Beyond Cluny. Reconstructing Cluniac Monastic Spaces in Medieval Venice (11th–13th Centuries)
 

Chiara Stombellini, M.A.

The project aims at investigating the Cluniac monasteries founded in medieval Venice, focusing on the case studies of San Cipriano on Murano and Santa Croce di Luprio.
At the core of the research are the spaces of these monastic complexes – now almost entirely lost – alongside their decoration, and especially how the established architectural and liturgical model of the Burgundian congregation was adapted to the Lagoon context, deeply shaped by its environmental morphology and constantly changing urban fabric.
The study combines the analysis of archival documents, chronicles, travel accounts, liturgical manuscripts, historical cartography, drawings, and other visual sources with the examination of architectural and artistic remains, often reused and repurposed within new contexts. Drawing on these materials, the research seeks to reconstruct the articulation of monastic spaces between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries and the ways in which they were experienced by the communities that inhabited and crossed them.
More broadly, the Venetian Cluniac monasteries will be considered as active elements in the definition of the medieval landscape of the Lagoon, understood as a reality shaped by the interaction between environment, human practices, the perception of places, and forms of their representation.