170 LaCitadeSancta
offered a large candle of ‘‘at least’’ ten pounds; city councilors each gave
three small candles, while other officials presented only one.^186 Lucca care-
fully codified the offerings by number and weight in a law of 1304.^187 That
city’s great offering took place on the Illumination of the Holy Cross ( 7 May).
The rector of the city and his knights and judges carried two lightedduplones
(three pounds of wax each) and eight lighted ordinary candles (two pounds
of wax each). The captain of the people, with his knights and judges, pre-
sented two duplones but only four ordinary candles. The members of the
council of ancients, the chancellor, and the city notaries each presented a
one-pound candle. After them came representatives of the twenty-two urban
cappelle, each of whom presented a flower-decorated candle weighing from
six to twenty-five pounds, according to the size and dignity of their parish
church. The chapels marshaled by quarters, according to the gates of the
city. The citizens of each chapel, men between seventeen and seventy years
of age, came behind their chapel’s corporate candle. They stood waiting as
the director of the Opera Sanctae Crucis checked wax quality and tested
candle weight.^188 Next came the suburban communes of Controne, Lulliano,
Montesubmano, and Montefegatese, each offering a twelve-pound candle.
Behind them were the twenty-one pievi of the vicariate districts, each with a
candle of twelve pounds; next, the nineteen dependent communes, each of-
fering a four-pound candle. Last came a variety of subject towns and villages,
offering twelve-, eight-, or four-pound candles.^189 The hierarchy of power
reflected in wax weight and precedence would not have been lost on ob-
servers.
Subject towns and villages were not truly citizens of the republic, and
their offerings exposed their subordination in a naked manner. The little
town of Baccagnano recognized the overlordship of Faenza in 1192 , after the
podesta of that city, Antonio di Andito of Piacenza, had seized it from Count
Guido Guerra IV of Modigliana. This was a great victory in Faenza’s war
to free its contado from the count’s control. As proof of subordination, Bac-
cagnano annually offered eight to ten pounds of wax to the Mother Church
of Faenza.^190 At Parma, where the podesta appointed governors to outlying
towns and villages, delegations from those towns brought candles to the city
to express their subordination.^191 For outsiders, participation in a city candle
offering signaled their dependence on the city making the offering. Some
towns, especially small ones, fined their citizens who participated in other
- Vicenza Stat. ( 1264 ), 201.
- Lucca Stat. ( 1308 ), 1. 42 , pp. 35 – 46.
- See the candle statute from the lost 1261 statutes of Lucca in Domenico Barsocchini,Dissertazioni
sopra la storia ecclesiastica lucchese, 2. 1 , pp. 11 – 14 ,n. 4 ; for a later version, see Lucca Stat. ( 1308 ), 1. 42 , pp.
44 – 46. - For a similar hierarchy of candles, see Florence Stat.ii( 1325 ), 4. 13 ,p. 310.
- Maestro Tolosano,Chronicon Faventinum, 118 ,p. 113.
- Parma Stat.i(by 1243 ), pp. 162 – 63.