70746 - STORIA MEDIEVALE

Learning outcomes

Aim of this discipline is to bring students to the knowledge and comprehension of those political, institutional, social, and cultural phenomena which led to the construction of the special identity of Medieval Europe and of its cultural heritage.

Students will learn to understand the principal political-institutional and socio-cultural processes of the Medieval Age; to critically analyze their impact on European civilization in the long period; to apply these elements to the analysis of written sources and to the problems of the preservation and valorization of the material (documental, iconographic and monumental) patrimony.

Course contents

 

A first module (prof. Raffaele Savigni, 30 h):

1) (2 h.) Methodology of historical research. The concepts of source and document. Schools of historiography. The problem of periodization. The main collections of sources.The new History.

2) (18 h.) General introduction to the history of the Middle Ages: institutions, society, culture. The end of the ancient world. Christianization of the Empire and Migrations of nomadic populations: acculturation processes and beginning of the roman-Germanic kingdoms. The Early and High Middle Ages.

Lombards and Franks: society, institutions, mentality.

Western Europe, Byzantium and Islam.The forming of ethnic and cultural identities in the Middle Ages. Ancient Heritage, Christianization, Germanic culture.

Cult of images and Ionoclasm.

The Carolingian and Ottonian Empire.Feudality and Signoria. Cavalry. Rural society.

Universality and particularism in the Medieval society. .Man and community. 

Papacy and Empire.Ecclesiastical institutions and Church reform.

Christendom and Islam. Pilgrimages, Missions, holy War and Crusades.

Climate and history. Climate change in the Middle Ages.

The transmission of knowledge: encyclopedias, lapidaries and bestiaries in the Middle Ages.

Case studies (10 h): Time of the Church and time of work. The Iconography of the Months.

The representation of the countryside in the frescoes of the Buongoverno in the Palazzo pubblico in Siena.

B - second learning module (26 h) taught by Elisa Tosi Brandi

The second learning module focuses on the analysis of some fundamental themes of the late medieval civilization (12 h)

• Urban society: social-economical and political-institutional dynamics. Comune and Signoria.
• The 14^th century crisis
• Western European kingdoms and the formation of the Modern state. Regional states in Italy.
• The new horizons: geographical discoveries and commercial routes. Humanism and Renaissance.

The main body investigates a specific theme in order to introduce the students to the daily life in a medieval town (10 h)

• The representation of the city: the fresco cycle painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico (1338-1339)
• Good government vs bad government
• Urban economy: trades and guilds; workshops and craftsmen

The last part concerns the methodology of medieval historical sources with a focus on the material culture, particularly on the “physical, written and represented objects: how to study and interpret them” (4h)

• Case study 1: Textile restoration: new perspectives for investigation.
• Case study 2: Iconographic Analysis: art, history and society in some 15^th century Italian female portraits

 

Readings/Bibliography

Students must study for section A (prof. R. Savigni):

1) Medieval history handbook of A. Zorzi, Manuale di storia medievale, Torino, Utet, 2016 or L. Tanzini-F.P. Tocco, Un Medioevo mediterraneo. Mille anni tra Oriente e Occidente, Roma, Carocci, 2020.

2) the sources and teaching materials uploaded to "Virtual";

3) C. Frugoni, Chiesa e lavoro agricolo nei testi e nelle immagini dall'età tardo-antica all'età romanica, in Medioevo rurale. Sulle tracce della civiltà contadina, Bologna 1979, pp. 321-341 or a chapter of G.M. Fachechi, M.l Castiñeiras, Il tempo sulla pietra: la raffigurazione dei mesi nella scultura medievale (secoli 12.-13.), Roma, Gangemi, 2019 and

C. Frugoni, Paradiso vista Inferno. Buon governo e tirannide nel Medioevo di Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Bologna, il Mulino, 2019

 Section B) In addition to the medieval history handbook (chosen from those: A. Zorzi, Manuale di storia medievale, Torino, Utet, 2016 or L. Tanzini-F.P. Tocco, Un Medioevo mediterraneo. Mille anni tra Oriente e Occidente, Roma, Carocci, 2020) students are required to know:

C. Frugoni, Paradiso vista Inferno. Buon governo e tirannide nel Medioevo di Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Bologna, il Mulino, 2019.

Fashion, Art, History and Society in Portraits of Women by Piero del Pollaiuolo, in Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo. “Silver and Gold, Painting and Bronze…”, edited by A. di Lorenzo, A. Galli, Skira, Milano 2014, pp. 103-117.

The students will present, before the exam, a paper (approximately ten pages) on a topic agreed with the professors.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons during which various historical sources will be presented and discussed (sources will be made available in Italian translation, by the teacher or on the web), together with the related literature.

Assessment methods

At the beginning of the course there will be an entrance test to verify the initial knowledge and skills of the students attending. An intermediate test, given after half of course, will allow the learning process to be monitored.

The final exam will take place after the end of the lessons with both teachers. It will be oral, and made of three principal questions.The students will present, before the exam, a paper (approximately ten pages) on a topic agreed with the professor. The paper must be submitted before the exam, and should contain a list of the principal sources and bibliography used. The paper discussion will be considered as one of the three questions of the final test. Instructions on writing the essay are posted on the teacher's website (https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/raffaele.savigni/contenuti-utili).

The final evaluation will be determined also by class participation, i.e. by interventions and questions of the student during the lessons, as well as attendance to seminars, conferences, and lectures about Middle Ages organized or suggested by the teacher.

The student, to pass the examination, must prove his knowledge of the principal topics of the course, his ability to identify the principal socio-economic, cultural and institutional processes of the Middle Ages, and his awareness of the characteristics of a number of medieval sources, that he has to use and discuss critically (at least in their Italian translation). The list of sources, provided in class by the teacher, is available at https://iol.unibo.it/course/view.php?id=23553 .

To obtain high marks, students should demonstrate good knowledge of specific vocabulary (in Latin too, if necessary); ability to easily move through different topics and sources, and to connect them logically; ability to critically compare different sources on the same topic.

Students unable to describe the principal topics, or to correctly place in space and time major historical events, will not pass the examination.

Minimum requirement to pass the exam is the generic knowledge of principal topics (even without use of appropriate vocabulary).

Teaching tools

During frontal lessons, students will be guided by the teacher through the reading and discussion of written sources, and towards a selective use of the web for scientific purposes.

The teacher will use different sources from different typologies (all of them will be translated during classes), part of which are available on the net.

Open access online portals:

Reti medievali: http://www.rm.unina.it/

 

Power point presentations.

Office hours

See the website of Raffaele Savigni

See the website of Elisa Tosi Brandi