262 BuoniCattolici
cial appeal to the laity.^169 They appealed to layfolk perhaps even more than
elegant learned devotions like the ‘‘Anima Christi’’ or the ‘‘Ave Verum Cor-
pus,’’ although both of these found lay devotees.
To communal Italians, the Mass was a place of power. The French Fran-
ciscan Jean de La Rochelle captured this perception perfectly when, in the
midst of an otherwise dry scholastic treatise, he suddenly rhapsodized: ‘‘This
whole sacrament exceeds human understanding, for it is so completely filled
with miracles; it is best, as Augustine says, simply to believe in it piously.’’^170
One Italian preacher wrote that when the believer approached the Sacra-
ment, he approached the very blood of Christ shed on the cross. To ap-
proach it was to be submerged in his Passion, to be washed with his blood,
to have a new baptism.^171 From it flowed the power to perform the fourteen
Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy and all other acts of piety. These
were the ‘‘Fruits of the Mass.’’^172 Although set in Egypt, a miracle story in the
popular collection of Giovanni Italo captured the nearly physical presence of
Christ in the Eucharist as understood by the Italians of the communes. Ac-
cording to Abba Daniel, a pious but ignorant disciple of Abba Arsenius
expressed doubts about the real presence. His abbot explained that this pres-
ence was ‘‘true’’ (veritas), not ‘‘symbolic’’ (figura). Nevertheless, the man con-
tinued to doubt. The disciple prayed that Jesus himself would reveal the
truth to him. God opened his intellectual eyes. At Mass, when the bread was
placed on the altar, it turned into a little child. An angel descended with
knife in hand and sacrificed the child, pouring his blood into the chalice. As
the priest broke the Host, the angel divided the boy’s body into three parts.
At Communion, the disciple was given a piece of bloody flesh to eat. But
since human nature cannot bear to eat raw meat (crudam carnem), it miracu-
lously turned back into bread. The old monk believed and gave thanks.^173 In
communal Italy, visible miracles testified to the invisible miracle of the Host.
Both Omobono of Cremona and Giovanni Buono worked miracles chang-
ing water to wine to show that God could easily change the Host into Christ’s
body.^174 The first report of a bleeding Host comes from Ferrara, dated 1170.
But this story, like the bleeding Host of Bolsena, is probably an early-four-
teenth-century fabrication.^175 Nevertheless, by the end of the communal pe-
- One early-fourteenth-century owner of a text of Bonaventure’sArbor Vitaecopied a splendid
example into his codex: Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msY 5 Sup., fols. 44 r– 45 r. - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msConv. Soppr. 145 (xivcent.), [Jean of La Ro-
chelle,Summa de Vitiis et Virtutibus], fol. 146 r: ‘‘super omnem intelligentiam omnium hominum quia sacra-
mentum totum plenum est miraculis, unde melius est in hoc sacramento pie credere sicut dicit
Augustinus.’’ - Zucchero Bencivenni,Sposizione, 8.
- See Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msPl.xx 17, fols. 176 r– 178 v.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1767, fols. 139 v– 141 r.
174 .Processus... B. Joannis Boni, 1. 1. 7 ,p. 773 ;Vita Sancti Homoboni, 113. - Dante Balboni, ‘‘Il miracolo eucaristico di Ferrara: 28 marzo 1171 ,’’Atti del convegno di Ferrara
( 1971 ),Ravennatensia 4 (Cesena: Santa Maria del Monte, 1974 ), 23 – 53 , holds for an eleventh-century
date. On the cult of the Host at Bolsena, see Dominique Nicole Surh, ‘‘Corpus Christi and the Cappella
del Corporale at Orvieto’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 2000 ).