Memory and identity of an institution. Notes on the physiognomy of the textual community of the Franciscan writings of the Holy Land

Abstract

Starting from the most important results of Campopiano's work, the contribution highlights how the recipients of the cultural memory shaped by the friars of Mount Sion were a much wider circle than the “pilgrims” who went to the Holy Land. It then discusses three main issues. Firstly, it considers the different social and political profiles of the European pilgrims, the variety of expectations of the people who visited Mount Sion, supported with money these places, sustained the status of the Franciscan Custody with political and diplomatic activities carried out in the European chancelleries. Within this framework it is examined the multiplicity of factors that urge the friars of the 14^th c. to build the geographical and cultural centrality of the Holy Land entirely re-sacralised in Franciscan terms, implementing it during the next three centuries. Finally, it is proposed the enlargement of the texts that must be examined and correlated with the fundamental sources analysed by the author. Above all, the texts produced by the Franciscans of the Custody should be investigated, in order to organize their economic and political life within the Muslim territories dominated first by the Mamluks and then by the Ottoman sultans.