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  • Il Codice Vanga: Un principe vescovo e il suo governo: Torre Vanga, Museo Diocesano Tridentino, 23 novembre 2007-2 marzo 2008. Catalogo della Mostra Tenuta a Trento
  • Maureen C. Miller
Il Codice Vanga: Un principe vescovo e il suo governo: Torre Vanga, Museo Diocesano Tridentino, 23 novembre 2007-2 marzo 2008. Catalogo della Mostra Tenuta a Trento. Edited by Emanuele Curzel. [In filigrana, 2.] (Trento: Publistampa Arti Grafiche. 2007. Pp. 157. €12,00 paperback. ISBN 978-8-877-02209-8.)

This slender catalog was published in conjunction with an exhibit at the Museo Diocesano Tridentino and at the Torre Vanga in Trent sponsored in 2007-08 by the province's Soprintendenza per i Beni Storico-artistici and the Bruno Kessler foundation. The exhibit celebrated the restoration of the Codex Wangianus, a cartulary compiled at the behest of Federico Vanga, bishop of Trent from 1207 to 1218. There are actually two codices. The Codex Wangianus Minor was redacted from 1215 and contains 180 documents, as well as two images of Vanga. The prelate's successors added another 55 documents over the rest of the thirteenth century. Bishop Nicolò da Brno, bishop of Trent from 1336 to 1347, had another copy made, "updating" the collection and adding materials; [End Page 792] this volume is known as the Codex Wangianus Maior. Of greater importance than the volume under review is the edition done by Emanuele Curzel and Gian Maria Varanini: Codex Wangianus. I cartulari della Chiesa trentina (secoli XIII-XIV) (Bologna, 2007). Together, however, the catalog and edition provide valuable sources for the history of the Diocese of Trent.

Vanga certainly merits scholarly consideration. The family name derived from an area north of Bolzano, and Vanga's ecclesiastical career was initially pursued in the Altoadige and Bavaria; he was canon of Augsburg in 1197 and then dean of the cathedral of Bressanone before his election as bishop of Trent in 1207. He was a blood relative of Emperor Frederick II and accompanied the emperor to Germany in 1212, later acting as imperial vicarius in northern Italy. Vanga participated in the Fourth Lateran Council and died on the Fifth Crusade at Acre on November 6, 1218. In addition to the Codex Wangianus, which has annotations in the bishop's own hand, two liturgical books—an Ordo Missae Pontificalis and a lectionary—were produced at Vanga's behest, both bearing images of the prince-bishop. The cartulary is of considerable interest for the light it sheds on the principality of Trent and includes a series of documents on mining and mining rights known collectively as the Liber de postis montis arçentarie. The earliest is an accord of 1185 between Bishop Alberto da Campo and silver miners active in the diocese, and six documents record mining regulations promulgated by Vanga and his curia between 1208 and 1214.

This catalog is a useful introduction to the bishop and the material culture of his pontificate. The exhibition consisted mainly of parchments and manuscripts but also included seals, a portable altar, incised silver book covers (one with a stunning image of Vanga in liturgical dress), and several ivory coffers from Sicily and the Islamic world. The chief scholarly contribution of the catalog is a series of brief articles on the urban residences of Vanga: the "Castelletto" attached to the Duomo and the "Torre Vanga" on the bank of the Adige. Iginio Rogger sets out the documentary evidence for the disposition of spaces within the Castelletto in Vanga's era and describes some of the findings revealed and quandaries posed by restorations to the structure in the 1990s. A section drawing, to scale, is provided. Three brief articles are devoted to the tower built by Vanga at the head of the San Lorenzo bridge and next to a gate in the city walls. Laura Dal Prà sets out the documentary evidence for Vanga's acquisition of the fief, already endowed with a house and mill, and the addition of the tower. In another contribution she surveys surviving images of the tower from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Michela Cunaccia describes the various restorations of the complex, with valuable bibliographical information and photographic documentation of its condition...

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