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This is the first of two volumes examining some "original features" of late medieval Italy compared to the European reality of the time (the second volume of this collection is curated by Federica Cengarle). On this subject, two conferences have been held, whose proceedings have been published. The first conference, held in October 2000, tried to offer an account, in an introductory section, of the long-term environmental frameworks within which the path of Italian society is inscribed: the rural landscape and the framework of urban settlements, without forgetting, in one and in the another case, the legacy of the Roman world. The second conference, on the other hand - held in the autumn of 2002 - aimed to consider aspects of the history of culture and political ideologies, mentality, religious life, but also the history of techniques.

By studying the archives of the feudal Lords of Southern Italian between the 14th-16th centuries you can understand the real nature of their power and how it was expressed. The volume, which takes into account the most recent historiography, relies on the study and inventory of important documentary collections held in the Archivio di Stato of Naples, such as the Sommaria (Relevi with the files for feudal succession; Dipendenze, I, Conti erariali dei feudi and Diversi, with the seigneurial account books acquired by the State of those lord who had been rebellious or had died without heirs). The authors deal also with the cartularies ('platee') of aristocratic dynasties as the Ruffo and the Sanseverino, based in Calabria, and with the parchments of the Albertini from Nola. Thanks to the rich information derived by these archival series and account books, the authors bring new light on the seigneurial powers, the typology of the records produced by and for the Lords, the administration of their estates, the strategy for elaborating the family memory.

Between the 11th and the 20th century, the monastery of San Miniato al Monte in Florence played a leading role in the religious and cultural life of the city. The volume analyses for the first time the historical and documentary evolution of this regular institute, famous almost only from the architectural and artistic points of view. The book focuses the period of the bishop's patronage in the 11th century, when the monastery and some of its members emerged in the context of the ecclesiastical reform, and continues with the study of the the Olivetan monks community, during the 14th-16th centuries, to arrive at the important structural and functional, but also semantic, transformations of the monument between the 18th century and the contemporary times.

The volume collects the reports presented during the study day held in San Miniato on December 1, 2007, dedicated to the historiographical investigation and to an assessment of the long archaeological research conducted on the site of San Genesio in the lower Valdarno, a village that witnessed settlement continuity from Antiquity to the middle thirteenth century and which was definitively abandoned following a violent destruction by the inhabitants of the nearby village od San Miniato al Tedesco. From written sources we know that the locality is renown for relevant political meetings and assemblies held there between the 11th and 12th centuries; these assemblies were destined to play a significant role in the wider context of municipal Tuscany. The inhabited area was brought to light during an almost ten-year excavation campaign that has provided very important results making it a very interesting case study. The volume is a comparison between historical and archaeological methodology and aims to highlight the great utility of interdisciplinary collaboration on the analysis of especially relevant samples. At the same time, it provides a first overall picture on the history of an abandoned centre offering a rich and exceptionally documented past, proposing a point of reference for other similar investigations intended to shed light on political events, on ecclesiastical institutions and on the dynamics of population in the Medieval Italy.