“Private and Public Religious Space in Coastal Compania, ca. 1100–1300”
Jill Caskey

Although the “privatization” of devotion is considered a defining feature of the later Middle Ages, this theme is not often explored in conjunction with architecture or urbanism.  Art historical studies of privatization logically gravitate towards small objects like prayer books, not the large-scale (and paradoxically “public”) framework of urban form.  Coastal Campania is ideal for such analysis, for the towns of Amalfi, Ravello, and Scala contain private churches in numbers that are unmatched elsewhere in Italy.  These structures were usually built within the domestic compound of an extended family.  They articulate both the spiritual and worldly concerns of their patrons, many of whom had amassed great wealth in long-distance trade.

This interdisciplinary paper examines the architectural and economic implications of three such foundations, and the ways in which they reshaped urban form and life.  Through analysis of material remains, inventories, and legal doctrines, I show that these religious spaces cannot be placed within conventional categories of public or private.  Family churches, despite their controlled ownership and explicit dynastic concerns were salient and even permeable features of the urban landscape.  They extended family compounds both vertically and horizontally, opened them up, and fueled competitive displays from rival clans.  In Ravello this competition eventually led to the transformation and near privatization of the town’s most public religious space, the cathedral itself.  This group of buildings thus challenges the notion of public and private as distinct, differentiated realms of social and artistic activity.  It points to the fluid, penetrable nature of the region’s architecture, and thus invites a revision of the forces guiding late medieval urbanization.