Inside the digital Palaeography laboratory with notaries from late medieval Southern Italy (1251-1499)
How 362 parchments tell us about the transformation of notarial writing between the 13th and 15th centuries, and why we should examine them using digital and computational approaches.
Rediscovering medieval notarial documents: why talk about them today?
Medieval notarial documents are the lifeblood of medieval documentation, not only for the valuable historical information they contain, but also for their contribution to the history of writing. However, while book Palaeography has received greater attention from scholars, documentary writing – especially in the 14th and 15th centuries – remains largely unexplored territory.
This reflection aims to fill a part of that gap, using a “peripheral” but valuable archive: the parchment collection of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grotta (SMG) in Vitulano (BN), now preserved at the Library of Società Napoletana di Storia Patria and digitised on the portal Monasterium.net.
362 documents, dated between 1251 and 1499, mainly from Terra di Lavoro and Principato Ultra of the Kingdom of Naples, become a lens to observe continuity, acceleration and rupture in notarial writing.
Four questions (and some answers)
The study focuses on four key questions: (1) When and where did the first traces of graphic transformation emerge? (2) Are these changes linked to the places of issue? (3) How distinctive is each notary’s hand in one place/time? (4) Do itinerant notaries or those with multiple clients write differently from those who work only for SMG or in a single centre?
This reflection will focus mainly on the first two (with some insights into the others), as the research is still ongoing.
How we worked: between close and distant reading
The method is hybrid: traditional palaeographic analysis (letter morphology, ligatures, ductus) is accompanied by basic statistical visualisations (box plots, maps), constructed by annotating each document with: date and place of issue, type of writing, notary and signum, legal actors. Thanks to the availability of document images on the Monasterium.net portal and cross-analysis with graphics, it was possible to identify trajectories that would have been more difficult to detect with the naked eye.
Six graphic groups (A–F) as a guide
Each document has been placed in a group, from late Carolingian script with Gothic influences (A) to 15th-century notarial scripts (F). In the middle, we find four phases of cancelleresca (B, C, D, E), which mark the transition from stroke-by-stroke writing to full cursive, up to the simplification of the 15th century, with mercantesca influences.

Note on the method: speed of execution was not the decisive criteria for clustering, but it helped to capture the variations of some strokes (especially interlinear ones). Categories A–F are heuristic tools, i.e. trends, not clear-cut boundaries. The documents often show overlapping features, a sign of stratification rather than breaks. In any case, this research is a case study whose results may be shaped by the nature of the archive examined. Therefore, the results should not be taken as universal assumptions, but rather as trends that can be verified within this specific context.
What maps and box plots tell us
Geography of writing: a “heart” and few ramifications

The map shows the main area from which the documentation originates: between Sant’Agata de’ Goti, Capua, Limata, Telese, Cerreto, Morcone, Vitulano and Benevento. This is where most of the documents and all types of scripts are concentrated. There are also isolated cases (Amalfi, Scala, Eboli, Cassino, Montecorvino), in line with the scattered possessions of SMG.
The timing of writing: overlapping phases

The chronological box plot confirms that each identified phase develops while the previous one is still in use. In fact, between 1320 and 1380, C, D and E coexist. Full cancelleresca script (D), introduced early in a central place (1263), dominates until the end of the 14th century and acts as a bridge between the pre-cancelleresca phases (B/C) and the subsequent hybrid forms (E/F).






After residual use of the late Carolingian A until 1274, phase B introduced the first signs of cursiveness (peaking between 1256 and 1270) but declined rapidly, giving way to the more accentuated cursiveness, hooks and flourishes of C, which circulated in both cities and villages. Full cancelleresca script D, on the other hand, spread in “concentric circles”, starting in 1263 in the cities, and with delays of 30, 40 and 50 years towards smaller centres, monastery and villages. With E, the most mature phase of cancelleresca in which the characteristics of 15th-century documentary scripts begin to appear, cities continued to anticipate (from 1320), but this time they retained the script for longer (until the 1440s). The real inversion occurs with the notarial scripts of the 15th century F: unexpectedly the first traces (1383-86) can be found outside urban centres (Vitulano and the monastery of S. Maria della Grotta), and only after 1420 cities adopted a novelty that had already become established elsewhere.
To sum up, the central places took on the role of engines of innovation until the latest developments in cancelleresca script, giving way to the monastery of SMG and Vitulano as precursors of 15th-century notarial scripts with mercantesca influences.
And what about individuals?
There are 159 notaries in the corpus. Most of them are fleeting figures—as many as 98 appear only once—while only 6 sign more than ten documents and 55 sign between two and nine. In some cases a notary adopts script that differ from the dominant group: in Capua, between 1252 and 1283, out of seven notaries, only Iohannes (author of eleven documents) adopts the full cancelleresca, and he is also the only one to draw up deeds in which the monastery appears as author. In other cases, however, it is the notary himself who changes his handwriting over time, even over a period of twenty years. It would be interesting to investigate whether and in which cases these changes reflect external dynamics (professional contacts, graphic schools) or more personal factors, such as increased speed with practice or age that reduces hand control.
Mobility exists, but it is short-range: among the 61 notaries who wrote at least two deeds, 38% worked in more than one location and more than half moved within the Vitulano–Santa Maria della Grotta area. In fact, the movements involved two or three contiguous centres, with the notary Barbatus Tocci drawing up deeds in four different locations.
In terms of clients, 52% of notaries write exclusively for the abbey (even considering the probable bias of the archive), while 43% also work for other clients.
Ongoing analyses aim to confirm or reject the assumption that for itinerant notaries with a wider client network script innovations appear earlier.
What we learn (for Southern Italy and beyond)
This analysis shows Southern Italy as a lab for observing long-term trajectories in documentary writing. Data confirm that graphic innovation radiates from the main poles, where demand and competitiveness promote the experimentation of new, faster forms. The role of monastery as hubs of graphic style dissemination appears decisive in the 15th century. Mobility and client networks might explain deviations from the general trend and highlights the need for prosopographical work.
A replicable method
The integration of traditional Palaeography and computational analysis objectivises qualitative analysis, opening the replicability of research and inter-regional comparison.
Would you like to explore too?
SMG’s parchments are online: explore the writings at the link
https://www.monasterium.net/mom/IT-BSNSP/08-S_Maria_della_Grotta/fond
Call to action: If you would like to discuss data, methodology or regional comparisons, please write to mariapia.tiseo@unibas.it. Let’s bring Palaeography (digital and not only) into our debates!
The research will be presented during the APICES session at the 23rd Colloquium of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine (Wien, 17-19 September 2025): https://cipl.hypotheses.org.
Text and data by Maria Pia Tiseo, with graphics by Georg Vogeler and Angelos Nicolaou; contribution by Giuseppe Consolo; supervision by Antonella Ambrosio.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
mptiseo (August 1, 2025). Inside the digital Palaeography laboratory with notaries from late medieval Southern Italy (1251-1499). DiDip. Retrieved November 7, 2025 from https://didip.hypotheses.org/3706

