Brancoli e Diecimo in Lucchesia. Due casi per uno studio parallelo

The opening contribution of this volume is a biographical essay by Ilaria Sabbatini, which has the undeniable merit of presenting the life of Matilda in a clear and concise manner, thus guiding the reader through the facts and events that 'made' the life of the Great Countess. The text continues with Tommaso Maria Rossi's contribution on "Documents and News Regarding Some Lost Churches of the Piviere of Sesto di Moriano in the Diocese of Lucca." Rossi's historiographical cameo is enriched by a careful reading of the parchments kept in the Diocesan Historical Archive of Lucca, conducted based on numerous other documentary sources, starting from the "Libellus Extimi Lucane Dyocesis," a description of the diocese in the 13th century which lists 770 religious buildings. The survival of sources on tithes and pastoral visits allows Rossi to proceed with a preliminary analytical reconstruction of the diocesan situation in Lucca, providing an image of a territory dotted with ecclesiastical foundations and enabling us to evaluate continuities and changes from medieval times to the contemporary age. The author particularly focuses his analysis on the Piviere of Sesto di Moriano, populated by eleven churches whose history he reconstructs through documentation and the skilled interpretation of toponymy. This recovery includes destroyed churches (such as San Pietro), even in the full medieval period, allowing us to fill the places with presences erased by the passage of time and to reweave the fabric of the ecclesiastical network by patching the tears caused by the disappearance of the architectural vestiges of the churches. Another church, the Pieve of San Giorgio di Brancoli, is the protagonist of Chiara Bozzoli's article titled "From Periphery to Crossroads: Architecture and Sculpture in the Pieve of San Giorgio di Brancoli." The author dedicates herself to an ecclesiastical structure set in the Brancoleria, an area that stretches along the Serchio and is known today for its beautiful landscapes. Chiara Bozzoli opens her work by highlighting the lost centrality of the area, which became marginal only from the late Middle Ages, whereas previously it had been central because the Serchio Valley was one of the most significant arteries connecting Tuscany and the Po Valley. The author manages to detail the architectural layout of the church, with great attention to construction materials and, above all, to decorative elements and statues. By reuniting with the church some objects kept at the Museum of Villa Guinigi or the memory of stolen pieces (particularly a holy water font), Bozzoli reconstructs and reassembles the sacred building very precisely, also identifying the craftsmen and guiding us on a refined knowledge path that constantly reconnects the examined object to historical events. The preciousness of the church's aspect is also an indicator of the significance of the investigated area. Valentina Cappellini, in "Matilda of Canossa and Lucca. Review of the Countess's Documents Held in the Diocesan Historical Archive," deals with the myth of Matilda as a founder of "parishes, monasteries, bridges, and hospitals." Her work is a rigorous and thoughtful investigation of the Lucchese documentation concerning the Countess, attesting to her judicial activity, support for the Church reform through the enhancement of some Lucchese religious realities, relations with Bishop Anselmo II, with the Vallombrosans, and with some monasteries, often real "instruments of the kingdom," donations to the Diocese of Lucca, and strategies for controlling the area's roads. Reading the documentation with sensitivity and intelligence, Valentina Cappellini paints a portrait of Matilda that highlights "the diversification of interventions... due to the changed political and religious climate... to strengthen her marquisate power, rooting it in the Tuscan reality and developing it in a princely sense, attempts that were, however, thwarted by the absence of direct heirs and the emergence of competing forces." The activity of the Countess and Bishop Anselmo II is finally the subject of Raffaele Savigni's acute analysis in "The Political-Ecclesiastical Activity of Matilda and Bishop Anselmo II and the Territory of Diecimo." With his usual precision and relying on a generous network of sources, Savigni effectively illustrates the events of a territory located beyond the Six Miles of Lucca, dominated by the presence of its parish church and, from the 11th century, the episcopal castle, giving us a real slice of life of the area but with a broad scope, capable of contextualizing the fate of Diecimo within its reference frameworks. Finally, Savigni draws a lively portrait of Matilda caught in her difficult relationship with the city of Lucca and then in her "less conflictual relationship with the territory of Mediavalle and Garfagnana," where "some of Matilda's vassals operated." In his dense essay, the author meticulously shows the role played "in synergy with the Lucchese bishops, in reorganizing the territory, also through the network of churches, hospitals, and bridges." A rich documentary appendix completes the author's historiographical effort. The volume is concluded by Antonia d'Aniello's essay ("The Pieve of Santa Maria at Diecimo: Architecture and Sculpture"), an accurate and historically well-argued portrait of the parish structure that the reader has already encountered in previous essays. The volume, therefore, intertwines facts, experiences, and biographies, guiding us through a journey of knowledge that finds history in the territory and its elements, creating a careful and rigorous narrative of the past. Far from the celebratory grandeur of historiographical narratives that aspire to be 'intelligent' works, and distant from the seduction of mainstream themes, this book presents itself to its audience for what it is: the result of very well-documented investigations on an identified and circumscribed territory where it is possible to trace the interactions of historical actors with the 'great' questions of history.