Summer School - call for applications by Giacomo Vignodelli
We are pleased to announce the call for applications for the International Summer School Integrat... more We are pleased to announce the call for applications for the International Summer School Integrating Traditional and Digital Approaches in Manuscripts Studies - INTRADAMS, for the current academic year.
This is the first Summer School organized by the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Milan, with the collaboration of researchers from the University of Rochester (N.Y.), of the Archivio Storico Civico and Biblioteca Trivulziana of Milan, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan and the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli.
The INTRADAMS Summer school is aimed at postgraduates who wish to deepen their historical, textual, graphic, and material knowledge of books and documents through the interaction of the traditional approaches (i.e. historical, paleographical, codicological, and philological-textual exegesis) with those of digital diagnostics, applied physics, imaging, and materials science.
The course will be held in Milan from 26th June to 7th July 2023, at our Department and at the Trivulziana Library, which preserves a palimpsest manuscript of the Divine Comedy chosen as a case study for the workshop activity.
The deadline for registration is 15th May.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://www.studistorici.unimi.it/ecm/home/didattica/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at:
https://www.unimi.it/en/international/study-abroad/international-opportunities/summer-school-integrating-traditional-and-digital-approaches-manuscript-studies-intradams-aa-2022
Papers by Giacomo Vignodelli
This paper proposes a new comprehensive analysis of the diplomas issued by the kings of Italy Hug... more This paper proposes a new comprehensive analysis of the diplomas issued by the kings of Italy Hugh (926-946) and Lothar II (931-950). The study of the surviving original charters draws on the recent paradigm shift in the interpretation of the structures of early medieval «chanceries», the forms of issuing of royal diplomas and, more generally, the system of public documentation. On the one hand, diplomas are here reconsidered in
their archival sequences, setting them free of the «monumentalization» imposed by modern serial editions. On the other, the different hands that drafted them are reexamined, as the scribes of documents of such great importance from the point of view of political and symbolic communication are not to be considered any longer as low-level functionaries working in rigidly structured «chancery offices». The paradigm shift allows to shed light on the complex and varied range of interactions that underpinned the issuing of a diploma: in some cases, the role of the royal court and the king’s closest collaborators is prevalent, in others, the initiative comes from the recipients; at times, the intervention of high-profile intermediaries, who were also responsible for the actual drafting of the documents, is crucial. The new framework thus allows for a better reconstruction of the political workings of the kingdom and of the concrete scope for royal political action, providing also new bases for comparison with the subsequent Ottonian rule.
Agir en commun dans les sociétés du haut Moyen Âge, a c. di Vito Loré, Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, Régine Le Jan, 2024
Il caso della Schola sacerdotum veronese tra élites locali, autorità episcopale e riconoscimento ... more Il caso della Schola sacerdotum veronese tra élites locali, autorità episcopale e riconoscimento regio (931-983)
in Documenti scartati, documenti reimpiegati. Forme, linguaggi e metodi per nuove prospettive di ricerca, a c. di G. De Gregorio, M. Mangini e M. Modesti, Genova (Notarium Itinera. Varia 8), pp. 51-80., 2023
Ms. CLXXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli offers an excellent case study on the subject ... more Ms. CLXXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli offers an excellent case study on the subject of the discard and reuse of documentary sources. It was produced between 1163 and 1210 to copy the Liber contra Catharos by Ekbert of Schönau, by means of a very extensive and consistent reuse operation: the manuscript consists almost entirely of palimpsest folia, which were obtained by reusing 10th and 11th-century charters from the archives of the Eusebian church. The study presents the results of the research on the codex, preliminary to the complete multispectral analysis of the palimpsests, that is currently underway. The investigations will allow the textual restitution (at least partial) of the approximately 50 original documents: an important corpus both in terms of quantity – the contemporary charters currently preserved at the Capitolare are 30 in all – and in terms of quality, because it bears witness to a crucial and very little-documented phase in the history of the Eusebian episcopate, firmly intertwined with that of the kingdom. Equally significant, from the point of view of both cultural and religious history, as well as ecclesiastical and political history, is the reuse of the material for the copy of the Liber contra Catharos in Vercelli, in one of the oldest witnesses of the anti-heretical work. However, the restitution of the scriptio inferior on the one hand, and the contextualisation and significance of the reuse on the other, do not exhaust the informative potential and historical value of the palimpsest manuscript, if considered as a source in itself. The paper is focused on the central moment of the discard, which is investigated as evidence of the transformations in documentary and archival practices that occurred in the second half of the 12th century, in the broader context of the patrimonial and institutional transformations of the Vercelli church.
