Academic literature on the topic 'Monasteries – Italy – History'

This paper’s focus is women as professed members of the Order of St John in Italy, as documented in cities such as Milan, Florence, Venice, Genova, Monteleone di Spoleto, Perugia, Penne and Sovereto. The adherence of women to the Order came under several institutional forms. Some women were laypeople, associated consorores who carried out the Order’s activities, sometimes working in its hospitals. Others lived in the houses of the Order of St John, where they could also take the vows, with consequent formation of “mixed” convents or monasteries. But in some cases, separate nunneries were created or assimilated from other communities. Some historians have seen a different evolution from the initial vocation of women, which consisted of field activities in support of the poor and the sick, and would later become a strictly cloistered life. This change can be observed by examining the biographies of the two Italian female Hospitaller saints, Ubaldesca and Toscana. Yet, local development varied, and the situation in an important city like Florence differed from nunneries in smaller localities like Sovereto or Penne. Finally, several interesting sources allow us a glimpse of the spirituality and norms in those women’s daily lives compared to male religiosity. The medieval Italian nunneries of St John never became an autonomous branch of the Order, but at the same time, they were not a rare or exceptional phenomenon.

This article looks at a common societal feature – the inheritance – examining how it became a prized source of income following the French Revolution and, therefore, a divisive element. The Restoration in the Papal States (1814–30) produced unexpected legal battles over the right of inheritances; family members as well as the monasteries of ex-religious, secularised during the Napoleonic period in Italy, contested the beneficiary status of wills. Such was the frequency and acrimony of the disputes that a special commission was created in 1827 to curb future debate. All told, these legal battles favoured ecclesiastical institutions over secular or family interests, and loosened the bonds between the Catholic Church and society during the Risorgimento.

St. Benedict of Nursia was organizer of Western monasticism, born in 480 in Nursia – Ombria, Italy today and passed away in 547, at Monte – Casino near Rome. Influenced by the monastic rules of St. Basil the Great and spiritual conversations of St. John Cassian, St. Benedict organized Western monasticism, requiring a specific discipline and ascetic life. Rule monks, such work is called St. Benedict of Nursia is more a treatise on life than a regulation or rule. Ninth century Benedict of Aniane reformulating Rule monks of Western monasticism shifted to the sacred, to the detriment of practice or work and founded the Benedictine order. The fruit of this way of life was the birth monastery Cluny monastery, which was to play an important role in Western monastic life and papal history. Numerous Benedictine monasteries scattered around the world have played and still play an important role in the history and culture of the Church and beyond.

ABSTRACTAlthough there had been substantial donations to the church in the course of the last two centuries of the Roman Empire, the amount of property transferred to the episcopal church and to monasteries in the following two and a half centuries would seem to have been immense. Probably rather more than 30 per cent of the Frankish kingdom was given to ecclesiastical institutions; although the Anglo-Saxon church was only established after 597, it also acquired huge amounts of land, as did the churches of Spain and Italy, although the extent conveyed in the two peninsulas is harder to estimate. The scale of endowments helps explain the occasional criticisms of the extent of church property, and also the secularisations and reallocation of church land, and indeed suggest that the transfer of property out of the control of the church in Francia and England in the eighth century may have been greater than is often assumed. The transfer of land should probably also be seen as something other than a simple change of ownership. Church property provided the economic basis for cult, for the maintenance of clergy, who were unquestionably numerous, and for the poor. In social and economic, as well as religious terms, this marked a major break with the Classical World.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Such innovative meeting dedicated to Cultural Heritage: challenges, new perspectives, and technological innovation are ‘vital’ in order to exchange different experiences, needs, opportunities, and, above all, to find new approaches to preserve, at least, the memory of heritage for further generations. This paper includes some experiences accumulated throughout several topographic projects concerning Christianity during the Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Ages in northern Syria, in Liguria in Italy, and in Provence in France. Geospatial and Geomatics data have been used in these investigations, since 2007, thanks to the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology of Rome, the National Institute for Art History in Paris, Nino Lamboglia Foundation, and Marc de Montalembert Foundation. The Geospatial data highlighted for the first time, after about a century of research, much un- published data about Syrian monasteries. One of our goals was to understand what the exact differences are from all points of view: time, results, and economic costs between Agisoft Photoscan and MicMac. The models of the two applications are well made, but we noticed that the model created by MicMac software is excellent, despite being an open source application. In 2017, due to the positive geomathic results during the last three seasons of our excavations on the site of Capo Don, the first Multimedial Exhibition Space (SEM) of the town Riva Ligure was inaugurated, thanks to Comune of Riva Ligure, and all research team members guided by professor Philippe Pergola. Geomatics is a powerful tool not only for preserving memories, but it is ideal for dissemination heritage on the public levels, exactly like the role of archaeology.</p>

