Ovidio Capitani e la medievistica di metà Novecento, tra riforma e politica dei vescovi del secolo XI

[Autom. eng. transl.] The article analyzes Ovidio Capitani’s contribution to Italian medieval historiography, with a particular focus on his approach to the so-called episcopal reform of the 11th century. Through a comparison with other historians such as Giovanni Tabacco, Cinzio Violante, and Gabriella Rossetti, the author highlights the historiographical debate on the nature of episcopal power in the context of the Gregorian reform. Capitani rejects the idea of an episcopal reform intended as a structured and centralized movement, arguing instead that the episcopate of the 11th century was characterized by a strong political realism and local fragmentation. His analysis of canonical sources shows how, before Gregory VII’s Dictatus Papae, the Roman Church sought to integrate bishops into a system of coordination rather than eliminate their autonomy. However, the consolidation of the papacy led to a progressive erosion of episcopal immunities, redefining the relationship between the episcopate, the papacy, and the empire. The article concludes that Capitani's work offers a critical perspective on the dialectic between reform and episcopal politics, suggesting that the transformations of the 11th century were not only the result of the Gregorian reform, but also of the local dynamics of the bishops, often in balance between religious needs and temporal power.