La diffusione dell’Ordine degli Ospedalieri di San Giovanni nel Viterbese

The research concerns the structures that belonged to the Order of the Knights of San Giovanni in the territory of Viterbo. Starting from the enumeration of the Johannine properties in the Viterbo area, the periods and methods of acquisition are indicated, looking for peculiarities common to the settlements, born as a place of shelter for wayfarers and then evolved into farms. Tuscia harbored many Melitensi production cells, the so-called commendas, properties entrusted to members of the Order so that they could manage them, obtaining a profit for the Common Treasury. A constant feature of the settlements was their location in rural areas and near road junctions. In the Viterbo area, in line with the modus operandi of the Hospitallers, there is great skill in adapting the acquired factories to contingent needs and, in building ex novo, conforming to local styles, with greater attention to the creation of self-celebratory decorative apparatuses rather than to the choice of identifying construction typologies. The small nuclei, delimited by low walls, consisted of the residence of the commendatore, lodgings for the chaplain and for the friars in charge of religious and welfare functions, sometimes in the same body of the building, and a church or chapel, with small structures for fund management. In the first period there was a constant presence of a hospitalis, hostel and infirmary, which was reduced almost to disappearance with the development of productive activities to the detriment of welfare ones, a phenomenon which was observed starting from the second half of the fourteenth century up to the middle ‘500. Finally, the analysis of an exemplifying case of the structure of the commendam is proposed, elaborated through direct examination and archival investigation.

La committenza ha da sempre condizionato e indirizzato l’architettura sia nella sua fase progettuale e di cantiere sia nella sua conservazione, tenuto conto delle vicende storiche coeve, della situazione economica al contorno e della cultura architettonica del momento. Un ordine religioso è tra i committenti più esigenti perché, vivendo secondo precisi dogmi, richiede un’architettura che identifichi le proprie necessità. I due tomi raccolgono contributi che affrontano le modalità in cui gli ordini e le congregazioni religiose, tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, hanno rappresentato sé stessi tramite l’arte e l’architettura. Gli atti sono frutto del convegno, svolto a maggio 2021, organizzato in seno alle molteplici attività complementari che il Dottorato di Storia, Disegno e Restauro dell’Architettura di Sapienza Università di Roma offre per la formazione accademica integrando i tre distinti, ma affini, settori disciplinari.