Chapter One
The Mother Church
In a sermon on the Annunciation, the Dominican preacher Bartolomeo of
Braganze, later bishop of Vicenza, digressed and praised hometowns, no
matter how small. He contrasted Christ’s little Nazareth with the great cities
he had visited. ‘‘There was Paris, then he came to Bologna, then he went to
Rome, and then he was sent to Jerusalem. But on this feast, the Son of God,
through Gabriel, teaches us that we should glory in our own town more than
all others. For God in the Gospel tells us: Go and sit in the lowest place!’’^1
Bartolomeo had it right. For a thirteenth-century Italian no place could
compare with his birthplace, however humble. The native city was itself
sacred. Not that grand buildings, mighty walls, bustling commerce, a power-
ful militia, and a splendid location did not count. All the better! The twelfth-
and thirteenth-centuryLaudes Civitatum,poems hailing Italian cities, tell us
what citizens gloried in most: large and numerous churches, famous bishops,
tombs of powerful saints, and grand public spectacles.^2 These proved the
glory of the city, the pride of citizens. In churches, bigger was better, as, in
saints, international renown outclassed mere local devotion. The Franciscan
friar Salimbene of Parma visited the Black Monks of Cluny in 1247 .He
commented with chagrin that the French Benedictines outshone their broth-
ers in Italy—they had the grandest church and monastery in Europe.^3
- Bartolomeo of Vicenza,Sermones de Beata Virgine ( 1266 ),ed. Laura Gaffuri (Padua: Antenore, 1993 ),
Sermo 55. 4 ,p. 363 : ‘‘Loca vero nobilia prima pronte nominantur ut: erat Parisius, venit Bononiam, ivit
Romam, missus est in Ierusalem. Et per hoc Dei Filius per Gabrielem nos edocuit ut illa loca eligamus
que possint de nobis magis quam nos de ipsis, gloriari. Propter quod Deus in evangelio consulit: vade et
recumbe in novissimo loco [Luke 14 : 10 ]’’; on this passage, see ibid., p. xvi. - Giorgio Cracco, ‘‘La ‘cura animarum’ nella cultura laica del tardo Medioevo (lo specchio delle
‘Laudes Civitatum’),’’Pievi e parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., esp. 1 : 561 , and Pini,Citta`, comuni e corporazioni, 177. - Salimbene,Cronica( 1247 ), Baird trans., 203.