Summer Residences and Retreats of the Rulers around Mount Vulture
Living Comfort and Experience of Nature in the Late Hohenstaufen-Early Angevin Southern Italy
The architectural dimension of residence formation in High Middle Ages and the historico-cultural and geographical links it reveals have not been fully investigated. For Southern Italy there are in-depth studies only on the Norman and late Hohenstaufen residence areas around Palermo and Foggia.
The complexes of Lagopesole, Gravina, and Palazzo San Gervasio in densely wooded parts of Apulia and Basilicata, and, in certain regards Castel del Monte, constitute a both functionally and geographically interrelated group of late Hohenstaufen-early Angevin summer residences and near-to-nature retreats. Except for Castel del Monte, more detailed studies of their architectural and functional history are largely lacking. In collaboration between art historians, historical building researchers, and medievalists, these complexes will for the first time be submitted to interdisciplinary, comparative investigation. The focus of the project is Lagopesole, an early and inadequately researched example of a rural summer residence in tune with the landscape. Between 1242 and 1280, Emperor Frederic II is likely to have resided here, and it was certainly used by King Manfred of Sicily and King Charles I of Anjou.
The style of life at these summer residences is seen to reflect transcultural exchange processes in High Medieval Europe, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The research focus of the project is on the reciprocal relationship between building and landscape. Interpretation is also required with respect to political iconography (architecture as “token of power”/Herrschaftszeichen).
The methodological basis for the project is provided by historical building research, precise observation, building surveys and drawings, in-depth findings analysis, and the processing of relevant historical sources. This constitutes the indispensable condition for addressing the following issues of functional history:
- Ceremonial, festivity culture, and leisure (incl. staging of nature perception through elevated banqueting halls with wide windows; physical and mental recreation; hunting in the neighbouring woods);
- Residence-specific living comfort (flights of apartments with withdrawing rooms, palas with festive hall, defensive potentiality and use of the keep, chapels, heating of the premises, bathing facilities, toilets with integrated ventilation and sewage disposal, evidence of social distinctions);
- Economic use, transport logistics and supplies for the complexes (road network, regular fishing of nearby lakes, water lines, cisterns, stables).
The architectural sculpture of Lagopesole contributes to defining courtly use contexts and landscape reference, so that comprehensive presentation and Europe-wide contextualization within the framework of the project are crucial.