Documento d’archivio, approccio strutturale, prospettiva “dal basso”. In ricordo di Mario Del Treppo

Based on a paper prepared for a conference on “The Conservation of the Document”, held at the Archivio di Stato of Naples on 14 July 2021 on the initiative of the Notarial Council of Naples, this contribution starts from the premise that each age provides itself with the historical sources that respond to its own needs (Michel Vovelle). The article then proceeds to investigate how and why the twentieth-century historiographical revolution, pioneered by the «Annales» school, found a highly qualifying feature in a new way of exploiting, in particular, notarial documentation. The potentiality of notarial sources, if adequately treated, to shed light both on the deep and long-term structures of the economic and social life of a specific human community, and on the contribution made to the formation and change of such structures by the multitude of the individual historical actors involved, is illustrated by the author through the examination of the methodological-conceptual framework of Professor Mario Del Treppo’s studies on medieval Amalfi – an authentic masterpiece of that historiographical season.