Università Roma Tre

The first module of the course aims to illustrate the main historical processes concerning Europe and the Mediterranean in the medieval millennium (500-1500), taking into account the most recent historiographical debates and some of the written sources in question. The focus will be on the main aspects of human action between society, economy, religion, politics, and culture. The main topics of the course are: written and material sources, solids and voids; economy, religion, and culture in Late Antiquity (4th-6th centuries); the emergence of the Roman-Barbarian kingdoms (5th-6th centuries); early medieval empires (8th-9th centuries); the countryside: from the manorial system to incastellamento (7th-12th centuries); cities: urbanism, demography, economy from the inheritance of Rome to the new expansion (7th-12th centuries); the Reform of the Church (11th-12th centuries); political reorganizations, between cities and kingdoms (11th-13th centuries); cultural and religious paths between the early and late Middle Ages (6th-13th centuries); conjuncture and crisis of the 14th century (14th century); the new features of the Renaissance (15th century).

G. Albertoni, S. M. Collavini, T. Lazzari, Introduzione alla storia medievale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2020;
G. Sergi, L'idea di Medioevo. Fra storia e senso comune, Roma, Donzelli, 1998;
V. Loré, R. Rao, Medioevo da manuale. Una ricognizione della storia medievale nei manuali scolastici italiani, in RM Rivista, 18/2 (2017), pp. 305-313 only (free download here: http://www.rmojs.unina.it/index.php/rm/article/view/5353).

Non-attending students are advised to study A. Cortonesi, Medioevo. Profilo di un millennio, Rome, Carocci, various editions, instead of Albertoni-Collavini-Lazzari, Introduction to Medieval History.

Urban landscapes and heritages: a political and cultural history.
The second module aims to retrace some moments in the history of Euro-Mediterranean cities in the Middle Ages, focusing in particular on two thematic axes: 1) presence, uses, and reuses of material structures inherited from Antiquity and Late Antiquity (walls, gates, public palaces, temples, basilicas, squares, bridges); 2) the symbolic, ceremonial, and political values attributed to those structures, then paying further attention to monuments such as statues and columns, and the various memorial narratives attributed to them over time. From this point of view, medieval cities present themselves as an important laboratory of experimentation: indeed, from that laboratory emerged the concept of «urban decorum», which is now at the center of political and cultural debate. The module will involve a cross-analysis of material and written sources, among which inscriptions and the so-called «city praises» (laudes urbium) will be favored.

For attending students, the exam is based on a) the materials provided by the teacher and discussed in class; b) the study of the following works:
- C. La Rocca, Cassiodoro, Teodato e il restauro degli elefanti di Bronzo della Via Sacra, in RM Rivista, 11/2 (2010), pp. 25-44
- D. Internullo, «Decus Urbis». Un'altra prospettiva sui «Mirabilia» di Roma e le origini del «decoro urbano» (secoli XII-XV), in Quaderni Storici, 163/1 (2020), pp. 159-183
- A. Fiore, La pietrificazione dell'identità civica (Italia centro-settentrionale, 1050-1220 c.), in Construir para perdurar. Riqueza petrificada e identidad social (siglos XI-XIV), Pamplona 2022, pp. 185-211
The three works will be made available by the teacher on the course's Teams channel.

To the above three essays, non-attending students should add the integral study of the following volume:
- R. Rao, I paesaggi dell'Italia medievale, Carocci, Rome, 2015