Benevento e Campi Palentini. Documenti e cronache delle due battaglie che decisero la conquista angioina del Mezzogiorno

Abstract

Is it still possible to talk about the two battles that determined the passage of southern Italy from Swabian to Angevin domination without historiographical ‘redundancies’ and the risk of ‘already said’? It is possible to imagine re-discussing the “location” of these famous clashes? Did the battle of Benevento in 1266 take place entirely in the Samnite capital? If this is so, it should be evaluated because Charles I of Anjou - who ordered the construction of a certain type of buildings in the vicinity of the places involved in particular events - had the abbey of Santa Maria in San Pietro di Scafati built as a votive offering for victory, in a place quite far from the battlefield. Perhaps it would be appropriate to consider the broad territorial spectrum covered by the clash, the routes followed by the two armies for the fatal encounter and imagine a wider radius of the theater of operations that could justify the choice of the place indicated by Charles for dissolve his vote. It is the starting point for the revision of arguments, especially of an archaeological nature. And Dante’s poetic suggestions are enough to talk about the ‘battle of Tagliacozzo’ of 1268 (again engaged in by Charles I against Conradin of Swabia) when the historical documentary and archaeological evidence suggests that the real place of the clash was the Palentini fields near Scurcola Marsicana? Even in this case it is not a secondary issue for all that can result from having to review territorial coordinates that involve other sectors, opening up questions of document revision and, once again, archaeological. These questions make it necessary to resume the discussion, trying to draw new and more precise conclusions. And so, let’s see, in as much detail as possible, these two crucial military events.