Liberté de parole Les élites savantes et la critique des pouvoirs, Orient et Occident, VIIIe-XIIIe siècle, 2023
The imperative to 'speak the truth' even before kings, without fear of uttering the criticism nec... more The imperative to 'speak the truth' even before kings, without fear of uttering the criticism necessary for the salvation of the kingdom and the soul of the rulers, may appear at odds with a specific form of criticism prominent in the works of some post-Carolingian bishops: allusiveness. The veiled and indirect attack, which strikes out allusively without naming its target, circumventing the danger structurally present in the exercise of parrhesia, may in fact appear to be the opposite of the 'frank talk' of the Christian parresiast. This study aims to show how this contradiction is only apparent and can be solved once the significance of allusive criticism in the post-Carolingian cultural context is understood and the innovative model of criticism it invoked is recognised. Thanks to a recent season of studies on the medieval reception of Persius and Juvenal, we know that between the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century there was a rediscovery of classical satirical poetry: this late-Carolingian reception of satire identified allusiveness as one of the characteristics of the genre deputed to the reprehensio of the mores of the world. The reflection was set in motion by the encounter between these new readings, the imperatives of Carolingian political theology and the contingencies of contemporary political life and generated a first experimental Christian appropriation of the satirical model, which from that moment on began its own journey in Western European culture.
This appropriation and reinvention of satirical criticism took its first steps in the context of the Kingdom of Italy: the study follows its first traces in the Gesta Berengarii imperatoris (915-924) and in particular in the Praeloquia (written from 935 onwards), with which bishop Rather of Verona proposed the first reflection on episcopal criticism of kings in an allusive form, invoking the model of classical satire. Rather’s proposal was taken up and developed by bishop Atto of Vercelli, with a work that constitutes a first episcopal synthesis of satire and prophetic Christian criticism, the Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum (953-958).
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vitale_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ugo-di-provenza-re-d-italia_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/supponidi_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
Originale - Fälschungen - Kopien. Kaiser- und Königsurkunden für Empfänger in Deutschland und Italien (9.-11. Jahrhundert) und ihre Nachwirkungen im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (bis ca. 1500), ed. N. D'Acunto - W. Huschner - S. Roebert, Leipzig 2018 (Italia Regia 3)
This article discusses Benedetta Valtorta’s recent suggestion concerning the authorship of the Po... more This article discusses Benedetta Valtorta’s recent suggestion concerning the authorship of the Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum. Valtorta’s study adds substantially to our knowledge about the drafting of the glosses that comment upon the text in the main manuscript (Vat. lat. 4322) and about the relation between the Polipticum and the works by Rather of Verona. Nevertheless, the suggestion of stripping Atto of Vercelli of its authorship and the new attribution to Rather himself are not viable hypotheses: the direct and indirect information about the authorship given by the main manuscript, an analysis of the sources of the text – which are still preserved in manuscripts from Vercelli owned and used by Bishop Atto himself – and a comparison with the rest of his writings, along with the consideration of the historical and political contents of the work, show that the main text was indeed written by Bishop Atto. The authorship of the second explicatory redaction and of the glosses should also be attributed to the Vercelli chapter school, operating under the author’s guidance. The connection to the works of Rather noted by Benedetta Valtorta and the analysis of some passages from the writings of the two authors point to a dialogue between the two bishops within the wider cultural and scholastic context of their time and suggest that Rather of Verona should be identified not as the author of the Polipticum, but as the anonymous bishop to whom the work is addressed.
