WorldWithoutEnd.Amen. 393
cross and the commendation of one’s soul, Christ’s work on Good Friday;
and the eyes’ focus on heaven, Christ’s Easter Resurrection and Ascen-
sion—a journey that dying Christians also hoped to make.^62 At Siena, after
making the sign of the cross, those present knelt for the reading of the Pas-
sion.^63 The cross was the great shield of the dying, and ritual books urged the
dying to look upon it.^64 Other weapons were at hand to fend off diabolical
temptations. As Umiliana dei Cerchi lay dying, visions of demons afflicted
her. Her companion Gisla ran (cucurrit) to get her image of the Blessed Virgin
with Christ on the cross. She placed it directly on her writhing friend’s body.
Gisla then held up before Umiliana’s face two lighted blessed candles so as
to form a cross. She burned incense and sprinkled Umiliana’s body with holy
water. The demons fled in fear. Relieved, Umiliana looked up and saw the
image of Christ. She asked that it be wrapped in a precious cloth and be
‘‘better positioned on her chest.’’^65 When the blessed Verdiana knew her
death was near, she called for confession and Communion ‘‘in her usual
way.’’ She then knelt before the window of her cell, opened her Psalter
to the ‘‘Miserere Mei,’’ fixed her eyes on heaven, just as Bishop Sicardo
recommended, and gave up her spirit. She died, as she wished, on Saturday,
the day of Our Lady, and at the very hour she was accustomed to receive
Communion. It was 1 February, the year 1242 by our reckoning.^66 Such was
a good death—or, better, triumph over death’s powers.
Umiliana and Verdiana were anchoresses; probably no more than a com-
panion or confessor witnessed their passing. For most of the dying, lay or
clerical, the sickroom was more crowded. Those crowds had a special, even
liturgical, role to fulfill.^67 The priest Giacomo Salomone, although racked by
cancer, joined those around him in chanting the litany as he lay on his
deathbed.^68 When the founder of the Preaching Friars, Saint Dominic, lay
dying at Bologna, he himself directed his brethren to chant the commenda-
tion of the dying, saying to themincipite(‘‘start’’). He then sang along with
them, or at least moved his lips. He died as the cantor intoned the ‘‘Subven-
ite.’’^69 When bishop Lanfranco of Pavia died in 1194 , he was staying with the
monks of San Sepolcro. When he felt his strength departing, he called the
monks to his side and joined them as best he could in the chanting of the
- On this combination of death and rebirth in dying rituals, see Block and Parry,Death and the
Regeneration of Life, 14 – 15.
63 .Ordo Senensis, 90 ,p. 495 , which mentions, like Sicardo, the model of Saint Martin.
64 .Ordo Officiorum della cattedrale [volterrana], 226 (Volterra, Biblioteca Comunale Guarnacci,ms 273,
fol. 98 r). - Vito of Cortona,Vita [B. Humilianae], 3. 56 – 57 ,p. 399 : ‘‘et aperiens oculos et videns ipsam tabulam
supra pectus sibi positam, collocavit eam honorabilius in quodam panno serico mantelli sui, et supra
petus suum melius collocavit.’’
66 .Vita Sancte Viridiane, 10. - Contrary to Arie`s,Western Attitudes, 4 , I do not find any evidence that thirteenth-century Italian
clergy discouraged ‘‘crowds’’ around the deathbed.
68 .Vita [Beati Jacobi Veneti Ordinis Praedicatorum], 3. 42 ,p. 462.
69 .Processus Canonizationis S. Dominici,Bologna Process 8 and 33 , pp. 192 – 30 , 152.