GoodCatholics atPrayer 371
Nevertheless, the Florentine woman’s ‘‘Marian’’ devotional collection
mentioned earlier reveals a more luxurious strain in popular Mariology. One
rubric in it, which precedes a long devotional exercise, ascribed it to ‘‘Saint
Gregory,’’ who supposedly embellished it with an indulgence of 8 , 440 years
‘‘for mortal sins and the pain of purgatory.’’ The rubric promised that those
who said it, kneeling before an image of the Virgin, for thirty days, would
receive ‘‘whatever just favor’’ (ogni giusta gratia) they might ask. Even more
remarkably, should devotees perform the devotion every day until death, the
Blessed Virgin would herself appear at that hour before their bodily eyes.
But in contrast to its rubric, the prayer’s piety is remarkably restrained and
wholly conventional. The prayer focuses on Mary’s experience at the foot of
the cross; it gives equal attention to the suffering Christ and his work of
redemption. Only near the end, when the user would ask the ‘‘just favor,’’
does the Marian focus shoulder out the role of Christ and the prayer itself
become a litany of the titles, biblical and popular, of the merciful Virgin.^132
The collections also lack devotions focused on votive Masses—to celebrate
a certain number of times with certain numbers of candles and prayers—like
those that became so common in the late Middle Ages. But the scribe of the
vernacular vita of Saint Petronio did include one such exercise, unique in
the manuscripts examined, on the last pages of his manuscript. Its rubric
promised that Christ would give strength in any adversity to all who recited
a certain verse one hundred times and had three Masses celebrated in honor
of the Blessed Trinity. The verse recited was itself a marvel of Trinitarian
simplicity: ‘‘Ave Sancta Trinitas, equalis una Deitas, ut me facias constantem
per tuam benignitatem’’ (Hail Holy Trinity, equally One Deity, make me
constant through your kindness). During each Mass three candles were to
burn on the altar, and three paupers were to receive alms. Each Mass was
to have three collects, that of the Trinity, that of Our Lady, and that to God,
‘‘who does not fail to hear the cries of those afflicted.’’ In spite of the rubric’s
mechanical implications and the devotion’s repetitions, which for some mod-
erns verge on superstition, the prayer was perfectly orthodox. The copyist
assured the reader that if it did not bring benefit to the body, the devotion
would aid the soul in the world to come. At the foot of the page he added
his own simple prayer: ‘‘Mary, our advocate, pray for us. Amen.’’^133
ReligiousLiterature
To turn from collections of prayers to the other religious literature produced
in the communes means taking a step away from lived piety. Reading devo-
tional books must have been typical of only a very small fraction of the
population; the circles that consumed ethical treatises and catechetical texts
- Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msGaddi 231 , fols. 1 r– 13 r.
- ‘‘Ave Maria nostra advocata, ora pro nobis. Amen.’’ Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 2060
(xivcent.), fols. 21 v– 23 v.