OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 165
offering at feasts. Parma appointed an official votive-candle maker in each
quarter to assure size and quality; at Pisa, the podesta contracted out candle
production to trustworthy artisans.^145 At Florence and Modena, too, the
communes eventually passed laws to protect the quality of votive candles.^146
By the end of the communal period, candle offering had undergone a not-
too-subtle change in character. The first offerings were individual devotional
acts. By the 1280 s, Pisa, not atypically, simply delivered so many pounds of
candle wax to the various city churches and religious institutions along with
other alms.^147 Early-fourteenth-century Modena diverted fines for fraud in
weights and measures to keep the vigil candles alight in the churches of San
Gimignano and San Giovanni of Cantono.^148 Bologna statutes confirm a
shift from devotional oblation to corporate almsgiving, although they still
stipulated that city officials hand over the wax in person after procession to
the church on its patronal feast. Eventually, wax alms were converted to
cash.^149 At Ravenna and Imola by the early 1300 s, the reduction of candle
offerings to alms in wax seems complete. Their statutes simply listed city
churches and their annual gift.^150 The linkage of wax and devotion was lost.
In 1306 , the city of Bologna determined (by a council vote of 264 to 104 ) that
the podesta would arrange for the standard-bearer and the ministers of the
popular societies to go to San Domenico on its patronal feast and offer £ 100
cash, not wax, at the altar. They went in procession, carrying large candles
and with flags flying, to show honor to the founder of the Preachers.^151 Te n
years later, the Bolognese Societa`dell’Aquila gave £ 414 s. 4 d., and that of
the notaries £10 4s., at the altar of San Francesco on his feast.^152 No longer
was there mention of a procession. Monetary offerings like this were rare or
nonexistent earlier.^153 As the communal period ended, candle offering be-
came less a work of piety and more a compulsory assessment to support
religious institutions. City corporations sought to limit their ‘‘tax rate.’’ The
Lombards in Bologna had to make a candle offering on Pentecost to the
abbot of the monastery where they met. They limited by statute the amount
that would be spent on trumpeters and drummers ( 30 s. bon.) and the value
- Parma Stat.ii( 1266 ), 157 (candles for the Assumption); Pisa Stat.i( 1275 ), p. 48 ; Pisa Stat.ii
( 1313 ), 1. 207 ,p. 224. - Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 2. 31 ,p. 248 ; Florence Stat.ii( 1325 ), 3. 13 ,p. 187 , where the statute comes
in the midst of legislation against blasphemy! - Pisa Stat.i( 1286 ), 1. 57 ,p. 142.
- Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 2. 33 ,p. 249.
- Bologna Stat.ii( 1288 ), 11. 5 , 2 : 193 – 94. Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 6. 1 ,p. 682 , mixes wax and money
alms as a matter of course. - Ravenna Stat., 358 ,p. 170 ; Imola,Statuti di Imola del secoloxiv i: Statuti della citta`( 1334 ),ed.
Serafino Gaddoni, Corpus Statutorum Italicorum, 13 ( 1334 ), 4. 50 (Milan: Hoepli, 1931 ), 299 – 302. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 89.xi. 1 , fols. 2 r–v.
- As we know from the Franciscan financial records in Bologna, Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio,ms
B. 490 ( 1769 , fromxivcent. original), p. 110 ; other alms are given for 1331 , in ibid., p. 154 : Societas
Specialorum, £ 6 ; Societas de Lignanis, £14 5s. The manuscript is paginated, not foliated. - Bol. Pop. Stat., 1 (Lombardi, 1291 ,c. 16 ), 66 ; see revision in ibid. (Lombardi, 1255 ,c. 59 ), 20.