Hortus Artium Medievalium

The new information, deduced from the last archaeological excavations in San Vincenzo al Volturno, complete our knowledge about the organisation of work in the benedictine settlement. The analysis of masonries and the religious buildings census between Northern Campania and Molise, allow us to propose some theories about the diffusion of these technical choices from the IX century to the XII century in this area. Also, in this work we’ll prove how the communities of San Vincenzo and Montecassino, contributed to encourage the diffusion of the culture, particularly in the architectural experimentation.

Archaeological researches have been led since 2013 at Monte Santa Croce, a small settlement not so far from the early medieval city of Capua, on the Volturno turn. The community - referred to as a monasterium by the written sources - was settled at the end of the X^th century by the Lombard aristocracies of Caiatia and got developed in the Norman Age, as the little cenoby was donated to the Benedictine monastery of Saint Laurent ad Septimum: this last large monks’ complex was situated in the town of Aversa (southern part of ager Campanus), the main site from where Normans programmed their expansion to most of Campania region since the end of XI^th century. According to archaeological data, Monte Santa Croce’s monasterium probably declined at the beginning of modern age.