HolyPersons andHolyPlaces 205
bardy, people made pilgrimage to the shrine at Cremona. Among these was
a group of wine carriers from Parma, several of whom reported cures. They
returned to Parma with relics of Alberto. Some of these the porters carried
to nearby cities. At Parma itself, they got permission to display the relics in
San Pietro near Piazza Nuova. At Reggio, that city’s wine carriers’ society
displayed relics in the churches of San Giorgio and San Giovanni Battista.
In both places, wine carriers began to congregate and venerate the relics.
Soon the clergy joined the laity in flocking to Alberto’s new shrine at Parma.
The commune and the clergy erected pavilions and stretchers for the sick in
the Piazza del Comune, facing the duomo of San Giminiano. The cathedral
clergy offered solemn Masses daily. Cures multiplied. The ministers of the
city, the wine carriers, and other devotees decorated Alberto’s shrine in San
Pietro with purple drapes, damask hangings, and a baldachino. Offerings
estimated at the extraordinary sum of £ 300 imp. were collected. These per-
mitted the commune to purchase the Malabranchi family’s house in Strada
Claudia, near the church of Santo Stefano, and establish there a hospital for
the sick and poor, the Hospital of Saint Alberto. On his festival, the societies
of the city processed through town with the reliquaries, carrying crosses and
banners and singing. Priests erected images of him in their churches at popu-
lar request, and the city had his image painted on porticoes and city walls.
From there, images and devotions spread to the villages and castles of the
Parmese contado.
Lay devotion powered the canonization of Saint Alberto, the spread of
his cult, and its subsequent patronage by the commune. The supervision of
the cult was the work of the city government, which collected the offerings
and oversaw expenditures. Clerical involvement began with the clergy of the
chapels where the cult was located. It spread to the duomo after the people
and commune demanded more splendid and public veneration. Cities
played a role in the making of other saints. When the beggar penitent Saint
Nevolone of Faenza died in 1280 , the podesta, city officials, consuls, and the
whole council attended the funeral with lighted candles. The first postmor-
tem miracles were recorded at the deposition of his body on 18 July of that
year.^165 When Saint Margherita of Citta`di Castello began to work miracles
from her tomb, the city fathers paid for the balsam to embalm the body.^166
When Bishop Sicardo of Cremona made the first petition to Rome for a
papal canonization, that of Saint Omobono, he acted in the name of his
city.^167 It was at the request of the commune, as Pope Gregory IX admitted,
that he granted approval to the cult of Saint Ambrogio of Massa.^168 During
the canonization inquest for Saint Giovanni Buono, it was Mantua’s city
165. Pietro Cantinelli,Chronicon( 1280 ), 42.
166 .Legenda B. Margaritae de Castello, 25 – 26 , pp. 126 – 27.
167 .Vita Sancti Homoboni, 115 ; see also Gatta, ‘‘Un antico codice,’’ 108.
168 .Processus Ambrosii Massani, 2 ,p. 572 (letter of Gregory IX).