Programme

The course aims to present an updated and comprehensive picture of medieval culture (fifth-fifteenth century), framing Italy within a broader Euro-Mediterranean context. Taking into account the most recent historiographical debates and acquisitions, lessons will try to bring students closer to different aspects concerning cultural phenomena, starting from definitions and categories such as "culture", "written culture" and "intellectual" to analyze then school practices, literacy, production and circulation of texts in their relations with society, politics, economics and religion. More precisely, the lessons will focus on the following aspects: "culture" as a historiographic problem between theoretical debates and research; written sources: qualitative and quantitative aspects; the problem of literacy and school in the early Middle Ages; book culture in the early Middle Ages; documentary culture in the early Middle Ages; the eleventh and twelfth centuries between juridical renaissance, textual discoveries and school transformations; book culture of the late Middle Ages; documentary culture of the late Middle Ages; language: Latin and vernacular in the late Middle Ages; the fourteenth century and the relationship between crisis and cultural production; Humanism. Lessons will alternate between frontal explanations and direct exercises on the sources or on specific bibliography.

Core Documentation

Textbook:
- Ronald Witt, "L’eccezione italiana. L’intellettuale laico nel Medioevo e l’origine del Rinascimento", transl. by Anna Carocci, Roma, Viella, 2017 (or. ed. Cambridge 2012)

Further bibliography (exercitations):
- A. Petrucci, C. Romeo, "«Scriptores in urbibus». Alfabetismo e cultura scritta nell’Italia altomedievale", Bologna, il Mulino, 1992
- Clémence Revest, "The Birth of the Humanist Movement at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century", «Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales» 68/3 (2013), pp. 665-696
- "Le culture del Regnum e le radici dell’umanesimo di Ronald G. Witt", ed. Amedeo de Vincentiis, «Storica» 59 (2014), pp. 89-130
- "The Italian Exception: A Debate on Ronald Witt’s «Two Latin Cultures of Medieval Italy»", ed. Giacomo Vignodelli, «Storicamente» 14 (2018)

Type of delivery of the course

Lessons will alternate between frontal explanations and direct exercises on the sources or on specific bibliography. The sources will always be presented both in their original language and in Italian or english translation. Lessons will be held on tuesday and thursday from 12.00 to 14.00 (aula 18). They will begin on 9th March 2021.