Can words alone help us grasp the material and phenomenological complexity of a space from the past? The most likely answer is no. It is undeniable, however, that texts are nonetheless a fundamental resource in attempts to reconstruct medieval sacred spaces that have either disappeared or whose architectural, aesthetic, and ritual aspects have been altered. The essays collected in this volume, written by specialists in the history of art, architecture, and liturgy, demonstrate this in many ways. They discuss various categories of textual sources related or linkable to sacred, ritual, and liturgical spaces in the Middle Ages, and although the geographical focus is on Southern Italy, other Italian and European cases are also included. The textual sources drawn upon span those of a narrative character (chronicles, gesta, hagiographies) to early modern records about medieval buildings and their decoration; from ekphrasis to ritual instructions and musical notations. The aim is to (re)consider both well-and less-known written sources and to explore some of the hermeneutical questions posed by their relationships to monuments, landscapes, and artistic products.

Textual sources and medieval sacred spaces, Elisabetta Scirocco, Sible de Blaauw - La trasformazione dello spazio sacro nella cattedrale di napoli e la costruzione narrativa della memoria episcopale (VIII-IX secolo), Vinni Lucherini - The Easter Tuesday Procession in Early Medieval Montecassino: the Path as a Cultural Technique, Andrew J.M. Irving - Hidden Treasure and Precious Pearl: Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, its Apse Mosaic, and the Experience of Liturgy, Ivan Foletti, Martin F. Leša k - The Choros of the Stars: Image, Chant, and Imagination at Sainte Foy at Conques, Bissera V. Pentcheva - Dallo spazio alla parola. Ripensare la Cappella Palatina, rileggere Filagato da Cerami, Ruggero Longo - Appunti per una restituzione dello spazio liturgico della cattedrale ‹doppia› di Milano (XII secolo), Elisa Di Natale - Tra est e ovest. Le fonti per la comprensione degli spazi nella cattedrale di Salerno, Maddalena Vaccaro - Chiese monastiche e typika nel Mezzogiorno ellenofono: il caso di Santa Maria del Patir, Antonino Tranchina - Fonti testuali e iconografiche per la conoscenza dello spazio sacro della chiesa di San Silvestro in Capite a Roma nel Medioevo, Manuela Gianandrea - De l’ecclésiologie à la notion d’espace liturgique : les Antiquitates Christianæ de Giulio Lorenzo Selvaggio, dans la Naples érudite du XVIIIe siècle, Xavier Barral i Altet