Il priorato cluniacense dei Santi Pietro e Paolo a Castelletto Cervo. Scavi e ricerche 2006-2014

[Machine translation] Certified for the first time in 1092 and active until the 16th century, when the religious body was converted into vicar (1593), the priory of Saints Peter and Paul of Castelletto Cervo, in the diocese of Vercelli, represents a very significant emergency in Italian Cluniac monasticism, established with particular capillarity in present-day Lombardy and eastern Piedmont. The monastery played no secondary role in the Order's presence in this vast area, also from an economic point of view, being equipped with various dependencies and an extensive regional heritage. , The current complex has a good level of legibility of the medieval structures, a significant part still preserved at an elevated level, not only in relation to the church, which can be clearly identified in its Romanesque layout, but - a decidedly rarer aspect - also in relation to the other buildings that constituted the religious nucleus. Furthermore, broadening our gaze to the entire Cluniac world, it is one of the few centers where the second church of the monastery, dedicated to the Virgin, and a focal point in the liturgy — especially funerary and commemorative — proper to the Order, is preserved, albeit in part with changes that have taken place over the centuries., The site has been the subject of in-depth investigation since 2006, in an interdisciplinary research perspective that saw the participation of specialists with different skills and in which archaeological research, both on the excavation front (2009-2012 campaigns) and on that of the archeology of architecture and the study of materials, has been integrated with archival and historical-artistic research and has made extensive use of archaeological investigations, as part of international research projects (Groupement de Recherche Européenne: Terres cuites architecturales et nouvelles méthodes de datation), within the framework of which the monastery has been the subject of new frontiers of methodological experimentation, in particular with regard to techniques for dating bricks, with new developments of methods for thermoluminescence, OSL, archaeomagnetism. , The results of the research presented in this volume are at the heart of the historiographical debate that involves, on the one hand, the archeology of monasteries, with specific attention to topography-spatial and functional aspects, and on the other, studies on the Cluniac world, especially in the light of the discoveries deriving from the excavations carried out in Cluny in recent years, which require an incisive revision of the consolidated knowledge about the Burgundy abbey and the organization of its spaces (as well as on the general periodization of its construction phases). Precisely these new acquisitions also lead us to reconsider from a different perspective the organization - at the same time architectural, spatial and liturgical - of the dependencies and in particular of the priories, which maintained a close link with Cluny for centuries, as in the case of Castelletto, in an attempt to critically verify the actual degree of adherence to the “model” of the mother house and the solutions identified from time to time to meet the specific liturgical needs that Cluniac monasticism developed. In this context, Castelletto constitutes a laboratory of primary interest. The text is, in fact, the most complete study available on a Cluniac priory in Italy, reconstructing its organization and its developments over time, but it also questions the relationship of the monastery with the outside world, on several levels, from its inclusion in the surrounding territory, to its references to the international context, in a framework in which the local dimension dialogues with the macro-regional dimension as well as with the transalpine one. The results of the work show in concrete terms and with a breath never experienced today in Italy and rarely in Europe, the ways in which the Cluniac Order took root in the Peninsula, with the establishment of dependent monasteries that on the one hand are able to incardinate in a territory, to exploit its potential and resources, to absorb its architectural traditions, construction techniques and decorative solutions, on the other hand to adhere to innovative principles, on the liturgical and ideological level, which lead, for example, to adoption of the second Marian church., The volume has an accentuated interdisciplinary approach, in which different approaches, on a scientific and methodological level, are not only combined, but continuously put into dialogue for the purpose of the all-round historical reconstruction of the site. This principle also informs the choices in the presentation of the data: for example, for each building or sector of the medieval complex, the excavation data are closely integrated with those deriving from the stratigraphic study of the walls still preserved high and to the written sources that specifically mention the construction in question, in order to recompose a picture that is as unitary as possible of buildings or areas of which fragmented elements exist today. The diachronic perspective adopted also highlights the historical development of the site, over a long duration, in an innovative way compared to many studies on medieval monasteries, mostly focused on the centuries close to the foundation.