Tra Siena e Arezzo (Toscana – Italia): una zona di confine tra tarda antichità e altomedioevo Considerazioni sul progetto ‘Disputa’

The paper is centred on southern Tuscany in the period between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Here the strictly archaeological aspects revealed for this period an impression of ‘emptiness’ that is entirely at variance with archival sources demonstrating by contrast the existence of a functioning administrative system, churches, monasteries, chapels, a degree of social stratification. This archival sources are the first documents of a long dispute between the bishop of Siena and those of Arezzo and the first documents of the S. Salvatore Abbey, both dating to the eight century in the Lombard period. This awareness has underpinned the research work aimed at increasing the range and ‘visibility’ of the archaeological evidences guided from historical indications through the intensive use of remote sensing and geo-archaeological techniques. This multi-faceted approach has been particularly intensive in the Asso and Orcia Valleys, where the more or less ‘empty’ archaeological model derived from years of field-walking survey. An exponential increase, however, had been achieved through the archaeological excavation at Pieve di Pava that has opened new scenarios for the countryside between the end of the Roman period and the Middle Ages including an early spread of Christianity within this rural context, a strong ecclesiastical authority, an elevated social class in the fifth century directly connected with the church, the presence of a population which saw the church as a focal point, a rural underclass ready to respond to the inherent ‘message’ of this rare and imposing structure