ARCHEOLOGIA TARDO-ANTICA

The course aims to provide students with the major research topics related to the history of rural and urban settlements in the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Age context with reference to the new acquisitions of archaeological research. Next to the analysis of the transformation processes affecting the West medieval, it will pay special attention to rural and urban reality within the Byzantine world, as essential components of the Early Medieval Mediterranean reality and reference points for the understanding of the dynamics that occurred in the Late Antiquity and Early medieval Sicily. Specific attention will be paid to the knowledge of the main archaeological markers for this phase through the recognition and study of a significant archaeological context such as S. Agata al Carcere (Catania).

Frontal teaching (30h) and practical exercises (6h) of classification of archaeological material (TMA, drawing, filing) conducted at the depots of the Superintendence BB.CC.AA. of Catania.

1. Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages: chronological and cultural coordinates.

2. Late Antiquity and economic transformation: towards a new idea of statehood

3. Geographical and economic space: ports, emporia, wiks

4. Cities between Late Antiquity and theEarly Middle Ages: social transformations and urban impact

5. Rome between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

6. Constantinople the image of an imperial city

7. The countryside between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: new economic poles

8. Territorial diversifications in the Italian countryside (e.g. Etruria and Puglia)

9. The new territorial powers: secular and ecclesiastical lordships

10. Castralization and encastellation in Italy (castles and monasteries)

11. Sicily: the picture of settlement between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

13. The Kassar of Castronovo

14. Catane

15. Syracuse

Module.1 Features of Medieval urbanism

S. Gelichi, La città in Italia tra V e VIII secolo: riflessioni dopo un ventennio di dibattito archeologico, in Espacios urbanos en el Occidente mediterráneo, Toledo 2010, pp. 65-85.

A. Augenti, Città e porti dall’antichità al Medioevo, Roma, Carrocci editore, 2013, pp. 1-105.

G. P. Brogiolo, Le origini della città medievale, Mantova, SAP, 2011, pp. 224.

A. Augenti, Archeologia della città medievale, in Archeologia dell’Italia medievale, Roma – Bari 2016, pp. 1-81.

L. Saguì, Roma, i centri privilegiati e la lunga durata della tarda antichità. Dati archeologici dal deposito di VII secolo nell’esedra della Crypta Balbi, in Archeologia medievale XXIX 2002, pp. 7-42.

W. Muller-Wiener, Costantinopoli, la nuova Roma, in Storia di Roma III, II, Torino, Einaudi 1993, pp. 143-174.

Module 2. The rural world e l'incastellamento

G.P. Brogiolo – A. Chavarria Arnau, Aristocrazie e campagne nell’Occidente da Costantino a Carlo Magno, Firenze, 2005, pp. 160.

A. Augenti, Archeologia delle campagne medievali, in Archeologia dell’Italia medievale, Roma – Bari 2016, pp. 82-184.

G. Volpe, Per una geografia insediativa ed economica della Puglia tardo antica, in Bizantini, longobardi e arabi in Puglia nell’altomedioevo, Atti del XX congresso internazionale di Studi sull’altomedioevo (Savelletri di Fasano 3-6 novembre 2011), Spoleto 2012, pp. 27-57.

Modulo 3. Sicilia

L. Arcifa, Insularità siciliana e Mediterraneo altomedievale. Dati archeologici e quadri territoriali tra VIII e IX secolo, in Kordula Wolf, K. Herbers (eds), Southern Italy as Contact Area and Border Region during the Early Middle Ages. Religious-Cultural Heterogeneity and Competing Powers in Local,Transregional and Universal Dimension, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 80, Bohlau Verlag, Koln Weimar, Win 2018, pp. 125-148.

L. Arcifa, Trasformazioni urbane nell’altomedioevo siciliano. Uno status quaestionis, in M.C. Parello, M.S. Rizzo (a cura di), Paesaggi urbani tardoantichi. Casi a confronto, Atti delle Giornate Gregoriane VIII Edizione, (Agrigento 29-30 novembre 2014), Bari 2016, pp. 31-40.

L. Arcifa, La città nel medioevo: sviluppo urbano e dominio territoriale, in L. Scalisi (a cura di) Catania, l’identità urbana dall’antichità al Settecento, Catania 2009, pp. 73-111.