Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125-1325

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 36 LaCitadeSancta


return to their work. He was especially concerned to have the priests recon-


cile the excommunicated and penitents. He offered to help displaced parish


priests recover their lost possessions.^119


Parma contrasts with other dioceses, smaller and larger. In the little dio-


cese of Forlı`, out on the eastern Via Emilia, consolidation under the Ecclesia


Matrix was not complete in the mid- 1200 s. There were still two urban pievi,


both with baptismal fonts. One was the cathedral, with nine dependent


chapels; the other was the church of San Mercuriale, with six chapels. Two


collegiate churches also functioned as chapels, so the total number of neigh-


borhood chapels was seventeen.^120 In Padua, a medium-sized church, we


find another arrangement, although here more typical, since the only baptis-


mal church was the cathedral. Padua had only twenty-five urban chapels, of


which all but eleven were subject, not to the Ecclesia Matrix, but to one or


another of the numerous urban monasteries.^121 The number of chapels


seems low, but then Padua was well supplied with urban religious houses,


which also provided daily services. In comparison, Ferrara, perhaps a slightly


smaller city, had forty-seven chapels and some ten collegiate churches.^122


Tuscan tithe reports of the period are far less complete, but a glance at those


of Pisa for 1276 – 77 shows the same kind of structure. In that city, there were


fifty-seven chapels and collegiate churches, all apparently subordinate to the


cathedral.


Records for Bologna give some idea of chapel organization in a larger


city.^123 In the late thirteenth century, Bologna and its suburbs had ninety-


four chapels. These had been grouped since 1223 into quarters, each named


for its major gate: Porta San Pietro, Porta Stiera, Porta San Procolo, and


Porta Ravennate.^124 Each quarter had twenty-two to twenty-seven chap-


els.^125 The Bologna tithe list compiled in 1300 by the papal collector, Bishop


Lotterio della Tosa of Faenza, still exists.^126 It shows that the same division


by quarters lasted into the early 1300 s. The quarters were more than admin-


istrative districts. They also reflected theconsortia,or confraternities, of the



  1. Parma Stat.i( 1254 ), p. 74.

  2. Rat. Dec. Aem. (Forlı`, 1290 ), 165 – 71.

  3. Rat. Dec. Ven. (Padua, 1297 ), 105 – 80.

  4. Rat. Dec. Aem. (Ferrara, 1300 ), 43 – 54.

  5. The tithe returns for Milan,Rationes Decimarum Italiae nei secolixiii–xiv: Lombardia et Pedemontium,
    ed. Maurizio Rosada, Studi e testi, 324 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1990 ), 3 – 18 , are
    not useful for such reconstructions. There are no Florentine returns until after our period.

  6. Girolamo de’ Borselli,Cronica Gestorum ac Factorum Memorabilium Civitatis Bononie,ed. Albano Sor-
    belli ( 1223 ),RIS^223 : 2 : 21. Such a quarter division was typical; see, e.g., Brescia Stat. ( 1313 ), 4. 83 , col. 278 ,
    which gives the quarters as S. Faustino, S. Giovanni, S. Stefano, and S. Alessandro.

  7. Bologna, Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio,msGozz. 158 , fol. 1 v: ‘‘Parrocchie di Bologna da una
    pergamena dell’Archivio della Vita.’’ Its date ‘‘mccxxxiii’’— 1233 —is wrong; the document represents
    parish structure of about 1300.

  8. In Archivio Vaticano, Collett.ms 199, fols. 159 v– 174 v, which is edited in Sella, ‘‘Diocesi di Bolo-
    gna,’’ but see the dating in Fanti, ‘‘Sulla costituzione,’’ 116 – 45 , who edits the 1315 Bologna tithe. On
    Bologna, see also G. Lucchesi, ‘‘Pievi di S. Pietro e cappelle urbane nel Medioevo,’’Parliamo della nostra
    citta`(Castel Bolognese: Comune di Faenza, 1977 ), 113 – 25.

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