Pontifical States

Recent archive researches have revealed that, after the fire that destroyed in 1823 a large part of the papal Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls, the Engineer and Architect Luigi Poletti was commissioned by Pope Leo XII to provide for its reconstruction. During the accomplishment of the most important part of the work, carried out between 1833 and 1869, the Eng. Arch. Poletti asked the Pope to be helped in the realization of fire protection of building. The Pope then instructed Jesuit father Angelo Secchi, astronomer and geodesist of the Collegio Romano, to provide for the protection of the building. With the help of Giacomo Lusvergh, German and Italian naturalized optician and scientist, a complex of activities led to the creation in Rome of a fire-fighting service set up on the model adopted in the Napoleonic period in France. Of particular interest from the point of view of engineering innovation, however, is the design of a fire system that was to be built to protect the roof of the basilica. This system, in the project described by the documents of the Rome State Archives, was based on thermometers that, when exceeded at a certain temperature, activated the discharge of fire water contained in tanks under the roof of the building. Such a system can be considered one of the first cases of application of the fire safety engineering criteria to building fire protection.

Visitando  il  sito  Internet  dell’Istituto  Comprensivo  di  Cittaducale  alcuni  mesi  fa,  avevo  notato la  presenza  di  questo  testo  in  forma  grezza  e  l’appello  di  Arduino  Santilli  per  aiutare  a ricomporlo  in  modo tecnicamente leggibile e  consistente.  Invito  che  ho  volontariamente  raccolto,  per  ragioni  professionali  ed  in  segno  di  rispetto verso  un  luogo  a  me  caro  per  aver  dato  i  natali  a  mio  padre  Bruno  e  ai  miei  nonni  Sofia, Giuliano,  Domenica  ed  Ernesto,  di  cui  ricordo  frasi  che  risuonano  vive  fra  le  pagine  del Piccolo  Dizionario  Civitese  di Renato Novelli. Oltre  alla  ricostruzione  digitale  dei  dati  iniziali  ed  alla  reimpaginazione  in  ordine  alfabetico del  significativo  lavoro  del  Novelli,  il  mio  apporto  si  è  limitato  all’inserimento  di  questa Introduzione,  di  alcuni  ipertesti  soprattutto  nella  sezione  dedicata  agli  animali  e  della  pagina di Approfondimenti  che trovate in fondo al testo. Ritengo  e  mi  auguro  che  questa  opera,  partendo  dal  centro  d’Italia,  con  metodo  scientifico, passione,  impegno  e  l’ausilio  della  tecnologia,  possa  essere  ulteriormente  migliorata, arricchita  e  condivisa,  per  arrivare  e  rimanere  al  centro  del  villaggio  globale,  contribuendo così  a  valorizzare  la  lunga  storia  nonché  il  ricco  patrimonio  culturale  ed  ambientale  di Cittaducale  nel mondo. Sandro Severoni,  Roma,  Febbraio  2015.

Pontificial Chronicles from the Late Middle Ages. The Roman Periphery.
Este trabajo examina el desarrollo del género historiográfico en el Estado Pontificio durante el tránsito entre la Edad Media y el Renacimiento. Se propone una tipología de las fuentes atendiendo a su cronología (universales, coetáneas y sobre la Antigüedad), planteamiento expositivo (anales, crónicas, diarios) y objeto de interés particular (biografías, historias, recuerdos). En cada caso se examina el contexto histórico y cultural de elaboración, la relación existente entre el autor y los hechos que narra, las características literarias y contenido de la obra, y las posibilidades y límites que ofrece para el conocimiento histórico. Igualmente se precisa las técnicas métodos y empleados por los cronistas, en especial en aquellos casos en los que actúan como notarios. El estudio no se ciñe a Roma sino que comprende las regiones de Lazio, Umbría y Marche con objeto de disponer de una visión de conjunto que posibilite el análisis comparativo entre la cronística compuesta en la sede apostólica y en las ciudades sometidas a su jurisdicción.
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Pontificial Chronicles from the Late Middle Ages. The Roman Periphery.
Abstract: This study examines the development of the historiographic genre in the Papal States during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. A typology of the sources is proposed according to chronology (universal, coetaneous and relating to antiquity), approach (annals, chronicles, urban diaries), and the specific aim (biography, stories, memoirs). In each case the historic and cultural context is studied, as well as the link between the author and the facts he relates, the literary characteristics and the content, and finally the possibilities and limitations that are offered to historical knowledge. Likewise, the technique and method used by the chroniclers are specified, especially in those cases where the chronicler acts as notary too. This study is not only limited to Rome but includes the regions of Lazio, Umbria and Marche in order to present a view that may lead to a comparative analysis between the works made in the papal city and those from the cities within pontifical jurisdiction.

