Aoste
22-24 juillet 2024

Which political ideals inspired mountain populations in the late Middle Ages? Who could take part in politics and how? Which were the main themes at stake in the collective debate? How were the communities’ records produced and preserved?

Programme et informations pratiques au format PDF : ici

The ERC StG DEMALPS project (Democracies of the Alps. Issues, practices and ideals of politics in mountain communities, 1300-1500) examines mountain areas in the late Middle Ages as the basis for new political experiences, inspired by original values and practices of self-government. The project focuses on the Western Alps of the 14th-15th centuries, a vast territory (including regions that are now French, Italian and Swiss) that witnessed unprecedented political ferment and lively experimentation with political forms and institutions. Thanks to a rich corpus of sources scattered in the communities’ archives, DEMALPS will offer an exceptional insight into the political ideals of the inhabitants of the Alps, investigated with an interdisciplinary approach that combines medieval history, digital humanities, archival science and diplomatics. DEMALPS is a ‘digital native’ project, conceived expressly with a view to group research, thanks to the development of an online platform for collecting, analysing and sharing data within the research team and subsequently with the scientific community. The first steps of this work will be discussed next week! In the next few days we will present our team