362 BuoniCattolici
Vernacular texts are more promising. By the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury, vernacular and partly vernacular manuscripts of prayers appear and
can be compared with the Latin prayer collection at Padua. The Laurenzi-
ana in Florence has a remarkable early-fourteenth-century example.^110 This
tiny prayer book is in a clear, readable hand, with virtually no abbreviations.
It probably belonged to a woman, since a Latin prayer ascribed to Saint
Augustine (fol. 17 v) usespeccatrici(feminine) instead ofpeccatori(masculine),
and a prayer to the Virgin (fol. 18 v) similarly invokes her help fortua famula,
nottuo famulo.The collection is heavily Marian in spirit. It opens with a long
vernacular prayer, quasi-litanic in form, to the Virgin Mary (fols. 1 r– 13 r).
When said before her image for thirty days in succession, the user received
an indulgence, supposedly by decree of Pope Gregory IX. Then comes a
vernacular prayer, ascribed to Saint Jerome, directed to the guardian angel.
Other Marian prayers follow. After these come the three Latin devotions of
the book: a Marian prayer indulgenced by Pope Boniface VIII; a prayer for
a good death (to be recited once a day), ascribed to Augustine; and another
Marian prayer in litanic form. Regrettably, the manuscript is truncated at
folio 19 v, in the midst of the litanic prayer. The litany first invokes the Virgin,
using Gabriel’s greeting, the ‘‘Ave.’’ Then it invokes Gabriel and other
angels according to the order of the heavenly choirs, and finally Jesus under
his various titles. Overall, the Marian flavor of this book is pronounced,
perhaps because of the owner’s taste. But the concern for repentance at
death and the invocation of the guardian angel link it to the earlier collection
at Padua. The piety of this codex seems also typically lay in its use of litanic
forms and repetitions and the inclusion of rubrics listing indulgences. All
these qualities are absent from the clerical collections discussed earlier.
Two other vernacular booklets, one from Modena and the other from
Siena, confirm the impression given us by the Paduan and the Laurenziana
manuscripts. Both probably date near the end of the communal period. The
Modena manuscript is a commonplace book, small (twelve folios), greasy
and worn, copied by several untrained hands.^111 The texts are wholly in
Italian, with the exception of the Apostles’ Creed (fol. 4 r) (fig. 55 ), the opening
words of John’s Gospel (fols. 4 r–v), and the Magnificat (fol. 5 r). These were
words of power that even those who preferred Italian devotions would want
to recite in the liturgical language. The vernacular contents match the earlier
examples. There are two short Marian prayers (fols. 0 v– 1 v) and the opening
psalm of the Office of the Virgin (fols. 9 r–v). The focus of the rest is Christo-
logical and penitential. The book includes Eucharistic prayers (e.g., ‘‘Anima
- Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msGaddi 231 ; this codex might be compared to
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana,ms 1422, which, although later, also belonged to a woman, but in this
case a nun. - Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria,ms.W. 2. 40 ; on which, see Giuseppe Campori,Cata-
logo dei codici e degli autografi(Modena: Paolo Torchi, 1875 ), 11 , no. 9.