Among the books that were donated to the Eusebian library by the archpriest Mandolo Alciati in 12... more Among the books that were donated to the Eusebian library by the archpriest Mandolo Alciati in 1210, there is a Liber Enkeberti abbatis contra Kataros, that may be identified with ms. CLXXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare. The manuscript was produced in Vercelli at the end of the twelfth century through the reuse of a large number of older parchments, that originally contained tenth and eleventh century private charters from the Eusebian archives. The analysis of the palimpsests through the multispectral reproductions elaborated by Lazarus project enables us to read, at least partially, four unpublished documents that give us new information on the history of Vercelli in tenth and eleventh centuries and modify the chronologies of bishops Atto (924-957/8) and Ingo (957/8-974).
This article presents a new interpretation of Atto of Vercelli's Perpendiculum: this cryptic work... more This article presents a new interpretation of Atto of Vercelli's Perpendiculum: this cryptic work, composed between 953 and 960, is a peroration that adopts the structural model of the classical oratio, identifying usurpations as the cause of the political problems of post-Carolingian Europe. The text's aim is to denounce the usurpation that later led Otto I to definitively deprive Berengar II of his throne. The author's political discourse is a prophetic warning based on an eschatological reading of the political history of the Italian kingdom in the first half of the tenth century, analysed in depth by Atto. The crimes of the powerful are condemned in the cryptic and allusive style of classical satirical poets, within a work of considerable cultural ambition. The source adds significantly to our knowledge of the history of the Italian kingdom and conveys the author's specific assertion of the political role of the episcopate.
Il patrimonio delle regine: beni del fisco e politica regia fra IX e X secolo, 2012
I due dotari gemelli costituiti da Ugo di Provenza, re del regno italico, per il proprio fidanzam... more I due dotari gemelli costituiti da Ugo di Provenza, re del regno italico, per il proprio fidanzamento con Berta e per quello di suo figlio Lotario con Adelaide devono essere compresi all’interno della politica di rafforzamento del potere regio condotta dal re negli anni Trenta del secolo X: di quella politica sono infatti il coronamento. La doppia costituzione dotale fornisce al re italico l’occasione di riservare per sé (e per la giovane coppia regia appena formata) un forte controllo del centro della pianura padana intorno a Pavia e di smantellare (a vantaggio del dominio regio) le basi del potere marchionale in Tuscia. L’analisi dell’operato di Ugo permette la comprensione della sua politica nei confronti delle aristocrazie e dei meccanismi di promozione delle nuove famiglie (Aleramici, Obertenghi, Canossa). Le carte furono conservate nell’archivio della fondazione adelaidina del Salvatore di Pavia non per via della dotazione patrimoniale del monastero ma come strumento di legittimazione politica della nuova famiglia regia ottoniana.
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Summer School - call for applications by Giacomo Vignodelli
The deadline for registration is 12th February.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://studistorici.unimi.it/it/didattica/progetti-e-laboratori/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at (ENG): https://studistorici.unimi.it/system/files/2024-01/Bando%20SS%20INTRADAMS%202023-2024_EN.pdf
This is the first Summer School organized by the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Milan, with the collaboration of researchers from the University of Rochester (N.Y.), of the Archivio Storico Civico and Biblioteca Trivulziana of Milan, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan and the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli.
The INTRADAMS Summer school is aimed at postgraduates who wish to deepen their historical, textual, graphic, and material knowledge of books and documents through the interaction of the traditional approaches (i.e. historical, paleographical, codicological, and philological-textual exegesis) with those of digital diagnostics, applied physics, imaging, and materials science.
