376 BuoniCattolici
ness can be found when carrying wine casks, selling combs, organizing hospi-
tals, making shoes, and spending time with friends in the contado, then the
practical moralism of theFior di virtu`is a road to saintliness. Citizens of the
communes found in it the kind of moral wisdom suitable to their cities, thus
its frequent recopying and imitation.
The communal period saw a multiplication of catechetical works second
only to that of moralizing works on the virtues. The most celebrated was
Zucchero Bencivenni’s translation of theSommeof Laurent of Orleans, to
which I have often referred. It commonly appears in manuscripts under the
Latin titleCatechesimus Christianus Catholicusor in the vernacular asQueste ren-
dite sono le virtudi.^155 The work included hundreds of exempla. The section on
the vices and virtues resembles Italian productions like theFior di virtu`.But
this work was much broader than the typical virtues collection. It dealt with
doctrine, prayer, the beatitudes, and other aspects of Christian teaching. It
was patterned on sets of seven: seven sacraments, seven virtues, seven deadly
sins, seven beatitudes, seven petitions of the Pater Noster, seven gifts of the
Holy Spirit. Laurent drew heavily on exempla from sacred and profane his-
tory. The result was a practical guide that dealt, in simple fashion, even with
technical theological issues such as unmerited and merited grace.^156 In the
early 1300 s, authors excerpted and adapted Zucchero Bencivenni’s massive
and unwieldy work.^157
In contrast, the Apostles’ Creed was brief, uncomplicated, and recom-
mended by the Church as the doctrinal text for religious instruction.^158 Al-
ready by 1264 , the north-Italian poet Pietro da Bescape ́had produced the
poemNo e`cosa,which followed the order of the Creed and elaborated each
section with stories from Scripture.^159 In elaborating the material, Pietro
added moral and biblical material. For example, after treating the unity of
God and his act of creation, Pietro added a narrative of Adam’s fall modeled
on Genesis and an analysis of humanity’s fallen state in terms of the seven
capital sins.^160 When he turned to the birth of Christ, he merely mentioned
the Creed. The poem’s stanzas on this dogma report the birth narratives of
Matthew and Luke.^161 The last things, which the Creed mentions briefly as
- I have consulted the texts in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msII.vi. 16 , and Florence,
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msConv. Redi 102. Small sections of the Italian have been edited in
Zucchero Bencivenni,Trattatello delle virtu`,ed. Luigi Barbieri (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1863 ); the Pater Noster
section of this work is edited in id.,Volgarizzamento dell’esposizione del paternostro,ed. Rigoli. - See, e.g., Zucchero Bencivenni,Sposizione, 6.
- E.g., the anonymous thirteenth-century catechetical and moralizing material found in Florence,
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msII.iv. 111 , fols. 74 r– 103 r. - Yves M.-J. Congar, ‘‘Saint Thomas et les archidiacres,’’Revue thomiste 57 ( 1957 ): 660 , traces the
legal diffusion of the Lateran legislation. Thomas Aquinas commented on it in his opusculum on the
Creed. It lies behind the profession of faith proposed in the decreeFirmiterof the Gregorian Decretals (x
- 1 ).
- Edited inPoesie lombarde del secoloxiii, 35 – 156 , from Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense,ms
AD.xiii. 48.
160 .Poesie lombarde del secoloxiii, 43 – 61. - Ibid., 62 – 68.