In reading many early Christian texts from and about Egypt, one is struck by the importance of space for the ascetic lifestyle. Whether it be Antony locked in his desert fortress, the tightly arranged cells of Kellia in theApopthegmata Patrum, or the landscape of the desert in so much hagiographical literature, the space in which the early Christians practiced ascetic renunciation was as infused with as much meaning as the ascetic practices themselves. Since few texts with descriptions of early ascetic space survive, studies have been left largely to archaeologists and art historians, not historians of Christianity. Only a handful of ascetic authors from the fourth through sixth centuries wrote about the theological significance they found in the building of churches. These include the wealthy Latin patron Paulinus of Nola (Italy), two anonymous members of the Pachomian monasteries in Egypt, and the Egyptian archimandrite Shenoute. The churches built for each of these late antique communities held deep theological significance. They symbolized the ascetic endeavors undertaken at those communities. Since for each writer, the ascetic struggle was constituted in slightly different terms, with different goals, practices, and interpretations of those practices, so were the church buildings imbued with different meanings. Yet, in each case, the church held meaning beyond its mere walls. Each was constructed as much by a theology and a discourse of ascetic discipline as it was by wood, brick, and stone.

The ruined abbeys of S. Maria di Realvalle and S. Maria della Vittoria in southern Italy attest to the use of French Gothic architecture as part of a policy of cultural and political domination over the kingdom conquered by Charles of Anjou in 1266. The Angevin registers document the king's emphasis on Frenchness in all details and provide the names of many of the French masons and sculptors who worked on royal building projects. As in the other territories that fell under French control after the middle of the thirteenth century, such as southwestern France, Gothic from the Ile-de-France was utilized in the Kingdom of Sicily to connote the authority and prestige of the new regime. In insisting not only on the adoption of French architecture at the abbeys, but also on a population of French monks, Charles envisioned the monasteries as strongholds of French culture and prestige. Yet this was a short-lived phenomenon, for the subsequent generations of monuments erected by Charles II and Robert the Wise, especially those in Lucera and Naples, are profoundly different in character, and for the most part references to French models are eliminated. The rejection of the Frenchness promoted by Charles of Anjou and the evolution of a new and distinctly different type of architecture for royal monuments in the last years of the thirteenth century perhaps reflected new attitudes of cultural adaptation that resulted from the outbreak of the War of the Vespers in 1282.

Misterbianco is located on the southern flank of Mt. Etna (Unesco site), in eastern Sicily (Italy). This site, also known as Monasterium Album, has a long and tormented history linked with volcanic activity of Mt. Etna and regional seismicity. This site received much attention in the 2000s when excavation works brought to light a 14th century church remains below the thick layer of the 1669 lava. This study documents the first diagnostic multidisciplinary survey performed at this site 350 years after the eruption: the investigations were performed by using techniques such as ground-penetrating radar, infrared thermography, a terrestrial laser scanner and a drone survey to analyze the site’s topography, to adequately map the hidden structures inside the building and to identify fractures and deformations in the church. Starting from the site history, we present the results of the multidisciplinary approach aimed at reconstructing the historical events that led to the damage in the church.

