Shades of Empire in Late Medieval and Renaissance Reichsitalien. Questioning New Perspectives

From Firenze University Press Journal: Reti Medievali

Giovanni Francesco Contel, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici “Benedetto Croce”

“The tenacious although transformed, pull of traditional historiographical concerns goes far to explain why the remarkable and fruitful efflorescence of studies of the late-medieval Reich in the closing decades of the twentieth century found so little space for Italy”. This consideration is undoubtedly cor-rect and could be the cue to move our considerations towards a first, provi-sional evaluation of some specific historiographical objectives of this volume of collective research. It is not my goal here to analyze why Italy as a political space constitutes the problem of the intersection of the two historiographies mainly interested in the Empire, the German and the Italian one. Neither to reflect on the awareness of the Italian historiographical — but also cultural –academy on the multiple and centuries-old relations between Italy and the Empire, nor to focus on the specific wider area of the Reichsitalien, which for centuries belonged by right to the Holy Roman Empire. Reading the inter-esting (and variously diverse) essays in this book, many elements spring to the mind. As a general premise — which may concern another books as the pres-ent one — we must be aware of the significant problem in terminology, very proper to this debatethat exists between the words ‘empire’/‘Empire’, ‘Holy Roman Empire’ in a larger written and oral use. In fact, there are as well as the implicit, yet essential, related meanings to their (alleged) correlation with instances of ‘Romanity’, ‘Italianity’, ‘Germanity’ (or Germanism) and ‘Uni-versalism’ of the medieval and modern Empire. The same dialectic on the definitionsit can be done with the meanings of Rome, idea of Rome, ancient Rome, etc. especially during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Distinc-tions very useful (on individual works and individual authors) can be found in many essays. But still this problem remains on the cultural history of the Empire inside the texts, which generally in the synthesis is too often solved not questioning the terminology or not challenging accurately the context of the use of words (where it is possible, not in many cases).The challenge faced by the authors of this volume in re-evaluating important themes and questions concerning the Empire — shifting between the Holy Roman Empire but also the larger, medieval, idea of Rome and ancient Roman Empire — and Italy in some authors has certainly been won.

Let’s start with a brief note on the keywords used by the authors (4–5 for each essay) to point out specific goals of their articles and so the main top-ics for the search engines.5It seems very interesting and significant that the most recurrent keyword is humanism (6 occurrences), but considering all the terms quite synonimous, dealing with humanistic culture or with the (not so wide-sounding, in this case) literarian-philological field — for example the textual genres as historiography, chronicles or orations — they all together could be counted as 15. But even 17 if we also consider canon law, civil law and university, which all three,quoted singularly, deal with the same contribution. Maybe obviously, the second most present keyword is Holy Roman Empireor empire, including also in the imperial semantics expressions like impe-rial ideology and imperial project (5+2 occurrences). There is a lack of the word ‘emperor’ — only one occurrence in the joined keyword emperor-pope chronicles, and only another one with papacy — but four names of sovereign are present as keywords (Henry VII, Ludwig of Bavaria, Sigismund of Lux-embourg, Frederick III). So, there are three other names of authors, polit-ical and literarian characters of Late Medieval Age: two italians (Albertino Mussato and Cola di Rienzo) and one german (Martin von Troppau). It is so excluded for this little insight Cicero, who has been characterized as an an-cient author, and here concerned moreover as an object of interest or a ‘matter of study’ (political, historical, rhetoric, linguistic, etc.) than as a real person.Moving from names to spaces, Rome has three occurrences and Italy only one. Interpreting the spatial gap of meaning, where Italy consists certainly in the main political reference of the Reichsitalien relative to the Italian policies of the emperor, Rome is more important as a fundamental concept of wider significance for the medieval Empire. Therefore, it is also the direct, obvious link to the idea of ancient Rome, which strongly resides in the backyard of people’s minds during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The rest of the keywords are more isolated in their own meaning, more peculiar but very important for the history of the Empire in Italy or for the medieval imperial concerns in politics and culture: ritual, councils, Ghibellism, res publica and political thought, which all together point out to the long-time persistence between Christianity, Italy, Rome, and the idea of Empire during medieval and early modern Europe. Nevertheless, these are very interesting, moreover if we find them as instruments focusing the main topics of the essays in this volume. Expecially ritual has a powerful importance, because of the fruitful, recurring waves of cultural historical studies during the last decades, also including the anthropological meaningin the ritual performance, the public space, the interpreting characters, the ‘intellectual’ minds who thought and studied the solutions before the acting event, etc.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/1593-2214/10287

Read Full Text: http://www.serena.unina.it/index.php/rm/article/view/10287