Il monachesimo riformato nell’Italia centro-settentrionale dei secoli XI e XII

Abstract

The perception of reformed monasticism has recently changed because, with the disappearance of the historiographical moralism that allowed the use of evaluative and apologetic logics, the vision of the so-called ecclesiastical reform or investiture contest has changed a lot. Today it is understood as a revolutionary process that involved European society as a whole. The overcoming of the contrast between new monasticism and traditional monasticism has led to a more fluid and dialectical vision of the transformations that affected the forms of regular religious life. The participation of Avellaniti, Camaldolesi and Vallombrosani to the initiatives of reform of the papacy was very intermittent and differentiated and their supra-regional expansion took place only when from the beginning of the twelfth century began the processes of institutional stabilization not necessarily led by the papacy, but which allowed the testing of instruments of supra-local coordination of religious communities. It is in this context that the experience of Atto di Pistoia is placed, which summarizes in itself the ability to stabilize the Vallombrosa charism and make it compatible with the ecclesiastical system at the local level.