160 LaCitadeSancta
new image known today asMadonna del Votoreplaced it on the high altar.
There it remained, far from popular devotion, until the Sienese moved it to
the new Chapel of the Vow to make space on the high altar for the installa-
tion of Duccio’s greatMaesta`in 1311.^110
After 1261 , the Madonna with the Large Eyestook the place of the relics
usually carried at Siena in the Major and Minor Litanies.^111 Victory and
rogations would always be linked at Siena. In a law drawn up after the battle,
the city was to make an annual commemoration of the divine help at the
church of San Giorgio, the ‘‘great and powerful standard-bearer and protec-
tor’’ of the city.^112 Each year the podesta, the captain of the people, the
chamberlain, the standard-bearer, and the priors of the city were to offer
two candles in gratitude for a long list of victories by Siena over its neighbors.
As a perpetual memory, they included the list in the city statutes. Processions
were made to implore help, but, as at Siena, candles were given to celebrate
the city’s victories and deliverance. It was wax, not images, that fueled the
most intense moments of communal celebration.
Candles and theCommune
Among Catholics candle lighting was and remains an archetypically lay de-
votion.^113 Even in their law books, the cities displayed a careful, by modern
standards obsessive, attention to wax, wicks, candles, and the rituals involved
in their use. Like processions, medieval candle piety appropriated a liturgical
practice. The Feast of the Presentation ( 2 February) was the great candle
feast of the liturgical year, Candlemas. On that day, a priest blessed all the
liturgical candles to be used in the coming year.^114 As with the Litanies of
Saint Mark, the February candle ceremony was a Christianization of an
ancient pagan rite that predated the liturgical feast.^115 But here the union of
the feast and the rite, unlike that of Saint Mark and the Major Litanies,
made some sense. Medieval Catholics knew that the Virgin Mary, like all
women, came on this date—precisely forty days after her son’s birth at
Christmas—to offer candles at the Temple in thanksgiving for her safe deliv-
ery. This day, the church celebrated the feast of her Purification. When
people carried and offered candles on this day, the city became a collective
representation of Mary rejoicing in Christ, born in their midst through
- On Duccio’s image, see Van Os,Sienese Altarpieces, 39 – 61.
- On these images, see Kempers, ‘‘Icons,’’ 98 – 110 , who notes the use of the Madonna with the
Large Eyes in ‘‘Ascension Processions.’’ E. B. Garrison has subjected narratives concerning the votive
images of the Virgin of Montaperti to extensive critique; see Webb,Patrons, 253 – 55 , who takes a middle
position similar to my own. On the confusion of the two Madonnas in popular piety, see ibid., 265 – 66. - Siena Stat.i( 1262 ), 1. 123 – 26 , pp. 54 – 56.
- For a general study of candles in the Christian cult, see D. R. Dendy,The Use of Lights in Christian
Worship(London: SPCK, 1959 ). - For a Candlemas blessing of the 1180 s, seeRituale di Hugo [di Volterra], 322 – 23.
- This origin was known in the Middle Ages:Ordo Officiorum della cattedrale [volterrana], 69 (San
Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale,ms 3, fol. 19 v; Volterra, Biblioteca Comunale Guarnacci,ms 273, fol.
19 r).