The course will be held in Milan from 26th June to 7th July 2023, at our Department and at the Trivulziana Library, which preserves a palimpsest manuscript of the Divine Comedy chosen as a case study for the workshop activity.
The deadline for registration is 15th May.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://www.studistorici.unimi.it/ecm/home/didattica/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at:
https://www.unimi.it/en/international/study-abroad/international-opportunities/summer-school-integrating-traditional-and-digital-approaches-manuscript-studies-intradams-aa-2022
Papers by Giacomo Vignodelli
their archival sequences, setting them free of the «monumentalization» imposed by modern serial editions. On the other, the different hands that drafted them are reexamined, as the scribes of documents of such great importance from the point of view of political and symbolic communication are not to be considered any longer as low-level functionaries working in rigidly structured «chancery offices». The paradigm shift allows to shed light on the complex and varied range of interactions that underpinned the issuing of a diploma: in some cases, the role of the royal court and the king’s closest collaborators is prevalent, in others, the initiative comes from the recipients; at times, the intervention of high-profile intermediaries, who were also responsible for the actual drafting of the documents, is crucial. The new framework thus allows for a better reconstruction of the political workings of the kingdom and of the concrete scope for royal political action, providing also new bases for comparison with the subsequent Ottonian rule.
This appropriation and reinvention of satirical criticism took its first steps in the context of the Kingdom of Italy: the study follows its first traces in the Gesta Berengarii imperatoris (915-924) and in particular in the Praeloquia (written from 935 onwards), with which bishop Rather of Verona proposed the first reflection on episcopal criticism of kings in an allusive form, invoking the model of classical satire. Rather’s proposal was taken up and developed by bishop Atto of Vercelli, with a work that constitutes a first episcopal synthesis of satire and prophetic Christian criticism, the Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum (953-958).
The deadline for registration is 12th February.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://studistorici.unimi.it/it/didattica/progetti-e-laboratori/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at (ENG): https://studistorici.unimi.it/system/files/2024-01/Bando%20SS%20INTRADAMS%202023-2024_EN.pdf
This is the first Summer School organized by the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Milan, with the collaboration of researchers from the University of Rochester (N.Y.), of the Archivio Storico Civico and Biblioteca Trivulziana of Milan, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan and the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli.
The INTRADAMS Summer school is aimed at postgraduates who wish to deepen their historical, textual, graphic, and material knowledge of books and documents through the interaction of the traditional approaches (i.e. historical, paleographical, codicological, and philological-textual exegesis) with those of digital diagnostics, applied physics, imaging, and materials science.
The course will be held in Milan from 26th June to 7th July 2023, at our Department and at the Trivulziana Library, which preserves a palimpsest manuscript of the Divine Comedy chosen as a case study for the workshop activity.
The deadline for registration is 15th May.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://www.studistorici.unimi.it/ecm/home/didattica/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at:
https://www.unimi.it/en/international/study-abroad/international-opportunities/summer-school-integrating-traditional-and-digital-approaches-manuscript-studies-intradams-aa-2022
their archival sequences, setting them free of the «monumentalization» imposed by modern serial editions. On the other, the different hands that drafted them are reexamined, as the scribes of documents of such great importance from the point of view of political and symbolic communication are not to be considered any longer as low-level functionaries working in rigidly structured «chancery offices». The paradigm shift allows to shed light on the complex and varied range of interactions that underpinned the issuing of a diploma: in some cases, the role of the royal court and the king’s closest collaborators is prevalent, in others, the initiative comes from the recipients; at times, the intervention of high-profile intermediaries, who were also responsible for the actual drafting of the documents, is crucial. The new framework thus allows for a better reconstruction of the political workings of the kingdom and of the concrete scope for royal political action, providing also new bases for comparison with the subsequent Ottonian rule.
