This paper deals with the public notaries, or public scribes, working at the Kingdom of Seville, in Castille, during the second half of the 16 th century. We have focused our study on the public documents elaborated by these professionals in order to determine what the process of writing these public instruments consisted of, what these instruments were, in how many phases they were set, who was responsible for the implementation of each of these phases and if they were similar to those described in other territories. The division of tasks and the internal organization of the offices are also analysed

Ever since its rediscovery in 1831 and the first report issued on it in 1846, the Codex purpureus Rossanensis has attracted the attention of scholars, chiefly on account of its decorative and textual characteristics. Far less commonplace are studies specifically dedicated to the analysis of the codex’s material and graphic aspects. The present contribution stems from the opportunity―generously provided to the authors―to study the original codex, and also from a desire to closely re-examine its codicological and palaegraphical features, with the aim of producing an updated status quaestionis enhanced with some new critical insights.

From its foundation in 1135 onward, the Cistercian abbey of S. Maria di Chiaravalle Milanese has played a leading role in Milan’s political, social, economical and religious life. Despite the ideal of the desertum prescribed by the Order’s Rule, the monks of Chiaravalle Milanese were closely linked to the urban elites and to the public institutions for the entire Middle Ages. Nonetheless, as a Cistercian monastery, Chiaravalle Milanese had other privileged interlocutors: the most important one was the Papacy, as proven by the large number of letters (up to 120 until the beginning of the 15th century) addressed by popes to Chiaravalle Milanese and still preserved into the monastic archives. This paper aims at pursuing the critical editorial work recently carried out on Chiaravalle Milanese’s papal and Apostolic legates’ charters from 1139 to 1311, by publishing 16 unedited papal letters dating from the pontificate of John XXII to that of Boniface IX. In addition, 3 more charters are edited in an Appendix, which are useful to contextualize and explain the relationship between Chiaravalle Milanese and the Holy See during the 14th century.

Graduated at the University of Padua (under the supervision of Giuseppe De Leva and Andrea Gloria), archivist, librarian, and then Director of Civic Library “Angelo Mai” of Bergamo for about a period of thirty years (1898-1925), Angelo Mazzi is not only the most important and prolific local historian. His epistolario, rich of correspondence with some of the main Italian medievalists active between 19 th and 20 th century (Cipolla, Novati, Schiaparelli, Volpe, just to mention the greatest ones), gives evidence for a very large consideration and prestige, that Mazzi gained thanks to his extraordinary knowledge and criticism of Bergamo’s written sources. Close analysis of legal documents and narrative works are not confined, in any event, to a mere philological field, but, especially for communal studies, they turn out to be broader historical frameworks with lots of original interpretations that are still valid and appreciated. It’s just on Mazzi’s profile as historian of communes that this paper is mainly focused, though without any pretension of examining in detail his best known books and his historiographical significance: it will be his figure of rigorous reviewer and hard-working erudite to hold the stage, instead, together with some of his typical ways of reading the documentary sources as they result from a little, thematically consistent dossier of letters that have been here edited and analyzed. Dated back to the period of composition and first reception of the Studi di diplomatica comunale and of the Atti del comune di Milano , these letters show well how Mazzi was interested in the branch of research inaugurated by Pietro Torelli and usefully continued by Cesare Manaresi. There again, though aged at that time, Mazzi himself supported a little survey on Bergamo communal notaries in 13 th century: at the close of the paper, we’ll briefly talk about values and limits of that initiative, focusing on the general cultural reasons and the material conditionings that, during the second decade of the 20 th century and for many years more, blocked any further developments of Torelli’s legacy.

There is now new evidence which allows us to detect in the Gradual MS Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra, Brescia, Codici Miniati , alfa, one of the choir books made in the late Middle Ages (XV ex - XVI in centuries) expressly for the Benedictine monastery of San Faustino Maggiore in Brescia. Being the fruit of the spiritual and cultural rebirth which affected the monastery in the fifteenth century and later revealed itself through the fusion with the S. Giustina di Padova Congregation (1490), the Gradual preserves a precious treasure, a proprium Mass for the saints Faustino and Giovita, the musical transcription of which is given in the appendix, together with the codicological description of the manuscript, the table of contents and some comparative tables.

The article offers a critical review of the various methods of classifications of ruling types, as elaborated by Kirsopp and Silva Lake, Julien Leroy, Agamemnon Tselikas, and Denis Muzerelle. Each classification draws on different principles and favours certain elements, but problems rise when ruling types need to be grouped and compared: these are highlighted and analyzed in the contribution. The discussion also focuses on general problems involved with the use of classification systems to describe complex layouts, especially those found in glossed manuscripts.

The codices Varia 6 and Varia 5 in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome preserve the first and second edition respectively of the manuscript chronicle of the Roman monastery of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea, known later as S. Cosimato in Trastevere. Founded as a male Benedictine monastery (in the tenth century) and then entrusted to a female Franciscan community in the lifetime of Saint Clare (in the thirteenth century), it was the first Poor Clare nunnery established in Rome. The Chronicle, written by Abbess Orsola Formicini (from the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century) is also based on the study of documents from the Benedictine period, which she saved from destruction (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Fondo SS.Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea), and enjoyed a more ample diffusion, which was, however, often accompanied by criticism and misunderstandings. Retracing the compositional iter of the two manuscripts allows one to appreciate fully the value of their textual context, in terms of its narrative composition and historical testimony. From a codicological and palaeographic perspective these manuscripts constitute an interesting example of the production of monastic chronicles. In this case one has also to evaluate the illutrations of the two codices under examination, composed of small sacred images, cut out and glued to the pages, which represent an example of ‘holy pictures’ which is very rare for their number, antiquity, and common provenance.