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This article considers the development of two features of central Italian society in the post-Roman period (approximately the mid-fifth to the mid-ninth centuries) that have been thought to have affected significantly the condition of life of the peasantry there: rural settlement and the taxation system. It argues that we should be wary of attempting to reconstruct the settlement landscape from the surviving documents: too often, references to agrarian structures are misconstrued as references to settlements. The shape of the latter is rarely visible in the textual evidence, but can be appreciated far more certainly from archaeological surveys and excavations, which present a picture of the evolution of the human landscape that is far more varied than a simple transition ‘from villa to village’. Documentary sources are more helpful in tracing the fate of the Roman taxation system. They point to structural continuities in the way that the peasantry was exploited that did not significantly vary between neighbouring political territories, and that reveal how the powerful continued to affect both the location and the condition of peasant life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: During the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, the religious directives involving dietary requirements, and the general human subsistence base were transformed. These complicated and intertwined issues are starkly revealed in an isotopic study of two inland Italian human populations that are separated by approximately 850years in time. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic values observed in human dentin and bone collagen from the sites of early medieval Castro dei Volsci and late medieval Rome are consistent with diets that differed substantially. As the North Atlantic opened to fishing and food preservations methods improved, Mediterranean peoples increased their fish consumption dramatically, and in doing so, met the religious directives of the Catholic Church. By analyzing both teeth and bone collagen within individuals, long-term feeding behaviors are documented, and the utility of last erupted teeth collagen as sources of adult dietary information is established. This study offers the first physical evidence of this new economic reality linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean economies at the end of the Middle Ages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The author has studied the artist's palette and the painting techniques in the frescoes of the Longobard temple (late eighth to early ninth century) in Cividale del Friuli (Italy) and of the crypt of San Salvatore in Brescia (Italy) dated from the eighth century. High sensitivity microprobes were used such as PIXE, SEM and micro-Raman for the characterisation of materials in submillimetre samples. Information from multidisciplinary techniques revealed an unexpected richness of details and gave a clue to the economic context in which the two monuments were conceived and built. In both cases the authors found the use of common traditional materials as well as features that distinguish the two sites. Micro-PIXE analysis led to the identification of earth colours and demonstrated a few details of the surface preparation. Raman spectroscopy has identified a carbon based false blue in Cividale and degradation of carbonate into gypsum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]