Normannitas come eredità fragile. L'Incompiuta di Venosa.

The uncompleted abbey church of Venosa has attracted the attention of Italian and international research since the mid-nineteenth century. Built of large ancient spolia, the church with ambulatory and radiating chapels had been chosen as dynastic burial place for at least the first Hauteville generation in the South. From the point of view of architectural culture, this suggests reflection on the dynasty's cultural particularity, their Normannitas, in dialogue with the host society. But we are presented with a lesson in repeated failure. It can be assumed that the conception and start of construction of the new ambulatory in Venosa took place on the initiative of Duke Robert Guiscard († 1085) and Abbot Berengar († 1095), also from Normandy. Extensive recent on-site observations and the meticulous historical exposition of Hubert Houben allow three construction phases to be identified, each achieving less. However, self-referentiality, creative imagination, and geographically far-reaching formal connections (even a dialogue with the crusader choir of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem) indicate unwaning ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]