Scarto, reimpiego, ripristino: il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova (secolo XIII)

This article investigates the practice of discarding and reusing medieval documents through the analysis of Liber antiquus Archiepiscopatus Ianuensis (Genova, Archivio di Stato, Manoscritti membranacei XCII), a 13th Century Genoese cartularium which preserves copies of documents dated between 916 and 1180. Throughout the Liguria region, Genoa shows a marginal tendency towards documentary parchments recycling and this register is an emblematic case of interrupted destruction process, then culminating in the restoration of the manuscript. A careful examination and the cataloguing of each individual leaf revealed the surviving traces (including triangular cuts, holes, folds and tears) of transforming the manuscript sheets into binding materials. Probably reused to create bookcovers for private accounting registers or notarial protocols, many bifolia underwent various stages of craftsmanship, but fortunately these operations were interrupted and the manuscript was reassembled with just few losses. The high historical and cultural value attributed to the register may have been decisive in its rescue, although questions about selecting and discarding criteria in Genoese ecclesiastical archives in the late medieval and modern periods still remain unsolved.