Les Stylisations graphiques des notaires arétins au XIe siècle

Formal characteristics that began to surface in notarial acts and documents produced in Arezzo (Italy) as early as the 11th century have led to assumptions about an increase in the socio-professional relevance of local notaries, or at least that portion of them that had close ties with the episcopal power elite. Although boundaries between their role as officers in the service of local bishops and a greater professional independence still appear to be blurred, new generations began to assert their growing ability to certify by devising original formal and graphical solutions when compared to the previous century. Aretine documents in the 11th century served thus as a testing ground through which local notaries – in an effort to reproduce in the conscriptio the legal facts produced by the actio – loaded their documents with symbolic and certifying values by means of the very letter-forms that, sometimes empirically and sometimes by codifying customs and practices devised in the previous century, were to cause notaries to acquire the status – socially and professionally – of “public figure”.