Per un profilo storico e culturale della città di Roma fra XII e XIII secolo

Summary. This study aims to paint an historical and cultural profile of Rome in the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, with particular attention to the relationship between society and the written production of documents and books. The first, more general, part, will describe the places where writings were produced and kept, and the principal cultural “actors”, both lay and ecclesiastical, and their formation; finally, there will be described some of the cultural processes of the period, such as the “Gothisization” of written culture, the standardization of the political language of the chancelleries, the rationalization of accounting records. The second part, which has a particular focus, illustrates some cultural practices linked with the new lay sector in Rome, the city council or Senate. There will be reflection on epistolary writing, with particular attention to the models of writing – throwing light on the professional instruments and books kept at the Capitoline palace – and the discourse will concentrate on the figure of Cencio cancellarius, who was in charge of awarding various artistic and cultural commissions in Rome. Often mistaken by historiographers for Cencio camerarius, who later became Pope Honorius III, Cencio cancellarius was rather “another Cencio”, chancellor of the city government, scion of a family of lawyers and notaries connected with city government in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.