Resurrection andRenewal 311
actual.^13 Especially for children in danger of death, baptism was not to be
deferred. When, as a priest, Uberto of Terzago, the future bishop of Milan,
had a ritual prepared for his own use in the late 1100 s, he included a blessing
of water for emergency baptisms.^14 As the communal period was coming to
a close, the concern that infants might lose their salvation by dying before
baptism became more and more intense.^15 By the 1320 s, in the district of
Siena, parents might be excommunicated for the same number of days that
they delayed the baptism of their children. When Benedetto, a newborn,
seemed mortally ill, his family rushed to their parish priest for baptism, only
to be warned they were excommunicated for the number of days they had
delayed. They explained that the baby had been born that morning and that
they had vowed a candle to Saint Francesco Patrizzi for each day he lived.
Saint Francesco and the sacrament worked their saving power; Benedetto
survived, grew up, and joined the saint’s Servite order in 1341.^16
Baptism andCitizenship
By the thirteenth century, immersion in the font of the city baptistery made
the baptized a citizen of the commune. It created a bond like siblinghood
among all those baptized there. Dante, meeting Cacciaguida in heaven,
heard his ancestor recall his rebirth at Florence’s beloved San Giovanni; the
baptismal bond had made them fellow citizens.
To so restful and so true
a life as citizens, to such beautiful
citizenship, to such a faithful household,
Mary, invoked with loud cries, gave me;
and in your ancient baptistery,
at once I became both Christian and Cacciaguida.^17Lawyers such as Bartolus recognized the primacy of baptism as the way to
citizenship: ‘‘Does baptism in a place make one a citizen of that city? So it
seems, for through baptism one is freed from sin and the slavery in which
one is held by Satan and his angels; therefore, like manumission, it seems as
- Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msAed. 214 , fols. 42 r–v, takes this for granted. For a
poem on the sin-removing power of baptism, see Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria,ms.R. 2. 3
(xivcent.), fols. 1 rb–va. - Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msA 189 Inf., fols. 72 v– 73 v.
- J. D. C. Fisher,Christian Initiation: Baptism in the Medieval West(London: SPCK, 1965 ), 111 – 12 , finds
no Italian legislation before 1339 on baptism immediately after birth. - Cristoforo of Parma,Legenda Beati Francisci, 52 ,p. 194.
- Dante,Paradiso, 15 : 131 – 36 : ‘‘A cosı
riposato, cosıbelloviver di cittadini, a cosıfidacittadinanza, a cosıdolce ostello,Maria mi die`, chiamata in alte grida;e nell’antico vostro Batisteoinsieme fui
cristiano e Cacciaguida.’’