120 LaCitadeSancta
celebrated their patrons with acts of devotion and homage. At San Gimig-
nano, the podesta had the responsibility to ensure that the people celebrated
the feast of the titular saint with all due solemnity.^120 At Parma, the city
treasurer provided a banner, to be safely kept in the sacristy of the duomo,
for the city to offer at the altar of the Blessed Virgin on the vigil of her
Assumption, that by her intercession she might procure peace and security
for the commune.^121 Mantua constructed an altar to the ‘‘victorious Saint
Michael’’ in the church of San Zeno, where the podesta and people paid
him fitting honor.^122 As cities adopted new patrons, these were incorporated
into public life. At Florence, where by the early fourteenth century Saint
Zenobius had joined John the Baptist and Reparata in the civic cult, the
podesta, captain of the people, priors, standard-bearer, judges, knights, nota-
ries, and the captains of the twenty-one arts each offered a candle at each
saint’s altar on the vigil of the titular feasts. Monetary offerings on the feast
of Saint Reparata went to construction of the new cathedral.^123 When for-
eigners venerated a city’s patron, this gave honor to the city. In 1262 , Bolog-
nese flagellant confraternities went to offer candles and a purple altar cloth
to the shrine of San Giminiano, the patron of Modena. The bishop, govern-
ment officials, and the civic corporations of Modena came in procession to
meet them at the border settlement of Castelleone and escort them to the
duomo. The Modenese populace greeted the procession with honor. Bishop
Alberto Boschetti produced Saint Giminiano’s arm for veneration, and it
freed a possessed Bolognese woman of her demons.^124 What did the city
fathers of Bologna think of all this? And how did Saint Petronio feel about
his children’s homage to a foreign saint? Perhaps he felt episcopal solidarity
with Saint Giminiano rather than jealousy.
SacredImages andSacredSpaces
Early communal assemblies met in the duomo or in other city churches. At
Florence, before the construction of the civic palazzo began in 1298 , the
priors met before the altars of the various saints in city churches, according
to a rotation. Even after the commune had its own palazzo, the tradition
of a religiously consecrated meeting space continued: the fathers dedicated
communal altars in the new civic buildings.^125 At Ferrara, where city officials
still met in the duomo, they carved the communal statutes of 1173 into the
church’s south wall, facing the main piazza (fig. 40 ).^126 Not for a hundred
- San Gimignano Stat. ( 1255 ), 4. 29 ,p. 725.
- Parma Stat.ii( 1266 ), 100.
- Mantua Stat. ( 1303 ), 5. 12 , 3 : 96.
- Florence Stat.ii( 1325 ), 5. 20 ,p. 378.
- Matteo Griffoni ( 1262 ), 15.
- Trexler,Public Life, 49.
- Adriano Franceschini,I frammenti epigrafici degli statuti di Ferrara del 1173 venuti in luce nella cattedrale
(Ferrara: Deputazione Provinciale Ferrarese di Storia Patria, 1969 ), 5 – 12. Fragments of the statutes can
best be seen in the shop at Piazza Trento Trieste, 21.