156 LaCitadeSancta
facing each of the four points of the compass.^87 These texts were especially
pregnant with sacred power, symbolically containing the whole of the Gospel
that followed. Their mere recitation could bring healing and fend off
demons. When Palmaria, a matron of Viterbo, jostled an old woman during
the consecration of Santa Maria di Orc ̧anse by Pope Gregory IX, the crone
cursed her. She miscarried and fell deathly sick. Only after a priest chanted
Gospel verses over her at the tomb of Saint Ambrogio of Massa did she
regain her health.^88 Saint Agnese of Montepulciano witnessed the exorcism
of a possessed woman from Aquapendente performed by reading Gospel
verses over her.^89 As with human bodies, so with civic spaces. Chanting the
four Gospels toward the cardinal directions could cleanse and protect a sa-
cred building. At Bologna during the Litanies of Saint Mark, the procession
circled the city walls, stopping at the four principal gates, San Matteo, San
Pietro, San Niccolo`, and San Vitale. At each gate, the bishop himself chan-
ted a Gospel incipit toward the respective cardinal direction.^90 Pisa blessed
the gates and countryside using a similar rite.^91 In the ancient statute books
of both Volterra and Verona, verses of the four Gospels appear in an appen-
dix.^92 The texts of Volterra are especially interesting, for they incorporate,
not the opening words of the four Gospels, but pericopes focusing on Christ’s
miraculous powers and dignity. During the Saint Mark processions in these
two cities, it seems, the bishop chanted the words of power out of the very
law book of the city.
Although the origin of processions was ecclesiastical, they came naturally
to reflect the civil order. Communal governments adopted the procession to
their own use. In later medieval Florence, city processions became a central
administrative concern and left their mark on city documents and laws—
their expense had grown heavy, the closing of shops burdensome.^93 In the
golden age of the Italian republics, civic processions were never as elaborate
as ecclesiastical ones. The earliest examples were ad hoc, assembled to wel-
come dignitaries. Cities modeled these on the reception of monarchs, the
royal entry. They used the same form for church dignitaries. Don Pietro
Pace, canon of San Vincenzo, described how Bergamo welcomed a cardinal,
emperor, or imperial representative in the late 1100 s. The clergy came to
meet the dignitary at the city gate and led him first to the duomo and then
- Valsecchi,Interrogatus, 70.
88 .Processus Canonizationis B. Ambrosii Massani, 49 ,AS 68 (Nov.iv), 594 – 95 ; on this saint, see Lansing,
Power and Purity, 129 – 33. - Raimondo of Capua,Legenda Beate Agnetis de Monte Policiano,ed. Silvia Nocentini (Florence: Gal-
luzzo, 2001 ), 1. 11 ., p. 26. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785, Rolando the Deacon,Liber de Ordine Officiorum,fols.
44 r–v. - Ibid., fols. 32 v– 33 v.
- Volterra Stat. ( 1210 and 1224 ), pp. 103 and 107 ; Verona Stat.i( 1228 ), pp. 209 – 12.
- As noted by Trexler,Public Life, 213.