422 Epilogue
communal walls. They were located in theborghi,which would be enclosed
with the last ring of walls, constructed just before the population drop after
the Black Death.^19 Mendicant convents dominated these new neighbor-
hoods. Their location put mendicant churches in areas of mercantile and
population growth and linked them geographically to the class that domi-
nated the later communes. The friars sponsored confraternities and estab-
lished ‘‘chapters’’ of their third orders, which drew people away from their
neighborhood cappelle and the earlier religious associations of the com-
mune.^20 In small cities, mendicant foundations literally overshadowed the
older cultic center. A triangle of sanctuaries—Dominican, Franciscan, and
Augustinian—typically reordered the geography of the communes. Late
communal Bologna, Florence, Padua, Vicenza, and other smaller cities were
defined by their mendicant triangles.^21
City statutes suggest the monetary impact of the mendicants’ arrival and
its transformation of communal almsgiving. The 1228 statutes of Verona,
among the earliest extant, reveal the premendicant pattern of municipal
charity. Verona exempted six churches from taxes and provided special legal
protection to the monastery of San Zeno.^22 The city allotted new tax exemp-
tions, on a small scale, into the 1270 s.^23 The largest share of public funding
in the early 1200 s probably went to the duomo, although financial records
are lacking. The pattern changes radically after 1250. Almsgiving to the men-
dicants began with ad hoc grants for limited periods, usually to meet some
particular need. In 1250 , the Bologna city council voted an annual £ 500
(£ 300 from Altedo and £ 200 from the city) to the Minorites for a five-year
period, after which the sum was lowered to £ 200 a year.^24 This funding
alone dwarfed any earlier support for the duomo. Little communes followed
the lead of the larger. In 1255 San Gimignano voted its Franciscans £ 20 pis.
a year to repair their habits.^25 Siena followed the older practice of individual
grants for specific purposes into the 1260 s. But these came to resemble an-
nual doles, as the city underwrote construction costs for the Dominicans,
Franciscans, Crutched Friars, Humiliati, Carmelites, Augustinian Hermits,
Servites, and six new houses of nuns. Such construction added up to a sizable
- Anna Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘Mendicanti a Firenze,’’In Castro Poenitentiae, 4 – 6.
- Ibid., 11 – 13.
- On this new geography, seeStoria della citta
9 ( 1978 ), in particular: Angiola Maria Romanini, ‘‘L’architettura degli ordini mendicanti: Nuove prospettive di interpretazione,’’ 5 – 15 ; Giuseppina Inga, ‘‘Gli insediamenti mendicanti a Cortona,’’ 44 – 55 ; and Sandra Farina, ‘‘I conventi mendicanti nel tessuto urbanistico di Bologna,’’ 56 – 61. More generally on Bologna, see Massimo Giansante, ‘‘Insediamenti religiosi e societaurbana a Bologna dalxadxviiisecolo,’’L’Archiginnasio 89 ( 1994 ): 217 – 22 ; and on Italian
cities generally, see Enrico Guidoni,La citta`dal Medioevo al Rinascimento, 2 d ed. (Bari: Laterza, 1985 ). - Verona Stat.i( 1228 ), 139 ,p. 103 ; 234 , pp. 177 – 78. In this early period there were provisions for
older Benedictine houses: e.g., Padua Stat. ( 1230 ), pp. 424 – 25 , no. 1365 (for Santa Giustina); p. 264 , no.
1366 (Santa Maria di Procilla). - Verona Stat.ii( 1276 ), 1. 229 ,p. 187.
- Bologna Stat.i( 1250 ), 5. 13 , 1 : 450.
- San Gimignano Stat. ( 1255 ), 4. 48 ,p. 729.