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The wealth of source material produced by Roman notaries has long been neglected. Only in recent decades has it been systematically evaluated by researchers. Given the fragmentary source situation in general, these atti notarili add considerable detail to our knowledge of everyday life. They provide insights not only into the Rome of the popes, which has received considerable attention, but above all into the Rome of the Roman people, much less studied. This paper focuses not on another notary, but on the question of the potential contribution of this genre of sources to the history of late medieval Rome. We see how clients belonging to different social groups approach different notaries. We understand the typical concerns and problems of Roman society, ranging from the debtor imprisoned in a dungeon to the Colonna family in their palazzo. We find confident Florentines with their business dealings, German bakers and their partnership contracts, impoverished monasteries with their growing debts. We see the building boom of the Renaissance and how Piazza Navona is transformed from a campus into a platea, as well as rural Rome within the walls and its countless vineyards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genealogies of peoples and families developed in Europe during the modern period are prevalently studied by scholars from the perspective of the political history of ideas, with the aim of explaining the practical utility of genealogical works. These analyses do not foreground the aspect that is the focus of this paper: the fact that genealogical reconstructions are full of absurdities. They mix factual information, or information that may seem credible, with fabulous details, often false, sometimes ridiculous, in a word "incredible". This is all the more interesting since these texts were composed during the centuries in which scientific methods applied to historical research were developed. Using tools borrowed from cultural anthropology, this paper suggests an epistemological approach that takes into consideration the meaning and credibility of the genealogical materials in the still authoritative framework of the Historia Salutis, the unitary vision of human history as a fusion of the classical legacy and Biblical tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That of Ferdinand Gregorovius is one of the most important correspondences of the 19th century. Despite the author's efforts to keep this part of his papers outside the public purview, several thousands of letters have survived and, like his other works, are also of extraordinary importance from a literary point of view. The letters are indispensable for reconstructing the genesis of his works, for understanding their nature in the dialectics between literature and science, and for identifying his anonymous writings. As a whole, his correspondences with scholars, aristocrats, politicians, writers, artists and publishers form a unique record of the political, social, cultural and scientific history of the 19th century and give us a concrete idea of his vast networks of transnational contacts, epistolary and personal, and on the working conditions of a historian who carried out his studies freely and independently. His correspondences, covering a period of several decades, also shed light on the rapid developments that in their interactions marked Italian and German history in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]