In the late Middle Ages, Italy was one of the most urbanized areas in Europe. Its coasts, the Apennines, the perialpine area and the plains were all home to a large number of smaller towns, lands, villages, castra, and 'quasi cites'. These settlements were all very diverse in terms of demographic consistency, social articulation and economic dynamism, but together they constituted a characteristic and constitutive element of the Italian historical identity: an 'original personality'. This volume, thanks to some framing essays and a mapping of individual cases involving most of the northern, central and southern regions, aims at investigating the active research on this topic over the last thirty to forty years.

The textual heritage of Medieval Latin is one of the greatest reservoirs of human culture. Repertories list more than 16,000 authors from about 20 modern countries. Until now, there has been no introduction to this world in its full geographical extension. Forty contributors fill this gap by adopting a new perspective, making available to specialists (but also to the interested public) new materials and insights. The project presents an overview of Medieval (and post-medieval) Latin Literatures as a global phenomenon including both Europe and extra-European regions. It serves as an introduction to medieval Latin's complex and multi-layered culture, whose attraction has been underestimated until now. Traditional overviews mostly flatten specificities, yet in many countries medieval Latin literature is still studied with reference to the local history. Thus the first section presents 20 regional surveys, including chapters on authors and works of Latin Literature in Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Subsequent chapters highlight shared patterns of circulation, adaptation, and exchange, and underline the appeal of medieval intermediality, as evidenced in manuscripts, maps, scientific treatises and iconotexts, and its performativity in narrations, theatre, sermons and music. The last section deals with literary “interfaces,” that is motifs or characters that exemplify the double-sided or the long-term transformations of medieval Latin mythologemes in vernacular culture, both early modern and modern, such as the legends about King Arthur, Faust, and Hamlet.

In The Militant Middle Ages Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri delves into common perceptions of the Middle Ages and how these views shape current political contexts, offering a new lens for scrutinizing contemporary society through its instrumentalization of the medieval past.

In The Laws of Late Medieval Italy Mario Ascheri examines the features of the Italian legal world and explains why it should be regarded as a foundation for the future European continental system. The deep feuds among the Empire, the Churches unified by Roman papacy and the flourishing cities gave rise to very new legal ideas with the strong cooperation of the universities, beginning with that of Bologna. The teaching of Roman law and of the new papal laws, which quickly spread all over Europe, built up a professional group of lawyers and notaries which shaped the new, 'modern', public institutions, including efficient courts (like the Inquisition). Politically divided, Italy was partly unified by the legal system, so-called (Continental) common law (ius commune), which became a pattern for all of Europe onwards. Early modern Europe had for long time to work with it, and parts of it are still alive as a common cultural heritage behind a new European law system.

The richest and most politically complex regions in Italy in the earliest middle ages were the Byzantine sections of the peninsula, thanks to their links with the most coherent early medieval state, the Byzantine empire. This comparative study of the histories of Rome, Ravenna, and Venice examines their common Byzantine past, since all three escaped incorporation into the Lombard kingdom in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. By 750, however, Rome and Ravenna's political links with the Byzantine Empire had been irrevocably severed. Thus, did these cities remain socially and culturally heirs of Byzantium? How did their political structures, social organisation, material culture, and identities change? Did they become part of the Western political and ideological framework of Italy? This study identifies and analyses the ways in which each of these cities preserved the structures of the Late Antique social and cultural world; or in which they adapted each and every element available to them to their own needs, at various times and in various ways, to create a new identity based partly on their Roman heritage and partly on their growing integration with the rest of medieval Italy. It tells a story which encompasses the main contemporary narratives, documentary evidence, recent archaeological discoveries, and discussions on art history; it follows the markers of status and identity through titles, names, ethnic groups, liturgy and ritual, foundation myths, representations, symbols, and topographies of power to shed light on a relatively little known area of early medieval Italian history.

This book offers a collection of essays on Byzantine Italy which provides a fresh synthesis of current research as well as new insights on various aspects of its local societies from the 6th to the 11th century.