Ricerc@Sapienza

The possibility of investigation an entire city, makes Cencelle as an unicum in Europe and a prototype of knowledge about the inspirational procedures of city planning, mostly Early Medieval.
The possibility of investigation an entire city, makes Cencelle as an unicum in Europe and a prototype of knowledge about the inspirational procedures of city planning, mostly Early Medieval.
The archaeological excavation of a city founded during the Early Middle Ages and then developed also during the Communal Age represents by itself a big scientific and methodological effort, due to the absence of previous historiographic points of reference. The very few early medieval foundations were mainly castra and hill settlements, the cities being almost absent; the few times when that was not the case, the successive developments of the centres, first of all the continuity in the occupation of the site, are of obstacle to the archaeological investigation and to the interpretation of the few still visible remainings, often abundantly altered by successive interventions. Consequently, very few is known about the concept of the early medieval city, considered even non-existent for a long time, and even less we know about its urbanistic principles. Leopoli-Cencelle represents indeed a precious opportunity, one that in the past years has been very fruitful on informing us about the choices made by its founder, Leo IV, inspired by the roman concept of the town. Singularly, also the knowledge of the communal age city is lacking and scattered. Prerogative of fields such as architecture and urbanistic, it has remained on the fringe of the archaeological analysis due to its invisibility: due to the fact that so many centres in Italy are still maintaining their medieval appearance, it is really difficult to propose a chronological sequence of it with the few remainings that are still available to the analysis in the urban centres which had a continuous development. The end of the urban life at Leopoli-Cencelle at the half of the XVth century provides us with picture of its structure during the Late Middle Ages.
The first aim of the project is the continuation of the archaeological exploration of the centre of the city, in order to comprehend the relationships between the centre of the religious power, the cemeteries and the road network and in this way to reconstruct the idea of civitas, underlying the urbanistic choices of the founder pope of the city and the alterations operated by the communal power in the XIIth century. The analysis of the city and of the territory of pertinence enables us to interpret the city through its interaction with the rural landscape, necessary for the food and raw material supply of the city. Particular attention will be devoted to the excavation and the analysis of the burial area connected with the early medieval and medieval churches. The presence of a well organized urban cemetery is a unique example in the Early Middle Ages; relative to this period, before the excavation of Leopoli-Cencelle, it was commonly thought that urban burial practices were sporadic and non-systematic. The archaeological excavation has already demonstrated the eventuality of a burial area within the city walls, already envisaged during the city's foundation, of which was intended to clarify its limits and extension.
For the Late Middle Ages, yet, the persistence of a large part of the medieval cemeteries prevents their excavation, so that also in this case Cencelle represents an archaeological prototype of particular interest. Thanks to the integrated analysis of the archaeological and
anthropological data and to the simultaneous examination of the written sources, above all those pertaining the ecclesiastical law, we're aiming to the comprehension of the urbanistic choices operated in the city and their integration with the social situation. To reconstruct the reality of the death and its archaeology for a period when the funeral ritual is more concerned with the transcendent aspects, it is required great caution and a constant comparison between different disciplines, not only the historical-archaeological and anthropological ones, but even those linked to the social anthropology and to the history of mentality. In this respect, the contribution of the archaeology to the reconstruction of the medieval society appears to be so crucial, as it has been casual.