Connecting Spheres: Aristocratic Cliques Between the Apennines, Lucca, and the Eternal City (12th–13th Centuries)

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that the careful identification of the structures of power, of the web of personal relationships on a given space can better contextualize the historical-artistic evidence that it hosts, providing elements to reason, for example in the case of ecclesiastical buildings and monumental liturgical furnishings, on their purposes and patrons. The case study chosen is that of 13th-century Garfagnana. Indeed, Garfagnana stands out for hosting architectural, sculptural and pictorial works that clash with the out-dated image, sometimes still used as a reference frame in historical-artistic reconstructions of an obsolete feudal world still not marked by a mercantile mentality.