This appropriation and reinvention of satirical criticism took its first steps in the context of the Kingdom of Italy: the study follows its first traces in the Gesta Berengarii imperatoris (915-924) and in particular in the Praeloquia (written from 935 onwards), with which bishop Rather of Verona proposed the first reflection on episcopal criticism of kings in an allusive form, invoking the model of classical satire. Rather’s proposal was taken up and developed by bishop Atto of Vercelli, with a work that constitutes a first episcopal synthesis of satire and prophetic Christian criticism, the Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum (953-958).
Moreover the study of the fisc, of its functioning and of its impact on early and high medieval societies may benefit considerably from archaeology. The ERC Advanced Grant nEU-Med has recently started to investigate some sites in southern Tuscany (Vetricella, Carlappiano). This interdisciplinary project aims to understand the manner and timing of the Western Mediterranean economic growth between 7th and 12th centuries. The choice of a sample area (the Maremma) is useful to investigate minutely the mechanisms of production and trade over a long period of time. This region, situated in the South-West of Tuscany overlooking the Tyrrhenian See, is characterized by the presence of key coastal sites such as Vetricella. The site has distinctive traits, which make it closer to other rural sites of central and northern Italy, already excavated in the last decades: the presence of hyper-specialized production activities and, moreover, a strong connection with the fisc. On-going excavations furthermore suggest that birth of these centres was due to heavy investments, so large that it could be conducted only by a very strong power, which radically transformed the surrounding landscape and environment.
Through the juxtaposition of written and archaeological sources, we want to present and discuss this and other case studies and we will try to answer some questions, partly specific, partly more general, with a comparative slant. 1) Could these sites constitute a new economic-settlement model? Are they a sort of link between the traditional labels of curtis and castle? They might be interpreted as fortified directional poles of large estates, functional to control and store raw materials, agrarian and craft production. 2) What was their level of integration with the surrounding areas? In fact, they seem the focal points of closed circuits that only extract resources from rural areas to meet the demand of the courts, the great imperial abbeys and aristocrats, who still remained, at least in Italy, mainly city-based. 3) How many and where were fiscal estates deployed? 4) What were the management and structuring methods of large estates carried out by European rulers? In reference to the Kingdom of Italy, scholars have just highlighted different and sophisticated solutions which were applied by rulers, such as the creation of privileged reserves: the entrustment to queens through dowries (Hugh of Arles) or to imperial abbeys, often under the control of royal females (St. Saviour of Brescia, St. Sixtus of Piacenza). It seems also crucial to investigate ways, breadth and depth of fiscal properties circulation and redistribution. 5) Was the possession of fiscal estates related with the construction of territorial ambits for the exercise of power?
The aim of our sessions is to shed some light on this “dark matter”. We believe that our knowledge and interpretative schemes of European early and high medieval society might be said complete only with a deeper understanding of the extent, feature, influence and behaviour of the fisc.
The connection between culture and political influence is the primary area of interest we would like to investigate in our sessions at the IMC 2016. Our attention shall therefore focus on the schools and centres of learning where bishops acquired the knowledge and the tools necessary for the performance of their duties and the wielding of their authority. Bishops had often been teachers before taking up their office and “education” – both in a restricted and wider sense – often remained a primary area of interest after their episcopal election. The education bishops received before reaching the top of the church hierarchy, their personal involvement in teaching and the impact their learning and didactic experience had on their political actions are three intertwined aspects we shall like to explore.
The main question we would like to address is the following: how was the education and learning of bishops actualised in their writings – in the form of authorial works as well as commentaries, glosses and annotations in margin of other texts – and, more generally, in their pastoral and political discourse and activities?
