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Castel Porciano: An abandoned Medieval Village of the Roman Campagna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Michael Mallett  and
David Whitehouse
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Extract

One of the problems which has arisen during the course of the work on the topographical survey of South Etruria has been that of the date and cause of the abandonment of many of the smaller medieval settlements of which there is evidence in the area. The study of deserted medieval villages has advanced considerably in northern Europe since 1945, but in Italy it is still in its infancy. There is therefore an almost complete lack of comparative material with which to work in the study of the deserted settlements in the area between Rome and Viterbo, and we have found traces, either documentary or physical, and often both, of over seventy-five such settlements in this area.

As I hope to take up the whole question of the deserted villages of South Etruria in the near future, I shall not here attempt to enlarge on the wider aspects of the problem of shifting rural settlements in the later Middle Ages. However, it is important to emphasise that the picture is on the whole very different from that in northern Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 35 , December 1967 , pp. 113 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1967

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References

1 The only attempt to consider the subject in general terms is Klapisch-Zuber, C. and Day, J., ‘Villages désertés en Italie; esquisse,’ in Villages désertés et histoire économique, XI6–XVIII6 siècle, Paris, 1965Google Scholar.

2 The term ‘hill village’ applied to South Etruria is a rather misleading one as, owing to the geological structure of the area, the villages are usually sited on promontories hidden in ravines. However, the historical and social factors governing the choice of such sites are similar to those applicable to the better known hill-top sites. For further details and explanation, see p. 117.

3 For general analysis of deserted village problems, see particularly the contributions by various authors in Part I, ‘Problèmes de méthode,’ in Villages désertés et histoire économique, op. cit. On the origins of Italian hill settlements, see G. Gribaudi, ‘Sulle origini dei centri rurali di sommità,’ Rivista geografica italiana, 1951, and F. Cusin, ‘Per la storia del castello medioevale,’ Rivista storica italiana, 1939. On Provence, see G. Démians d'Archimbaud, ‘Archéologie et villages désertéd en Provence,’ Villages désertés et histoire économique.

4 Pardi, G., ‘La popolazione del distretto di Roma sui primordi del Quattrocento,’ Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria (1926), xlix, pp. 349–50Google Scholar.

5 Among the villages described as uninhabited and destroyed in 1416 in the provinces of Tuscia and Colline, the following all survived as centres of habitation : Castel Giuliano, Santa Severa, Castel di Guido, Monte Romano, Santa Pupa (Manziana), Riano and Monterosi. On Monterosi see a special report prepared by J. B. Ward-Perkins and M. E. Mallett for a forthcoming publication by the Department of Biology, Yale University.

6 Tomassetti, iii, p. 111.

7 Ameti, G. F., Patrimonio di S. Pietro, olim Tuscia suburbicaria, Rome, 1696Google Scholar, placed Porciano in the Fosso del Rio between Castel S. Valentino and Mazzano. F. C. L. Sickler, Plan topographique de la campagne de Rome, 1811, and Piale, Luigi, Pianta della campagna romana (Rome, 1855)Google Scholar, both indicate the correct site.

8 Archivio di Stato, Rome, Archivio del Archiospedale di S. Spirito in Sassia, i, Bullarium, f. 86.

9 Ibid., ff. 78 and 79.

10 See the above-mentioned bulls and Silvestrelli, ii, pp. 494, 498, 511–2, 705.

11 Tomassetti, iii, p. 562.

12 Tomassetti, G., ‘Sale e focatico,’ in Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, xx (1897)Google Scholar.

13 Levi, G., ‘Diario nepesino di Antonio Lotieri di Pisano (1459–68),’ Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, vii (1884), p. 174Google Scholar.

14 Ward-Perkins, J. B., ‘Etruscan towns, Roman roads and medieval villages; the historical geography of S. Etruria,’ Geographical Journal, cxxviii (1962), pp. 389–91 and 401Google Scholar.

