I Normanni d’Italia e l’impiego di modelli architettonici pregnanti: l’imitazione del Santo Sepolcro in Puglia

The imitation of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem offers various degrees of interpretation: from sporadic citation (Piazza Armerina) to topographical (Monte Sant’Angelo), icnographic (Brindisi) or numerological (Canosa) reconstruction. The case studies allow us to measure the vastness of the cultural relations of the Norman nobles with the shores of the Mediterranean, facilitated by the maritime transport. They also reveal the intertwining of dynastic reasons with functional liturgical needs, and the prevalence of these over those according to an unscrupulously modern conception of the state. The Norman buildings demonstrate a deep knowledge of the original organisms and a full understanding of their functioning, both material and semantic. This derives from the easy accessibility to direct and indirect documentary sources, given by the frequentation of the places and languages of the Mediterranean: a ‘network-movement’ where everything passes more easily than elsewhere.