the awareness that Italian historiography has long caught and highlighted the link between medievalism and history of historiography. In this particular perspective, the Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo has constituted an important forum for the comparison and reflection on the relationships between the history of historiography and medievalism.

Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri, Cinque altri modi di sognare il medioevo.

Addenda a un testo celebre

1985 saw the publication of the short and dense Dreaming of the middle Ages by Umberto Eco. This paper, later reprinted in various editions and in many languages, has become the world’s most famous essay on “medievalism.” While its analysis of possible approaches to the idea of the Middle Ages was based in Italian culture, its lessons are generalizable to other cultures. Eco proposed a subdivision by themes: The Middle Ages as a pretext; The M.A. as the site of an ironical revisitation; The M. A. as a barbaric age; The M. A. of Romanticism; The M. A. of the philosophia perennis or of neo-Thomism; The M. A. of national identities; The M. A. of Decadentism; The M. A. of philological reconstruction; The M. A. of so-called Tradition; The M. A. of the expectation of the Millennium.

Eco’s cogent delineation of conceptual categories both took stock of the situation and greatly influenced subsequent studies. In the years since Umberto Eco wrote society has changed radically, especially with

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regard to forms of communication, and interpretations and representations of the Middle Ages have continuously experimented with new modes of expression. Today, in light of the numerous studies on medievalism, we are well-positioned to evaluate the stability of the “ten ways” identified by Eco, as well as to integrate his list with five additional ones: 11. The authorial Middle Ages (the M. A. of the great authors, each of whom must be read and understood individually); 12.

The Middle Ages in the plural (in a liquid society like ours, where everyone can write and publish online, the M. A. can have as many faces as there are websites); 13. The Middle Ages of political banality (that of the contemporary use of the M. A. to “do” politics); 14. The Middle Ages of the market (which is currently dominant); 15. The Middle Ages of the medievalist labyrinth (that of internal reflection in the disciplines of medieval studies and in medievalism, which is currently very lively).

Geraldine Leardi, ravenna lirica. Pietre, avori, mosaici bizantini in prestito alla Fiamma di Ottorino respighi

In January 1934 Ottorino Respighi brought the melodrama back to the stage with the opera La Fiamma, a dark story of evil and death exemplified on a Norwegian theatrical pièce but set in the seventh-century Byzantine Ravenna. The choice of the small Adriatic Byzantium, its monuments, the most famous mosaics, the costumes inspired by the figures in the imperial processions in San Vitale or in the theory of virgins in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, to set the scenes and dress the main characters of La Fiamma is a very important and so far unexplored ‘act’ of Byzantinism; an undeniable sign that the Byzantine world plays, in the crucial thirties of the twentieth century, a specific cultural function, that of being the anti-Rome, an alternative and a denial of the civilization of thought and of the dominant image of that time, that seduced artists and musicians and lead their sensitivity and their creations.

Francesca Roversi Monaco, «Damsel in distress». medioevo, medievalismo e ruoli di genere nella cultura audiovisiva contemporanea

Each form of narrative reflects, albeit implicitly, the society that produces it, since it depicts the prevailing cultural and social networks

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in a precise historical phase, becoming essential to follow its evolution according to the change of society itself. If the narrative and its products are useful to the representation of human societies, narrative models are subject to continuous processes of rewriting end refashioning, reflecting the evolution of societies and characterizing both the historical scriptures as well as fiction. The reworking of history and stories is, therefore, fundamental to managing every society, depicting its changes, questioning how strategically weak or risky it is.

In the last two centuries much of the representation of Western society has been characterized by the omnipresence of contexts, images, characters relating to the imagined Middle Ages, metahistoric and timeless shaped by the Romanticism in a common ‘neomedieval culture and language, so much so that medievalism can defined as a real lingua franca produced in transnational and international contexts to reach a global audience.

Within this methodological framework and considering the importance of gender studies in contemporary scientific reflection, an analysis of female models and gender roles conveyed in contemporary culture is proposed through literary, iconographic, audiovisual representations that, using the metahistorical Middle Ages defined by medievalism, on the one hand continually renew its essence, on the other hand express a precise and historical interpretation of reality.

Starting from the romantic archetype of the damsel distress, and considering that the Middle Ages is also the time of the fairytale, the rewritings of some traditional fairy tales have been analyzed in an interdisciplinary approach to try to understand the role of medievalism in conveying the transformations of gender relations and the female role in contemporary society, while maintaining a solid historiographical interpretation of the phenomenon.

Matteo Sanfilippo, medioevi inventati e medioevi alternativi negli Stati uniti degli ultimi venti anni

In the last twenty years a vast production of entertainment, in large part American, has used medieval scenes in films, television series, novels and video games. The novelty with respect to the past is due to the fact that this production no longer tries to retell or recreate the European Middle Ages and that it prefers pseudo-middle ages set

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in other planets or in alternative universes. As a result, novels and historical films about the Middle Ages, still quite widespread at the end of the twentieth century, have clearly declined, and even the once very numerous medieval romance novels have disappeared.

In this context, the most traditional narrative strands of the past century have disappeared, apart from those centered on Robin Hood or King Arthur, who in the twentieth century were often located in fanciful chronologies. The new medieval fantasy has kept some twentieth-century markers of sagas such as Tolkien’s, using dragons and other fantastic creatures (trolls, orcs, half-orcs), or leaving ample room for magical forces, but then focused on highly modernizing themes, because dependent on today’s debate in the United States and the United Kingdom. For example, the confrontation between different “ethnic” groups, often originating in other planets such as the orcs of the World of Warcraft universe (videogames and novels), has become central. Furthermore, almost all the authors, whether novelists, screenwriters or videogame developers, have addressed the question of the presence and role of women and “non-whites” in possible Middle Ages. Thanks to the success of some narratives and the critical processing abilities of many authors, this inclusion has impressed AngloAmerican scholars, in particular those attentive to the popular dimension. thus the new fantasy has been judged the best tool to make a Middle Ages known, not just fantastic, in which the heroes are no longer just heroic white-skinned riders, but can be above all women, even “non-white”, who reveal extraordinary strength and resilience, while orcs and trolls can prove more noble and disinterested than the human warriors fighting them.

The set of these fantastic reinventions is probably unable to impose a new shared image of the Middle Ages. Although this is one of the hypotheses underlying «The Public Medievalist», an online magazine, whose staff promotes quantitative research on how much films, tele-series, fantasy novels, role-plays and videogames influence the image that students of the upper secondary schools and the Englishspeaking universities have of the historical Middle Ages. For the moment, however, it seems more fruitful to investigate how the transformations of American society have influenced the fantastic reinvention of the Middle Ages, starting from fundamental elements such as skin color and gender identities.

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