Anticipazioni in tema di riforma vescovile nella medievistica italiana di metà Novecento

This paper is about the introduction of the bishop’s reform concept in the second half of the twentieth century. The meaning of bishop’s reform, expression coined in German historiography, is a reforming orientation both political and religious which has in the bishop, operating in his own bishopric, his leading figure. The introduction of this topic in Italian’s medieval studies is analysed in connection with four authors: Giovanni Tabacco, who, first, borrowed the concept by German historiography, Cinzio Violante, Gabriella Rossetti and Ovidio Capitani which has the most complex view of them all.