HolyPersons andHolyPlaces 207
the south lacked shrines of this type.^177 The best-known Tuscan exceptions
are both Sienese. One was the shrine of Saint Ansano, the ancient martyr
adopted as a communal patron.^178 The other was the shrine of Saint Gal-
gano, but that shrine originated during the saint’s lifetime because of relics
that Galgano himself collected.^179 There were very few recorded healings or
interventions linked to images—it was the saints’ bones and the places
touched by them that worked the cures.^180 When Umiliana visited the holy
places of Florence, she visited theloca sanctorum,the places where relics re-
sided. Beggars came, too. They knew where to go to find the crowds.^181
Saints themselves hallowed places. When the canons of the city of Cremona
decided to erect a shrine for Saint Facio, they positioned his tomb on the
very spot where he was accustomed to pray in the cathedral.^182 Saint Bona
of Pisa appeared in a vision to a woman with a broken arm and identified
herself as ‘‘Bona of San Martino,’’ the saint whose shrine was in that particu-
lar parish. The woman understood and found the right church. In the shrine
record, the largest block of miracles worked by Saint Bona were for people
of her chapel.^183 The saint was local; the devotees were her neighbors.
Relics were a tangible sign of orthodoxy. The Cathars, who represented
the major dissent from the Catholicism of the communes, rejected miracles
(even if actual cures occurred) as religiously insignificant events. The physical
world was under control of an evil god. For believers, devotion to the relics
of the saints, along with reverence for the sacraments, was the truest sign of
orthodoxy.^184 While perhaps more theologically sophisticated than most, the
clergy and the city fathers understood this. They paid special attention to
the shrines and relics in their churches. The clergy of Ravenna required
that all relics not sealed within an altar stone be regularly examined for
authenticity.^185 When a chronicler of Piacenza set out to list the podestas and
consuls who had ruled his city, he appended a list of the major relics in his
city’s churches.^186 The monks of Santo Stefano in Bologna proudly claimed
that their relics of Saints Vitalis and Agricola had been brought to Bologna
by Saint Ambrose of Milan himself.^187 Bishops might patronize the relics of
- As noted by Trexler,Public Life, 4.
- On this shrine’s replacing a pagan site, see Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati,ms
F.viii. 12 , fols. 579 r–v. - SeeVita Sancti Galgani, 13 – 14 , pp. 199 – 202.
- For two examples of images working cures, see the life of Saint Gerardo of Cagnoli: Bartolomeo
Albizzi,Legenda Sancti Gerardi, 1. 30 ,p. 406 ; 7. 143 ,p. 441. - Vito of Cortona,Vita [B. Humilianae], 1. 5 ,p. 386.
182 .Vita Beati Facii, 44 – 43 , 49 (an extract from the necrology of the cathedral, Cremona, Archivio
Capitolare,ms 1181,p. 335 ).
183 .Vita [Santae Bonae Virginis Pisanae], 6. 62 ,p. 157 ; for the parishioners: ibid., 6. 66 – 73 , 75 – 76 , pp.
158 – 59. - As noted by Raoul Manselli, ‘‘Il miracolo e i catari,’’Bollettino della Societa`di studi valdesi 140
(December 1976 ): 15 – 19. - Ravenna Council ( 1311 ), 5 ,p. 453.
186 .Chronica Rectorum Civitatis Placentiae, RIS 16 : 611 – 26. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1473, fols. 325 v– 326 r.