Cronaca di Partenope

In January 2025, a research group was formed to edit the so-called Cronaca di Partenope critically. Chiara De Caprio and Francesco Montuori coordinate this group, which is composed of Antonio Del Castello, Duilia Giada Guarino, Salvatore Iacolare, Giuseppe Andrea Liberti, Andrea Maggi, Annachiara Monaco, Riccardo Montalto, Maria Teresa Rachetta, Valentina Sferragatta.

The Cronaca di Partenope is a compilation of historical writings about Naples and southern Italy. It brings together texts written between the 13^th and the 15^th centuries, which are the result of the consolidation of the traditions of writing in the local vernacular and of the identity-building process in Angevin Naples. During the 15^th century, under Aragonese rule, the final set-up of the compilation was consolidated and spread in a wide manuscript tradition and print. From the first quarter of the 16^th century onwards, historians considered it one of the most important sources for the history of Naples. Its vulgate form is transmitted in 1526 print. Two modern editions of the Cronica exist, but both contain only parts of the compilation: Antonio Altamura’s (1974) and Samantha Kelly’s (2011; with critical apparatus).

In a series of studies published since 2012 (see below, in the publications section), some members of the research group have recorded new insights into the manuscript tradition, the history and the form of the text. Historians and linguists have expressed the need for a new edition that would provide a reliable text and critical reconstruction of how the Cronaca was formed and disseminated between the mid-14^th century and the end of the 15^th century.

The work plan includes the description of all the witnesses of the Cronaca di Partenope, their transcription through eScriptorium and their publication on the project website.

At the same time, it includes a critical reconstruction of the text of the different sections of the Cronaca di Partenope and the commented edition. The results of the project are planned as follows. In the first phase, the publication in five volumes (and six tomes) of all the texts that have in various ways become part of the Cronaca: Part I, narrating the history of Naples from its origins to Charlemagne; Part II and the collateral texts, which narrate the history of the Kingdom from the Normans to the Angevin age; Part IIIA and IIIB, which contains two compendia taken from the Nuova Cronica by the Florentine Giovanni Villani; Part IV, which collects material relating to the history of the Angevin and Durantine ages, between the second quarter of the 14^th century and 1384. After a short embargo period, the reconstructed texts will be accessible on the project website. In the second phase, a catalogue and the texts of the known sources of the Cronaca will be published on the website. A sixth volume of studies will complete the edition.

In the third phase, the transcriptions of the other texts preserved in the same manuscripts of the Cronaca di Partenope will be made available on the site.