Medieval Ecclesiastical Structures, Dynasty and Community: The Historical Stratification of Religious Centers in the Representations of Theatrum Sabaudiae (1682)

Abstract

The Theatrum Sabaudiae is the main iconographic and chorographic undertaking promoted by the Savoy dynasty: developed in the third quarter of the 17th century, it was published in its first edition in Amsterdam in 1682 and presents a graphic corpus of 3 maps and 132 views. The tables are associated with descriptive reports, which make the Theatrum a dynamic representation of the State, caught in the moment of the recomposition of territorial bodies assembled, with different tools, between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. The historical-architectural literature has so far mainly emphasized the projective dimension of the work, an ideological manifesto of the formation of the absolute State. However, the present contribution intends to investigate whether it is possible to hypothesize a ‘continuist’ hermeneutics of the editorial work, aimed not only at underlining the role of the new dynastic strongholds, but also at remembering the stratified legitimating references and the places of expression of powers - including religious ones - that until then had framed the life of local communities, both urban and rural. Orienting the study towards the analysis of the post-Tridentine religious poles, the research investigates the image - often still medieval - of the structures and the spaces related to the diocesan organization, to the life of the regulars and to the devotion, expression of a plurality of interests and historical legacies stratified, starting from the low Middle Ages.