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

(Darren Dugan) #1

GoodCatholics atPrayer 349 


doxy. They made public and manifest that he was a good and Catholic man.


Visitors often found him kneeling before his little altar.^41 No private chapel


compared with that of the future Dominican Giacomo Salomone. As a


youth, he secretly erected a small altar in his bedroom and went there to


make his thanksgiving after Communion. He made sets of paraments for this


altar, according to the liturgical colors of the year. On the mornings and


evenings of duplex feasts he lighted four candles on it and incensed it ‘‘ac-


cording to the norms of the ecclesiastical office’’ (juxta ecclesiastici morem Of-


ficii).^42


Giacomo’s clericalized piety was probably not typical of even the more


devout laity. In their devotions, the people favored simplicity. When reciting


their Aves and Paters, they contented themselves with simple shrines, usually


enthroning the Virgin and Child. More than sprinkling with holy water, this


sacred image sanctified a place of prayer and showed forth the sacred pres-


ence. While Ambrogio Sansedoni was still an infant, his love of the sacred


images in books his father read to him portended his future holiness.^43 As a


layman, Francisco Patrizzi, who entered the Servites in 1285 , erected an


image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in one room of his house. There he prayed


morning and evening, genuflecting fifty times and reciting Aves and other


praises of the Virgin. Then he would scourge himself.^44 The image did not


need to be elaborate or valuable. When Umiliana dei Cerchi invoked God’s


help to escape a second marriage, she prayed before a rude image of the


Virgin sketched on a piece of parchment.^45 Francesco Patrizzi sometimes


prayed before an old and faded painting of the Virgin on a cemetery wall at


Presciano, near Siena. He expressed his devotion by leaving flowers.^46 The


flagellant confraternity of Bologna captured the lay link between devotion


and image in their statutes of 1260. These stipulated that whenever members


of the confraternity found themselves before an image of Christ or the Vir-


gin, whether stationary or carried in procession, they bow their heads and


say a prayer. Images made their subjects present in a mysterious way, but


the images were not the reality that was worshiped. A story tells that ‘‘in


Lombardy’’ ordinary people put up images of the Virgin Mary in their


homes, and fathers led their families and servants in prayer before them.


Once, a boy from one such family fell in the river—was it the Po?—and was


feared drowned. But his mother, with joy, found him still alive on a sandbar.


When asked how he was saved, the boy said it was by ‘‘Our Lady, the one


41 .Processus... B. Joannis Boni, 3. 1. 173 ,p. 815 ; 3. 3. 183 ,p. 818 : ‘‘quod publicum et manifestum erat,
quod ipse erat religiosus et catholicus homo.’’ See also ibid. 4. 4. 288 ,p. 845.
42 .Vita [Beati Jacobi Veneti Ordinis Praedicatorum], 1. 2 ,p. 453 ; 2. 14 ,p. 457.
43. Gisberto of Alessandria et al.,Vita [B. Ambrosii], 1. 6 ,p. 182.
44. Cristoforo of Parma,Legenda Beati Francisci, 6 ,p. 176 ; he continued his devout repetition of Aves
even after becoming a Servite: ibid., 13 ,p. 180.
45. Vito of Cortona,Vita [B. Humilianae], 1. 7 ,p. 387.
46. Cristoforo of Parma,Legenda Beati Francisci, 28 ,p. 186.

Free download pdf