10th century Italy trough the voices of Atto of Vercelli and Liutprand of Cremona: true political catastrophe or just a perception?

The works of two important bishop of regnum Italiae in tenth century, Attone of Vercelli and Liutprando of Cremona, witness the perception of educated and powerful people about the coeval leading aristocracy and the situation of the kingdom of Italy. Also because of these sources, the Perpendiculum and the Antapodosis, traditional storiography assumed this century as a time of increasing violence, war, distruction and desolation – it has known as ‘the iron century’ - after the collapse of Charlemagne’s construction. It is useful to investigate if the meaning of words was a true mirror of reality or instead a perception, a will of change or just disappointment for the past gone. These two high-learned bishops had proved the close ties that bounded high clergy and king’s families. We confront here the account of a loyal kingdom’s bishop like Atto of Vercelli, and on the other hand the one of a traitor of the truly king, Berengar II, like Liutprand of Cremona. Focus of this work will be to show that even if the perspective of those authors is completely negative and hostile towards the contemporary leading society, responsable, in their account, of desolation and misery, it can be seen something positive. Even if the sources tried to reach a general perspective towards society and kingship, they always witnessed opinions and belifs of their authors. Once more, trying to know political and historical events, historians have to be really careful managing these relevant data.