208 LaCitadeSancta
a particular saint. The Dominican bishop of Brescia, Bartolomeo di Breg-
anza, gave special indulgences to those who venerated the relics of Saint
Peter of Verona in the sacristy of his cathedral on the saint’s feast day.^188
We should not be deceived by monastic boasts or episcopal patronage.
Not all shrines were equal: some shrines provided miracles, others did not.^189
People knew where to go when they were in need—usually. If not, they had
to find out. In the mid- 1200 s, Donna Pametta of Reggio was demon ob-
sessed, seeing scorpions attacking her head. After worthless visits to many
shrines, she wasted her money on doctors. Finally, a male relative was going
to Bologna, and she went along. She was not getting better. At the river
Reno she fell in, and when her relative tried to save her, she tried to drown
him. Other travelers had to pull them out. The party got to Bologna and
lodged with a local woman. She tried to get Pametta to church on Sunday
for Mass. Pametta tried to kill the woman with a sword. The neighbors tied
the demoniac up and took her to church. There the demons shouted that
only Saints Vitalis and Agricola could defeat them. The relatives and friends
finally got the woman to the right tomb in Santo Stefano. She was healed as
they kept vigil at the shrine through the night.^190 Accessibility was important.
When the cathedral clergy of Treviso erected a shrine to their holy beggar
Saint Enrico, they projected an arca in the center of the nave, raised on
columns and decorated with statues of angels. On completion—after the
delays occasioned by the war against Cane della Scala—the shrine included
an altar to provide daily Mass for pilgrims.^191 A raised arca on six columns
was the universal favorite: we also know of such tombs at the famous shrines
of Saint Dominic at Bologna (no longer on its columns), Saint Anthony at
Padua (only the columns remain, now in a portico, fig. 45 ), and Saint Peter
of Verona at Milan (gloriously intact, fig. 46 ). In the first year after erection
of the shrine of Saint Enrico, the numbers visiting the shrine were staggering,
about a hundred a day, if the figure of thirty thousand a year given by his
hagiographer is at all accurate.^192 Considering that his was a minor shrine in
an out-of-the-way city, the crowds at the more popular pilgrimage sites must
have been even greater.
With the greater crowds on the saint’s day and on major feasts of the
Church year, the possibility of miracles increased—as evident from the dates
of miracles recorded at the shrine of Saint Giovanni Cacciaforte. Easter
Week leads the entire year as a time for cures.^193 On Passion Sunday, just
before Easter, at the shrine of Saint Pietro Parenzo in Orvieto, the crowds
- See the decree in Meersseman,Ordo, 2 : 1037. The church also had special blessings for pilgrims:
e.g., Pont. Rom. (xii), 47. 1 – 3 ,p. 265. - As Trexler,Public Life, 83 , notes.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1473, fol. 329 r.
- Pierdomenico of Baone,Vita B. Henrici Baucenensis, 2. 24 ,AS 22 (Jun.ii), 369.
- Ibid., 2. 23 ,p. 369.
193 .Inquisitio de vita Joannis Cazefronte, 246 , 247 , 255 , 256 , etc.