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

(Darren Dugan) #1

 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-



  1. Salimbene,Cronica( 1279 ), 735 – 36 , Baird trans., 513 – 14.

  2. As we know from Pope Boniface VIII’s order that these be destroyed: ‘‘Acta contra Armanum
    [Punzilupum],’’ 90 – 93 , 95.

  3. On this long delay in the investigation, see Zanella,Itinerari, 32.

  4. ‘‘Acta contra Armanum [Punzilupum],’’ 48 – 72 , contains Guido’s work. On the steps in the long
    process against Armanno, see Zanella,Itinerari, 25 – 28.

  5. ‘‘Acta contra Armanum [Punzilupum],’’ 56.

  6. Ibid., 54 – 55 (on the friars), 59 (on the drunk priest).

  7. Ibid., 60 – 61 , 63 – 63.

  8. 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.

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