L'atelier doctoral si prefigge di portare attenzione sulle specificità e le sperimentazioni di un lungo periodo - esteso dalla fine dell'impero carolingio alla morte di Ottone III - che, anche nei contesti urbani, si caratterizzò per l'originale interazione fra regole di vertice del gioco politico e protagonismi emergenti dal tessuto di una società via via più articolata e conflittuale. Naturalmente, è preliminare a qualsiasi ricostruzione una ponderata valutazione del panorama e della struttura delle fonti-in particolare di quelle documentarie-, che fanno registrare nel X secolo un generalizzato incremento quantitativo: di qui la scelta di articolare il programma dei lavori su casi di studio-locali o regionali-caratterizzati da assetti delle fonti proficuamente comparabili, per analogia o differenza, e all'interno del quale una specifica centralità sarà riservata alla realtà per più versi 'laboratorio' di Piacenza. La città padana, come noto, rappresenta il secondo giacimento documentario dell'Italia altomedievale, e la pubblicazione delle sue carte d'archivio (circa 430 pezzi), ancora largamente inedite, rientra tra gli obiettivi del progetto "Repenser le 10e siècle au prisme des territoires: régulations et résistances dans une Europe en reformation (870-1000)", Programme structurant 2022-2026 dell'École française de Rome.
May 2, 16:00-18:00, Aula Gambi, complesso di S. Giovanni in Monte.
ricche di potenzialità euristiche sotto vari punti di vista: a) per consistenza numerica delle testimonianze superstiti e peculiarità dei ritrovamenti possibili; b) perché offrono un spaccato inedito del fenomeno dello scarto di materiale scrittorio, interessando contesti differenti da quelli finora considerati (cancellerie, uffici amministrativi, archivi pubblici e privati, notarili, ecclesiastici, familiari...); c) per le particolarità dei problemi metodologici e descrittivi che sollevano (inadeguatezza degli strumenti catalografici tradizionali, tutti modellati sull’ambito librario). L’obiettivo è, dunque, quello di avviare un primo dialogo e confronto tra diplomatisti, paleografi e codicologi su questo insieme di testimonianze manoscritte finora trascurate, attraverso l’esame di singoli casi emblematici e, più in generale, la condivisione delle esperienze portate avanti finora in diverse aree italiane e non (ambito greco, ebraico, slavo, etiope), nell’ottica di una prima, provvisoria, mappatura dell’esistente e della definizione di nuove prospettive di ricerca per il futuro.
La condizione speciale delle regine del regno italico fra IX e X secolo è segnalata dalla qualifica di consors regni e dal conferimento di dotari eccezionalmente cospicui se confrontati con quelli delle altre regine europee. La ricostruzione puntuale di quei dotari, costituiti da beni del fisco regio, ha permesso di spiegare tale anomalia nel contesto delle specifiche strategie di governo del regno.
Sommario
Tiziana Lazzari, Dotari e beni fiscali
Roberta Cimino, Angelberga: il monastero di San Sisto di Piacenza e il corso del fiume Po
P. Guglielmotti, Ageltrude: dal ducato di Spoleto al cuore del regno italico
C. Sereno, Bertilla e Berta: il ruolo di Santa Giulia di Brescia e di San Sisto di Piacenza nel regno di Berengario I
G. Isabella, Matilde, Edgith e Adelaide: scontri generazionali e dotari delle regine in Germania
G. Vignodelli, Berta e Adelaide: la politica di consolidamento del potere regio di Ugo di Arles"
INTRADAMS is aimed at postgraduates who wish to deepen their historical, textual, graphic, and material knowledge of books and documents through the interaction of the traditional approaches (i.e. historical, paleographical, codicological, and philological-textual exegesis) with those of digital diagnostics, applied physics, imaging, and materials science.
The course will be held in Milan from 26th June to 7th July 2023, at our Department and at the Trivulziana Library, which preserves a palimpsest manuscript of the Divine Comedy chosen as a case study for the workshop activity.
The deadline for registration is 15th May.
You can find the call for applications and all information about the courses on offer, lecturers and activities on the Summer School website (in Italian and English):
https://www.studistorici.unimi.it/ecm/home/didattica/summer-school-intradams
The call for applications is also available at:
https://www.unimi.it/en/international/study-abroad/international-opportunities/summer-school-integrating-traditional-and-digital-approaches-manuscript-studies-intradams-aa-2022