Book in Italian.

The Chronicles of Pietro della Gazzata in the Crispi Codex Tradition. Paperback. Size 18.5 x 25cm. I-CLI, 324 pp. Reggio Emilia, Fondazione Giulia Maramotti 2000. With French introduction by Jacques Le Goff.

From the introduction written by Maurizio Festanti, director of the Biblioteca Panizzi: “Entrusted to the fragile pages of a manuscript, these pages from the oldest memories of our community, written by the Notary Sagacino Levalossi and the abbot Pietro della Gazzata so that they would remain as an eternal testament to the events that they witnessed in part, are still with us more than five centuries later.
"Incipit cronica ad perpetuam rei memoriam" begins this chronicle, designed to preserve the memory of things forever: in fact, the chronicler uses these words to begin his tale of the dramatic events - including battles, famines, sieges and sackings - the city of Reggio Emilia underwent between the death of Matilde di Canossa and the second half of the fourteenth century. In these words we can glean not only a sense of hope and a wish for the future, but also the awareness of the importance of the historian’s mission to appoint himself as the guardian of our collective memory. Now we can safely say that the goal the medieval chronicler set himself has been reached: thanks to the timely and generous intervention of the Fondazione Giulia Maramotti, the Chronicon Regiense manuscript has been recovered and donated to the Biblioteca Panizzi so that it can be once again the property of our community.
And not only: the Fondazione wanted this edition, which presents a faithful transcription of the chronicle accompanied by a wealth of critical material and a translation into Italian, to be prepared by scholars from Reggio Emilia, thus creating the conditions that will allow all the citizens of Reggio Emilia to take back their history.” (…)