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Copyright of Archivio di Etnografia is the property of Pagina Societa Cooperativa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On the alpine and subalpine sides of Italy, many important villeneuve municipalities were founded in the 12th and 13th centuries, often promoted by dominant urban centres. However, it should also be noted that other municipalities came into being at the same time as new, centralised settlements emerged – wanted by local ecclesiastical and secular lords – or appeared by autogenesis, imitating urban municipalities (episcopal sees). However, in the absence of a charte de franchises (a “charter of freedom”) or a written acknowledgement of local customs, or a collective deed of citizenship granted by a dominant municipality, a “community” – no matter how populated and socially stratified – had great difficulty in organising itself and acting as a “municipality” which was institutionally recognized by other communities and local lords and was sometimes forced to migrate from the old settlement to be able to operate autonomously. The chartes de franchises granted by the lords, which acknowledged the existence of a municipality, were of particular importance in the transalpine area, including the most important ones which, especially in the Savoy dominions and in the Dauphiné, were not able to impose themselves by their own efforts (with the exception of a few towns in lower Provence). In the first half of the 13th century, even episcopal towns such as Gap, Embrun, Grenoble and Vienne were only able to organise themselves as a municipality because they obtained a charte de franchises by local lords and bishops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La ricorrenza identica di due etnonimi relativi alle Alpi occidentali (Nantuani e Naburni, non altrimenti attestati in questa forma) nella Tabula Peutingeriana e nel De fluminibus di Boccaccio getta nuova luce sulla storia della tradizione della Peutingeriana nel tardo medioevo. The Tabula Peutingeriana and Boccaccio’s De Fluminibus are the only sources attesting in the same form two ethnonyms relating to Western Alps (Nantuani and Naburni): this gives new information on Peutingeriana tradition in the late Middle Ages.

Lo studio dell’interazione tra gruppi umani e ambiente montano è centrale nell’attuale ricerca archeologica. L’etnoarcheologia contribuisce analizzando questa interazione nei contesti moderni e contemporanei, con lo scopo di creare modelli analogici per interpretare il passato e di comprendere più a fondo le strategie umane storiche e attuali. Il progetto EthWAL (Etnoarcheologia dei paesaggi alpini di alta quota nelle Alpi occidentali), nato nel 2013, si pone come punto di riferimento per lo studio delle attività umane nelle alte quote alpine in epoca moderna e contemporanea. È un progetto multidisciplinare (unisce i metodi archeologici a quelli etnografici e storiografici, alle analisi spaziali e alle analisi dei suoli) e multiscalare (dalla piccola alla grande scala). Particolare attenzione è data alle capanne pastorali tradizionali. I risultati di questo progetto saranno utili all’archeologia e permetteranno la valorizzazione delle caratteristiche culturali dei paesaggi di alta montagna. The study of the interaction between human groups and mountain environment is crucial for archaeological research. Ethnoarchaeology contributes the analysis of this interaction in modern and contemporary contexts, aimed at creating analogical models for interpreting the past and understanding human strategies in historical and modern periods. The EthWAL project (Ethnoarchaeology of Western Alpine upland Landscapes), started in 2013, and aims to be a reference for the study of human activities in the alpine uplands during the modern and contemporary age. This is a multidisciplinary (associating archaeological methods to ethnography, historiography, spatial analysis and soil analysis) and multiscalar project (small to large scale). Specific attention is given to traditional pastoral huts. The results of this project will be useful for archaeology and contribute to the management of cultural heritage in high altitude landscapes.

L'autore ripercorre la vicenda valdese medievale attraverso alcune peculiari prospettive di indagine assunte come "trama sottile, eppure forte, per itinerari problematici intorno al complesso tema dell’identità religiosa o, meglio, delle identità religiose presenti tra le popolazioni montane piemontesi nell’arco cronologico compreso tra il XII secolo e gli inizi del Cinquecento".

The essay focuses on the relationship between the emergence of new agents and forms of documentation and the transformations of documentary handwriting in the western Alps between the 12th and 13th centuries, in the context of the European genesis of new cursive graphic languages. Firstly, the chancelleries that produced documents for private individuals in Sion, Aosta and Saint-Maurice are analysed: in the first two cases, the use of distinctive graphic styles contributed to fixing the extrinsic characteristics of the documentary types which were associated with those offices. The graphic behaviour of the notaries working as officers of the counts of Savoy is then analysed. Throughout most of the 13th century, they used rapid scripts but not properly cursive graphic chains; the latter were introduced during the second half of the century, in the new documentary types these notaries constructed for the administrative management of princely domains. In all the contexts examined by the essay, the use of cursivity or the textualis model coexisted as possible choices, between which many scribes could oscillate with individual digraphical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the alpine winter manifestations of the agrarian year, some ancient rituals are held to secure prosperity and good harvest. Masked parades are striking examples of these activities. Masks are an essential part of the carnival costume. They are used with the purpose of waking, activating, stimulating and increasing the creative forces of life and conversely to warding off evil spirits. The mask is the symbol of all metamorphoses: in this sense, the rites of Carnival and the Commedia dell’Arte reveal similar action and similar characters, cast in very similar original patterns.

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