Writing the Holy Land The Franciscans of Mount Zion and the Construction of a Cultural Memory, 1300–1550

The book shows how the Franciscans in Jerusalem in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries wrote works which standardized the cultural memory of the Holy Land. The experience of the late medieval Holy Land was deeply connected to the presence of the Franciscans of the Convent of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, who welcomed and guided pilgrims. This book analyses this construction of a shared memory based on the continuous availability of these texts in the Franciscan library of Mount Zion, where they were copied and adapted to respond to new historical contexts. This book shows how the Franciscans developed a representation of the Holy Land by elaborating on its history and describing its religious groups and the geography of the region. This representation circulated among pilgrims and influenced how contemporaries imagined the Holy Land

Introduction.- 1. The Franciscan Holy Land.- 2. The Convent Of Mount Zion And Book Production And Circulation.- 3. Early Franciscan Descriptions Of The Holy Land.- 4. Franciscan Compilations, Miscellaneous Manuscripts And Composite Volumes On The Holy Land.- 5. Franciscan Descriptions Of The Holy Land In The Fifteenth Century.- 6. Between The Late Middle Ages And The Renaissance.- 7. The Lists Of Holy Places And Indulgences (Indulgenziarii) And Their Diffusion.- 8. Franciscan Texts And Late Pilgrimage Accounts.- Conclusion.

Michele Campopiano is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of York, UK. He has participated in a number of international projects and held several grants, including a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers.