OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 157
to greet the bishop.^94 The Bolognese so welcomed Pope Gregory IX in 1227
and Pope Innocent IV in 1250.^95 The Milanese clergy and people all turned
out to meet the cavalcade of the emperor Otto in 1209 , providing a choir of
virgins and young boys to serenade him.^96 But on these occasions the true
procession was that of the dignitary’s cortege, not the people. The city clergy
and laity were spectators, a backdrop for princely splendor, at best an escort.
Reception of outsiders was more the exception than the rule in the com-
munal period. The most important receptions happened once or twice a
year, when the city received a new podesta. In that ritual, the ordered society
welcomed and incorporated into itself a new administrative and judicial
head. The Bolognese included rubrics for the procession among their munic-
ipal laws.^97 There the new podesta entered on horseback by the main gate.
Joined by the Bolognese judges and other administrators, he went in proces-
sion to the cathedral of San Pietro, where he entered and prayed. Next the
procession marched the short distance to the Palazzo del Comune. There
the new podesta dismounted and, taking in his hands the four Gospels, swore
his oath of office in the name of God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy
Spirit, the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Angels Michael and Gabriel. The
ceremony proclaimed the union of the Mother Church and the commune
under their heavenly protectors. Only after completing this rite could the
podesta enter and take control of the palazzo.
As acts of the whole society, such rites of welcome and incorporation, like
the Litanies, ordered the parts of the civic body. On 28 October 1253 , the
feast of Saints Simon and Jude, the commune of Reggio in Emilia turned
out to welcome their bishop-elect, Guglielmo of Foliano. He arrived accom-
panied by Gilberto de Gente, podesta of Parma, and officials (anziani) of that
city. A procession of city corporations with their banners and ecclesiastical
colleges with their crosses welcomed him at the city gates. All entered the
city to the sounding of trumpets and the pealing of church bells.^98 A proces-
sion like this had its own order. The standard-bearer and trumpeters of the
commune led the procession. Behind them came the neighborhood and craft
associations, and finally the chief city magistrate.^99 The associations had their
own order of precedence, usually in order of the ‘‘dignity’’ of the craft or the
date of the group’s foundation.^100
- ‘‘Instrumentum Litis,’’ 3. 27 ,p. 177.
95 .CCB:A( 1227 ), 94 ;( 1250 ), 129. - Galvano Fiamma,Manipulus Florum( 1209 ), 242 , col. 663. Similar popular acclamations greeted
the entry of Archbishop Otto Visconti in 1277 , an arrival that effectively ended the popular commune in
Milan: ibid. ( 1277 ), 313 , col. 705. - Bologna Stat.ii( 1288 ), 1. 3 , 1 : 7 ; cf. the forms of 1282 : ibid., 1 : 284 – 85 n. 1 ; on the ordering of
corporations in processions, see Pini,Citta`, comuni e corporazioni, 264 – 65 , 273 – 76.
98 .Mem. Pot. Reg.( 1253 ), col. 1119. - Pini, ‘‘Le arti in processione,’’ 82 – 83 , summarizes the procession at the election of the doge
Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1268. - See ibid., 84 – 89 , for summaries of the order of precedence at Padua ( 1287 ), Cremona ( 1313 ),
Regio ( 1318 ), Ferrara ( 1322 ), Modena ( 1327 ), Milan ( 1385 ), and Brescia ( 1385 ).