Geography, asceticism and monasticism in the Italic peninsula after Georg Jenal’s "Italia ascetica atque monastica" (1995)

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the heuristic value of the geographical perspective in the history of early Christian monasticism. Georg Jenal’s book Italia ascetica atque monastica (1995) provides an excellent example for assessing the advantages and limitations of this approach. Almost twenty-five years after its publication, recent historiographical trends, especially in the field of archaeology, seem to show the limits of analyses of this kind. Finally, how Jenal deals with the relationship between asceticism and monasticism will be examined.