Popolamento e nuove dinamiche insediative del mondo rurale nell’Italia centro-settentrionale (V-X sec.)

The subject that has been entrusted to me is a field of study that I deal with constantly. I have written a great deal about this, even recently, so it is difficult for me to make a new, if not original, contribution. I will try to put the data together again to draw up a series of lines that can serve as a basis for discussion, remembering, however, that the great confrontation took place at a general level especially in a phase of strong dynamism that began with the conference in Pontignano in 1992 and reached a rough point with the international seminar in Poggibonsi in 2009: from The history of the early Italian Middle Ages (6th-10th century) in the light of archaeology to Italy, 888-962: a turning point.1 The subject of research has not fallen to a standstill, but I consider the twenty-year period in question as the most vital era. The following study will be articulated in brief general overviews regarding, above all, the connection between the center and the north, in which I will deal with the characteristics of those contexts that I have directly investigated and for which the refinement of the data has been continuous. It is a sequence that leads us to the formation of the post-classic world and new centers of power until the very beginning of the encastellation process. Even today, the best models to use continue to be the positions of Riccardo Francovich for Tuscany and the picture traced by Gian Pietro Brogiolo for the Septentrion (north), with the elaborations of Enrico Zanini for the Byzantine part and not only. Initial elements were added to recognize a public power that seems stronger than previously thought, especially in the 7th century and between the 9th-10th century, but little else. The underlying problems, in the end, are still the same: the end of late Roman landscapes; the transition to the early medieval settlement forms and how they were structured; the role played by the Power in the diachrony.