HolyPersons andHolyPlaces 213
practice originated with Tommasina di Allegro de’ Fassani, who came to the
shrine on the day of the translation. Tommasina suffered from a pustulating
fistula in her left cheek. She climbed down into the open grave, where she
saw other devotees praying, and spent the night in it. She woke in the morn-
ing to find herself cured ‘‘on account of the reverence shown to the man of
God.’’ She was too poor to make an offering, so she went and gleaned some
grain—probably to be made into Hosts for Mass—and gave it to the broth-
ers at the shrine. They returned it to her ‘‘for the love of God.’’^233
Incubators at Giovanni’s tomb heard Mass or Office at the shrine the
following morning, and some miracles happened then rather than during
the night.^234 One devotee, Marta, wife of Don Falchetto of Mantua, from
the contrada of San Simone, who suffered from gout, came to sleep in the
cloister of the shrine church so that she could hear Matins on the morning
of the translation. After Matins, as the saint’s body was raised, she found
herself freed of her affliction.^235 The crippled Massarola, daughter of Lan-
franco de’ Bagatini of Desenzano, near Brescia, vowed to incubate five
nights at the tomb of Saint Giovanni, but when she arrived, the crowds were
so great that she could not approach the tomb. She had to be satisfied with
sleeping in the cloister, promising to fast a day a week if cured.^236 She went
home restored to health. Giovanni could work his cures at a distance if the
petitioner showed proper devotion.
Sometimes the petitioner might strike a bargain with the saint. Donna
Riccadonna of Ruga Mattiera, near Mantua, had a beautiful fat pig that
became sick and went off its feed for a week. She vowed a candle ‘‘with a
wick the same length as her pig’’ to Saint Giovanni Buono and promised to
pray before his tomb as long as the candle burned if Giovanni helped her
stricken animal. The pig ate; her candle burned all night.^237 Giovanni had
done his duty. The sight of Riccadonna in prayer with her candle must have
made an impression on those visiting the tomb. A devotee of Saint Pietro
Parenzi vowed in return for a healing that he would have a deposition de-
scribing the cure notarized and entered in the shrine records at Orvieto.^238
At the shrines of the mendicant saints, parents of sick children vowed to have
their children wear a miniature version of the order’s habit, should a cure
be granted. Such a child, wearing the Augustinian habit, can be seen today
in an altarpiece of Saint Agostino Novello by Simoni Martini in Siena, a
witness to the saint’s intercession (fig. 47 ). Nicoluzzo di Giunta fulfilled such
a vow after the Servite saint Francesco Patrizzi cured his son Guntino of
233. Ibid., 2. 3. 112 ,p. 801.
234. Ibid., 2. 4. 120 ,p. 803.
235. Ibid., 2. 3. 115 – 19 , pp. 802 – 3.
236. Ibid., 2. 6. 135 ,p. 806.
237. Ibid., 6. 7. 372 – 74 ,p. 867.
238. Giovanni of Orvieto,Vita [S. Petri Parentii], 6. 47 , pp. 98 – 99.