Robert Ousterhout, the author of a magnificent book “Eastern Medieval Architecture. The Building Traditions of Bizantium and Neighboring Lands”, published by Oxford University Press in 2019, the remarkable scholar and generous friend, was so kind to mention in his C. V. on the sight of Penn University (Philadelphia, USA) that he had been the Visiting professor of the Moscow architectural Institute (State Academy), as well as simulteniously of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but he did not say that he had been awarded the degree of professor honoris causa by the academic council of MARHI. Unfortunately, his life in muscovite hostel, nevertheless we tried to do our best to provide the best possible accommodation in a “suit” with two rooms with a bathroom, had been radically different from the wonderful dwelling chosen for the visiting teaching stuff from MARHI in the University of Illinois. And Robert called our hostel “Gulag”. He had been joking probably. It is impossible to overestimate the role of professor Robert Ousterhaut in the studies of the history of Byzantine art. At the present day he is the leader in the world studies of the architecture of Byzantium, the real heir of the great Rihard Krauthaimer and Slobodan Curcic, whom he had left behind in his works. His books are known very well in Russia. R. Ousterhaut graduated in the history of art and architecture at the University of Oregon, the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, Universities of Cincinati and Illinois. Не worked at the department of history of art at the University of Oregon, department of history of architecture at the University of Illinois, had the chair of the history of architecture and preservation at the University of Illinois, which is considered, as we know, one of the twenty best American universities. He always worked hard and with success. When I had finished reading my course of the history of Russian architecture at Illinois, he said: “Yes, next term the students are to be treated well…” Now he is professor emeritus of the history of art in the famous Penn University. He taught the courses of the “History of architecture from Prehistory to 1400” and “Eastern medieval architecture” as well as led remarkable seminars devoted to the different problem of the history of architecture of the Eastern Meditarenian, including the art of Constantinopole, Cappadoce, meaning and identity in medieval art. His remarkable 4-years field work at Cappadoce, which he described in several books, and his efforts of the preservation of the architectural monuments of Constantinopole are very valuable, Among his books one certainly must cite Holy Apostels: Lost Monument and Forgotten Project, (Washingtone, D. C., 2020); Visualizing Community: Art Material Culture, and Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 46 (Washington, D. C., 2017); Carie Camii (Istambul, 2011); Architecture of the Sacred: Space, Ritual, and Experience from Classical Greece to Byzantium (Cambridge University Press, 2012), ed. with Bonna D. Wescoat; Palmyra 1885: The Wolfe Expedition and the Photographs of John Henry Haynes, with B. Anderson (Istanbul: Cornucopia, 2016) John Henry Haynes: Archaeologist and Photographer in the Ottoman Empire 1881–1900 (2nd revised edition, Istanbul: Cornucopia, 2016). Several of his books were reprinted. He edited Approaches to Architecture and Its Decoration: Festschrift for Slobodan Ćurčić (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), with M. Johnson and A. Papalexandrou. His outstanding book Мaster Builders of Byzantium (2nd paperback edition, University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications, 2008) was translated into Russian and Turkish. In this work Robert Ousterhaut for the first time in English speaking tradition is regarding the architecture of Bazantium from the point of view of building art and technology. On the base of the analysis of primary written sources, contemporary archeology data, and careful study of existing monuments the author concludes that the Byzantine architecture was not only exploiting the traditions, but was trying to find new ways of the development of typology and construction techniques, which led to transformation of artistique features. Professor R. Ousterhaut discusses the choice of building materials, structure from foundations to vaults, theoretical problems which solved the master masons of Byzantium. In his recent book Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands, (Oxford University Press, 2019) Robert Ousterhaut is going further. He writes in the introduction: “I succeded my mentor at the University of Illinois… I had the privilege and challenge of teaching “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” to generations of the architecture students inspired my 1999 book, Master Builders of Byzantium. The work of Robert Ousterhaut, published 2019, is the new and full interpretation of the architectural heritage of Byzantine Commonwealth. The author devoted the first part of his book to Late Antiquity (3–7 centuries), beginning with the relations of Domus Ecclesiastae and Church Basilica, then speaking of Konstantinopole and Jerusalem of the times of St. Constantine the Great, liturgy, inspiration, commemoration and pilgrimage, adoration of relics as ritual factors which influenced the formation of sacred space, methods and materials, chosen by the Bizantine builders with their interaction of the mentality of the East and West. Special attention is given to dwelling, urban planning and fortification Naturally a chapter is devoted to Hagia Sophia and the building programs of Emperor Justinian. The second part speaks of the transition to what is called Middle Byzantine architecture both in the capital and at the edges of the Empire. The third part tells the story of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries and includes the rise of the monasteries, once more secular and urban architecture, the craft of church builders. Churches of Greece and Macedonia, Anatolia, Armenia and Georgia, as well as of the West of Byzantium – Venice, Southern Italy and Sicily. The chapter is devoted to Slavonic Balkans – Bulgaria and Serbia and Kievan Rus. The last fourth part of the book describes the times of the Latin Empire, difficult for Byzantium, to the novelty of the architecture of Palewologos and the development of Byzantine ideas in the Balkans and especially in the building programs of the great powers of the epoch Ottoman Empire and Russia. There is a lot more to say about the book of professor Robert Ousterhaut, but we have to leave this to the next issue of this magazine, and better give the space to the words of the author – his text on the architecture of Kievan Rus.