The courts of the Colonna’s fiefs in the Pontifical States at the end of the 18th Century. Structure, composition and revenues.

The issue of feudal jurisdictions in the Pontifical States in the Modern Age is addressed in this article by analyzing the case study of the lands ruled by the Colonna family. Based on the answers to a questionnaire drawn up by the gov-ernment in 1786, the Author reconstructs the structure of the courts and the revenue of their staff; based on the registers of the governors and sheriffs he sketches their origins and careers. The contemporaries’ complaints about the progressive decline of the jurisdictions’ revenues, which affected their administration and multiplied abuses, seems to be confirmed. The efforts by the pontifical government and by the landlords themselves to improve the condition of the courts’ officers and ministers are only partially successful and only after the revolutionary period would more radical measures be adopted, forecasting the abolition of feudal jurisdictions.

L’institution d’un Consulat de la mer a Civitavecchia en 1742 s’inscrivait avec retard dans un mouvement de reappropriation de l’exercice de la justice. Cette creation institutionnelle devait toutefois composer avec une ambiguite propre aux ports francs : etre a la fois une porte d’entree au commerce international et le filtre des echanges etrangers. Surtout, dans un contexte ou le commerce ‘actif’ devenait la ligne politique du pouvoir, le quotidien des acteurs economiques s’apparentait a une reinterpretation sociale des regles locales. Les agents institutionnels etaient en effet tres souvent lies aux protagonistes du commerce. Acteurs economiques et institutions etaient alors a meme d’incarner les normes avec un haut niveau de flexibilite.

"Resumen: La caída del Imperio Romano de Occidente propició el enfrentamiento entre diferentes grupos de poder por el control de la ciudad de Roma, la cual aún conservaba  un alto valor simbólico. Tras la Guerra Gótica (535-554) fue el Papado quien controló el recinto urbano y quien, además, poseía la propiedad sobre el conjunto de los monumentos clásicos, los cuales utilizó en su beneficio y para propagar una determinada ideología política. Es por ello que el objeto de estudio son estos usos, especialmente en el contexto del conflicto entre el Papado y el Sacro Imperio, a propósito de la superioridad del poder temporal sobre el espiritual y viceversa.

Abstract: The fall of the Western Roman Empire caused among power groups a confrontation for the control of the city of Rome, which still preserved a high symbolic value. After the Gothic War, the Pope was the one who controlled the urban area and, moreover, the owner of the set of classical monuments, which were used on his behalf to spread one particular political ideology. Hence, this study focusses on these uses, especially within the conflict between the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire, regarding the superiority of the temporary power over the spiritual one and vice versa."

This article proposes some considerations on the theme of supplications, intended both as a practice of communication between society and powers and as an historical source, moving from the petitions submitted to the princes Colonna by the inhabitants of their fiefs in southern Latium. The author analyses these texts considering them in the wider framework of the petitions related to other aspects of feudal power, addressed both by individuals and communities to the barons themselves or to the State’s institutions. Beyond their stereotypical appearance, supplications emerge as a kind of source which can help the historian grasp the political conceptions and attitudes of early modern societies and their mutations.

Although the presence of Gaeta’s seamen on the roman Tyrrhenian coast was not exactly a new phenomenon in the 18th century, Ripa Grande favoured a major increase of such presence. In a context of creation and assertion of a State identity, the initial insertion of the Gaetani by the means of the normative apparatus regulating papal fishing gave concrete expression to the slow accumulation of informal skills and the development of a network of strategically placed go-betweens. Such skills revealed to be a professional and economic stepping stone, combining diversified activities and institutional interpretation strategies.