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

 352 BuoniCattolici

and pardon us all the sins we do

that we displease you not by any deed;

And show us how to pardon grant,

and form so the virtues you impart,

that the enemy will not them supplant.^61

Most felt no need of such elaborations when the original words were so

close to hand. Giovanni Buono, pious illiterate that he was, memorized the

Nicene Creed, the beloved ‘‘Miserere Mei Deus’’ (Psalm 50 of the Vulgate),

and several other standard Latin prayers. Fra Greco of Mantua remarked

on this unusual accomplishment of going beyond the Pater and the Ave.^62

For most, the Lord’s Prayer had an immediacy and urgency sometimes lost

on modern Christians. Italians knew to pray for deliverance ‘‘from evil,’’

meaning from the great demon, Satan, who sought the ruin of souls and the

corruption of goodness, as the devotional version above said.^63 Christ’s words

could put the Evil One to flight. So could the power of his cross. By no

more than the sign of that cross, the Pater, and the Creed, Saint Agnese of

Montepulciano exorcized the demons from a possessed man and restored

him to his senses. Agnese used her ‘‘Pater Noster cord’’ to count the Paters

she recited each day. When she died, the nuns placed the cord in her hands.

During the funeral, it gave off a miraculous fragrance.^64

Next to the Pater, the Ave Maria was slowly becoming the ‘‘lay prayer’’

par excellence, which it was already in France.^65 The Ave, too, had the

power to drive off temptations and demons.^66 Its brevity and simplicity also

commended it, especially to the illiterate. The ‘‘Angelic Salutation’’ of the

communal period included only the biblical words of Gabriel and Elizabeth.

It stopped at the words, ‘‘blessed is the fruit of your womb.’’ Addition of

even the holy name of Jesus had to wait till the 1300 s. Laywomen like Umilta`

of Faenza, Benvenuta Bojani, and Margherita of Cortona all recited the Ave

Maria in the short, purely biblical form.^67 Nevertheless, in devotional use,

the pious added other biblical phrases to the angelic salutation. One late-

61. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria,ms.R. 2. 3 (earlyxivcent.), fol. 2 ra: ‘‘Dicendo padre
    che nel celo stai,sanctificato sia il tuo sancto nome,e gratie ellode di cio che ci sai.Avegna nel tua
    regno, come ponequesta ragione, tua volunta sia facta,come in celo sia in terra unione.Signore
    daccj oggi pan che ci piaccia,di perdonarci gli peccati nostri,e cosa non facciam che ti dispiaccia.E
    chome perdonar tu si ci mostri,exemplo di noi mondan di tua virtute,accioche dal nemico ognun si
    schosti.’’
    62 .Processus... B. Joannis Boni, 4. 3. 279 ,p. 843.


62. Zucchero Bencivenni,Sposizione, 15. See also Trexler,Christian at Prayer, 35.


63. Raimondo of Capua,Legenda Beate Agnetis de Monte Policiano, 3. 1 , pp. 68 – 69.


64. On its use in France, see Nicole Be ́riou,Prier au Moyen Aˆge: Pratiques et expe ́riences (ve–xvesie`cles)
    (Turnout: Brepols, 1991 ), 174 – 75.
    66 .Vitae Fratrum Ordinis Praedicatorum, 4. 23 , pp. 212 – 13 , Conway trans., 194.


65. Corrado of Cividale,Vita Devotissimae Benevenutae, 4. 50 ,p. 163 ; Umiltaof Faenza, ‘‘Sermo 3 ,’’ ed. and trans. Adele Simonetii,I sermoni di Umiltada Faenza: Studio e edizione(Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi
    sull’Alto Medioevo, 1995 ), 27 – 29 ; Giunta Bevegnati,Legenda... Margaritae de Cortona, 5. 42 ,p. 282.