Di Bartolo Francesco, Abitati rupestri e citta’ fortificate nella Sicilia occidentale dai bizantini ai normanni

Di Bartolo Francesco, Abitati rupestri e citta’ fortificate nella Sicilia occidentale dai bizantini ai normanni, Thèse de doctorat soutenue en 2015 (Università di Bologna)

Résumé/abstract :

The presented research analyses in a factual and contemporaneously coherent way the dynamic of colonization which characterized the landscape of Sicily’s west beginning with the occupation by the Byzantine and ending with the dominion of the Normans (535-1194 A.D. ca.). The volume presents a precise collection of documents and literary sources, which regards the rural inhabitants and the fortified villages of Sicily’s west and puts the interest both for the material culture and for the administration and organization of the territory. By the results of the documental attestation, related to all archaeological researches (which were made in the reviewed territory both in the past and in the last years) emerges an edited catalogue of the archeological sites and monumental rests (updated to 2013/14) for the purpose of the protection, conservation and enhancement of the landscape. Based on the consulted documents and various reviewed sources ( literary, archaeological, monumental, toponymy ) several considerations are concluded about the spread colonization, about the founding of fortified villages, and about the institution and the formation of the cities.The conducted survey, whereby the documents and the sources were found out, includes also a partial topographical reconstruction of the main researched inhabited centers. For various sporadical medieval structures, occasionally figured on casual prints of the 16th-17th century, it was possible to perform an architectural emphasis in the attachment. The description of the rural area and the fortified sites is finally completed by a series of pages in which are illustrated the archaeological sites, the monumental rests and the most interesting discoveries of the byzantine, arabic and norman-swabian period of Sicily’s west.

[Source : http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/6785/]