432 Epilogue
to find that it was a clove of garlic, Salimbene jeered.^92 Fra Aldebrandino
opened an inquest, lasting from the spring of 1270 to the summer of 1274.
He took depositions on Armanno’s belief and behavior but then dropped the
case. The next inquisitor, Fra Florio of Vicenza, reopened it in 1284. The
canons of the Ferrara cathedral checked him by sending an inventory of
Armanno’s miracles to the pope in 1286. Fra Florio sent his own report to
Rome in 1288. Nothing happened. Meanwhile, at Ferrara, the cult grew.
Saint Armanno enjoyed a traditional stone arca raised on pillars, an altar in
the duomo, and statues and paintings in local churches. The arca had been
constructed from a Paleo-Christian sarcophagus dating to the reign of the
emperor Honorius, a precious vessel indeed. Everywhere his images and
reliquaries were decorated with ex-votos honoring his cures.^93 In spite of
mendicant grumbling, the cult continued for some thirty years.^94 Then, in
1299 , a new inquisitor, Fra Guido of Vicenza, reopened the investigation.
He collected his predecessors’ work and took new depositions.^95
The accusations against Pungilupo were an odd lot. Donna Duragia said
that Pungilupo once prepared a large loaf of bread and a carafe of wine to
celebrate with his friends on Easter. After the meal, he supposedly joked that
the priests were wrong in thinking that the Corpus Domini could never be
consumed, ‘‘because they had just eaten a big one.’’^96 On another occasion
he told a joke about a priest’s getting drunk on sacramental wine. Armanno
had criticized the inquisition and the friars for burning ‘‘good men.’’^97 Arm-
anno did dislike the friars and the inquisitor who had fined him, but was that
heresy? More disturbing was that some Cathars said that Armanno was ‘‘one
of us.’’ But others cursed him as a Catholic.^98 The accusations were all hear-
say. The shoemaker Castellano admitted that at Armanno’s burial he had
condemned the saint as a Catholic and a traitor to Catharism. But in damn-
ing testimony, Castellano admitted that his friend Odoberto, another Ca-
thar, had rebuked him for the curse, stating that Armanno had received
Cathar ‘‘baptism’’ (theconsolamentum) in the same ceremony as his own wife.^99
The case against Armanno was founded on circumstantial and second-
hand evidence. I do not find it convincing.^100 Armanno was an independent-
thinking layman, he indulged in anticlerical humor, his charity included her-
- Salimbene,Cronica( 1279 ), 735 – 36 , Baird trans., 513 – 14.
- As we know from Pope Boniface VIII’s order that these be destroyed: ‘‘Acta contra Armanum
[Punzilupum],’’ 90 – 93 , 95. - On this long delay in the investigation, see Zanella,Itinerari, 32.
- ‘‘Acta contra Armanum [Punzilupum],’’ 48 – 72 , contains Guido’s work. On the steps in the long
process against Armanno, see Zanella,Itinerari, 25 – 28. - ‘‘Acta contra Armanum [Punzilupum],’’ 56.
- Ibid., 54 – 55 (on the friars), 59 (on the drunk priest).
- Ibid., 60 – 61 , 63 – 63.
- The testimony appears twice: ibid., 51 , 59. Others repeated the same story: ibid., 56 – 59.
100 .PaceMalcolm D. Lambert,The Cathars(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 ), 281 – 82 , who believes that
Pungilupo was a convinced Cathar dissimulating as a Catholic.