I mendicanti nella Capitanata medievale. Il rapporto tra architettura e città a Sypontum novellum (Manfredonia) e nella Civitas Sanctae Mariae (Lucera)

The construction/reconstruction of the two cities in Capitanata - Manfredonia and Lucera - , which can be placed between the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the following century, is connected to the arrival of the Mendicant Orders in Apulia. The paper reveals a specific liaison between these and the court, aimed at facilitating the Angevin king’s control of the cities. From the proposed analysis emerges a relationship that can be investigated on two different levels from the “macroscale” of the city to the “microscale” of the building and its architectural decoration.