Cette thèse offre une nouvelle édition de trois documents essentiels pour l’histoire du monastère italien de Bobbio au 9e siècle :le « Breve memorationis » de l’abbé Wala (c. 835) et les polyptyques de 862 et 883. Au travers d’une analyse qui prête une attention inédite à la matérialité des documents originaux, il a été possible de mettre en évidence un certain nombre de logiques internes aux documents et de démarches d’enquête et de mise par écrit jusque là totalement ignorées par la recherche. L’importance des logiques de succession géographique des possessions a notamment été mise en évidence, en rapport direct avec la forme donnée au texte de 862 par son rédacteur. La personnalité de Wala est longuement étudiée, ainsi que l’organisation interne du monastère à laquelle son nom est associé. Enfin, le polyptyque de 883 bénéficie d’une attention nouvelle, qui permet de rédéfinir sa place et son rôle par rapport à son modèle de 862.
Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Defence date: 30 April 1998
Examining board: Prof. Renata Ago, Università di Cagliari ; Prof. Gérard Delille, Istituto Universitario Europeo ; Prof. Olwen Hufton, Morton College Oxford (Supervisor) ; Prof. Gianna Pomata, Università di Bologna e University of Minnesota, Minneapolis ; Prof. Gabriella Zarri, Università di Firenze
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Prosulas were probably performed by younger cantors and were pedagogical tools to teach textual and musical composition. They reveal multidirectional exchanges among various regions, conceivably because of the exchange of books and the travels of people, including members of the lay society who traveled around the Italian peninsula to undertake juridical studies and then work as lawyers for cathedrals and monasteries. Certainly, prosulas were a means to express the values and culture of a society that we also see reflected in some of the literary works produced in southern Italy during the same period. The emphasis on foreign and especially African and West Asian saints and the involvement of nuns reveal a multiform society and counterbalances a male and Eurocentric view of medieval history.

In 1966 a team of Italian scholars coordinated by Géza de Francovich inaugurated a series of study trips to the historic regions of Armenia, with the aim of collecting extensive photographic documentation of medieval churches and monasteries. The first result of these study trips was the photographic exhibition Architettura medievale armena (Rome, June-July 1968), a pioneering event that helped in spreading knowledge of Armenian art and architecture among a broader public in Italy and that became a springboard for new research projects in the eastern Mediterranean territories. This paper provides a critical reconstruction of the context and circumstances that led to the organisation of this exhibition.