15 Frederiksen and Ward-Perkins, p. 81–7.

16 For Paterno, see Lawrence, pp. 91–5 and 113–6.

17 For discussions of the extent of the district of Rome in the fourteenth century, see de Bouard, A., Le régime politique et les institutions de Rome au Moyen Age (Paris, 1920), pp. 199–224Google Scholar, and Guiraud, J., L'état pontifical après la Grande Schisme (Paris, 1896), pp. 99–162Google Scholar.

18 Frederiksen and Ward-Perkins, p. 80 (site grid reference 812768).

19 Stiesdal found a similar feature at Belmonte (Stiesdal, p. 85).

20 I am indebted to Professor Bergren for showing me plans and drawings of four pestarole investigated by the Swedish Institute which will be published in the two forthcoming volumes of the Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae.

21 della Tuscia, Niccolò, Cronache di Viterbo e di altre città, ed. Ciampi, I. (Florence, 1872), pp. 38 and 401Google Scholar.

22 See part II of this report.

23 Jones, ii, pp. 164–5, describes the similar pits found at Grotta Colonna (Monte Fiore).

24 Stiesdal, p. 86.

25 I am indebted for confirmation of this conelusion, as for advice on many other points of architectural dating to Professor A. W. Lawrence, who spent a very fruitful day with us on the site.

26 Lawrence, p. 93.

27 Santa Cornelia was excavated between 1961 and 1964 by Mr. Charles Daniels and members of the British School at Rome. I am grateful to Mr. Daniels for information on the results of his excavation. For Santa Cornelia and domuscultae, cf. Ward-Perkins, J. B., PBSR, xxix (1961) p. 75 ff.Google Scholar; Partner, P. D., PBSR, xxxiv (1966), pp. 68–78Google Scholar.

28 For a restored cooking pot from Santa Cornelia, cf. Stiesdal, fig. 20.

29 For globular amphorae from a seventh-century wreck at Yassi Ada, off the Turkish coast, cf. Bass, George F., Archäologische Anzeiger, lxxvii (1962), 735–64Google Scholar, fig. 6a, b.

30 Whitehouse, D. B., Medieval Archaeology, ix (1965) pp. 55–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 G. Boni, Notizie degli Scavi, 1901, p, 41 ff.

32 Ballardini, Gaetano, L'Eredità ceramistica dell' antico Mondo Romano (Roma, 1964)Google Scholar, passim.

33 Rice, D. Talbot, Byzantine Glazed Pottery (Oxford, 1930), pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

34 Morgan, Charles H. II, Corinth XI, The Byzantine Pottery (Princeton, 1941), pp. 36–42Google Scholar.

35 Dunning in Dunning, G. C., Hurst, J. C., Myres, J. N. L. and Tischler, F., Medieval Archaeology, iii (1959), p. 37Google Scholar.

36 Serafini, Alberto, Torri Campanarie di Roma e del Lazio nel Medioevo (Roma, 1927), p. 209Google Scholar.

37 Cesare, Luigi, Faenza, xiv (1926), pp. 17–24Google Scholar.

38 Serafini, pp. 201–4 and fig. 522 A.

39 For example, Rackham, Bernard, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1940)Google Scholar, no. 2, which was in the South Kensington Collection in 1889.

40 Prandi, Adriano, Il Complesso Monumentale della Basilica Celimontana dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Vaticano, 1953), p. 325 ffGoogle Scholar.

41 Giovenale, G. B., Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma, xlv (1918), pp. 125–67Google Scholar.

42 Ballardini, p. 142, fig. 183.

43 Lacam, Jean, Cahiers Archéologiques, vii (1954), pp. 93–116Google Scholar.

44 Liverani, Giuseppe, Faenza, xxv (1937), pp. 3–17Google Scholar.

45 This summary of the suggested development of Orvieto ware is based on a study of the pottery in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo at Orvieto, which I was able to carry out through the kindness of the Canonical authorities and the Director of the Museo Faina, Dr. Mario Bizzari.

46 Fragments which belong to a single vessel are here recorded as a single piece.

47 Grid ref. 774749. Material collected by members of the British School at Rome.

48 See below, conclusions. Phase (a) belongs to Dr. Mallett's Period I and (b) to Period II.