75893 - History of Institutions and Cultural Heritage in the Middle Ages

Learning outcomes

Providing a set of updated knowledge and analytical skills, this course aims at enabling students to explore the formation and transmission of the cultural, historical, monumental and documentary heritage within a broad perspective, which includes Italy, Europe and the whole Mediterranean area. At the end of the course, the students will gain an in-depth knowledge of the political-institutional processes and socio-cultural entanglements that shaped medieval Europe, defining its peculiar identity and historical memory. The students will be able to use the acquired critical knowledge in analysing a specific historical context, an archival or book collection, the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of an institution. They will also be trained in the ability to communicate the outcome of a bibliographic research, conduct a critical reading of narrative or documentary sources and explore new paths through an appropriate methodology.

Course contents

Cities and communes in central and northern Italy (late ninth to fourteenth century). Instability and innovation of medieval political institutions: agendas and spaces, symbols and monuments.

This course aims at exploring the tumultuous and highly innovative political processes that took place in the urban centres of the regnum Italicum - probably the most urbanised area in medieval Europe - over an extended chronological period, i.e. from the late ninth to the middle of the fourteenth century. 

Starting from the process of fragmentation of the Carolingian institutions and the gradual reconfiguration of the political life mainly on a local level, this course focuses on a very peculiar type of local power, namely the Italian city. In this specific setting, the bishops preserved the legacy of the Roman concept of power much more than any other actor in any other contemporay political and social context. When secular urban leaders first supported and then replaced the bishops at the head of the cities, a completely new form of government grew up, giving rise to the Italian commune. Addressing the issue of the institutional creativity of the communes, which was never crystallised in strict legal formalisations and remained a constant source of political instability, is a hallmark of this course. The latter also shows the changing social composition of the leading élites of northern and central Italian cities, paying special attention to the symbolic communication that they adopted. This kind of communication includes symbols, like the so-called carroccio, civil rituals, such as those connected with the city's patron saint, and the monumentalisation of key-places of the urban centre (communal palaces, squares, cathedrals, fountains), to be seen as the outcome of a political use of the 'beauty', which still today makes many Italian cities unique.  

 

Readings/Bibliography

1) Attending students will be assessed on

- the contents of the lessons;

- J.-C. Maire Vigueur, Così belle, così vicine: viaggio insolito nelle città dell'Italia medievale, Bologna: il Mulino, 2023;

- G. Sergi, Poteri temporali del vescovo: il problema storiografico, in Vescovo e città nell’alto medioevo: quadri generali e realtà toscane. Convegno internazionale di studi (Pistoia, 16-17 maggio 1998), a cura di G. Francesconi, Pistoia: Società Pistoiese di Storia Patria, 2001, pp. 1-16 [thanks to “Reti Medievali – Iniziative on line per gli studi medievistici”, this essay is also freely available online at the following link: http://www.rmoa.unina.it/1459/1/RM-Sergi-Vescovi.pdf].

 

2) Non-attending students will be assessed on the aforementioned book Maire Vigueur, Così belle... and the essay Sergi, Poteri ..., but they also have to add one of the following books:

- F. Franceschi - I. Taddei, Le città italiane nel Medioevo. XII-XIV secolo, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012;

- F. Menant, L'Italia dei comuni (1100-1350), Roma: Viella, 2011;

- G. Milani, I comuni italiani. Secoli XII-XIV, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2005.

 

Attending as well as non-attending students need to know that this course requires a basic knowledge of medieval history. Those who have not previously taken any exam in Medieval History are therefore required to fill this gap, studying a handbook, which has to be arranged with the professor.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons. 

The traditional lecture format is integrated by slides with maps, images, and texts, including some excerpts from medieval sources in Latin with an Italian translation.

These materials are uploaded on the online platform Virtuale throughout the course.

Assessment methods

The final exam, to be held at the end of the course, is oral. It consists of an assessment of the knowledge and skills acquired during the course. This final oral exam is the main assessment method.

A written test, to be held during the course (in its second half, on a date to be fixed), has been scheduled, covering the topics of the lessons already delivered at that date. In the event of a positive assessment (>18), this becomes a good departure point for the deeper examination at the final oral exam, which should therefore confirm or improve the preliminary grade of the written test. Alternatively, in the event of a negative assessment (<18), or in case of absence, the final oral exam remains not only the main but also the unique assessment method. 

The assessment concerns how well students know and understand the topics discussed during the course and in the recommended readings. A special relevance is given to the ability of the students to correctly analyse, critically re-elaborate and properly explain these topics, adopting a logical-argumentative type of speech, an appropriate methodology and the specialised language of the discipline.

Class attendance is highly recommended.

A clear and intensive engagement with the course topics and materials - including simple questions, critical observations, requests of clarification or further explanations - is deeply appreciated and can change the final mark.

Teaching tools

- Projection (with comments) of maps, displaying the changing patterns of spatial configuration of power both in urban and rural settings in medieval Italy, with particular reference to the disarticulation of the Carolingian comitatus and the later processes of territorial recomposition of power involving the cities as driving forces.

- Projection (with comments) of specific medieval sources, both in original (Latin) and in translation (Italian), dealing with the struggle between the communes and the Romano-Germanic Empire; the emergence of a medieval public law; the relationships between the cities and the Apostolic See; the communal extensive production of normative texts.

- Projection (with comments) of images of communal palaces, those of the magistrates of the populus, cathedrals, squares and fountains, with regard to the political use of the 'beauty'.

Please note that initiatives suggested or organised by the professor (educational visits, seminars, book presentations, etc.) are to be considered as a supplementary part of the course and are therefore recognised at the exam.

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A message for students with disabilities (whether permanent or temporary), SLD, ADHD or other special educational needs related to learning disorders. 

Those who need special strategies to compensate their disorders are kindly requested to contact the professor, in order to be referred to the colleagues in charge and get proper advice and instructions.

Please see also: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Manganaro