TheHolyCity 115
lishing its first communal baptistery. News of the discovery evoked popular
demands that the bones of their baptist be moved to a place of honor in the
duomo.^79 Some Sienese knights scouted out the ancient site, sending back a
report of success in the bone hunt. An unruly mob of citizens gathered at
the tomb, and finally the cathedral clergy arrived in procession, late and out
of breath. The canons hesitated to supervise the translation of such an ob-
scure saint. Some laymen broke open the sepulcher, and the martyr’s incor-
rupt body vindicated the laity’s spiritual acuity. It gave off an odor of
aromatic spices. With joyful songs and psalms the people and clergy carried
his relics back to the city.^80
Townspeople flocked to the new shrine, crying out to Ansano, ‘‘Come,
come, Father Ansano, wait no longer to come and rule the city that you first
instructed in the faith and preserve the place signed with the name and title
of Jesus Christ!’’ Recalling that the name Ansano included the word
‘‘healthy’’ (sano), townspeople demanded healings.^81 Miracles followed, pil-
grims converged from afar, and night vigils commenced.^82 The real test of
patronage was, of course, whether the saint could protect his city. Indeed,
outnumbered Sienese troops defeated their enemies while invoking the saint,
and display of his arm bone quenched a fire threatening the city; thereafter,
Bishop Gunteramo and the commune underwrote construction of a splendid
marble shrine altar.^83 The saint’s cult even spread to Lombardy, where a
pieve in the diocese of Bologna took his name as titular and invited the
bishop of Siena to perform the church’s consecration.^84 Saint Ansano had
claimed a bit of the Bolognese contado for Siena. Healings, victory, carrying
Siena’s fame abroad: Ansano had proved himself a true patron and a true,
if naturalized, Sienese. Alas, he had not been born there. The most beloved
saints of the period were more commonly homegrown. The identification of
city and citizen-saint might become proverbial. Dante personified the city of
Lucca in its most famous daughter, Saint Zita. In theCommedia,demons in
hell greet one grafter from the Lucca city council with the shout ‘‘Here is
one of Saint Zita’s officials!’’^85 When Dante wrote in 1300 , Zita did not even
have an ecclesiastically approved cult: her hometown had canonized the
serving girl all on its own.
The heavenly patron became the overlord of the city, replacing the em-
peror. At Verona, over the west portal of Saint Zeno’s great Romanesque
church, that city’s patron confers legitimacy and independence on his city
(fig. 38 ). This is a political theology carved in stone. The bishop saint holds
79. Ibid., fol. 579 v.
80. Ibid., fols. 579 v– 580 r.
81. Ibid., fol. 580 r.
82. Ibid., fols. 580 r–v.
83. Ibid., fol. 580 v.
84. Ibid., fols. 581 r–v.
85. Dante,Inferno, 21. 37 b– 38 : ‘‘O Malebranche,ecco un de li anzı ̈an di Santa Zita!’’