442 Epilogue
But others in the piazza were becoming hysterical as the mood turned
ugly. Valeriano di Guido from the parish of Santa Maria Maddalena began
to thrash about (volvando se), crying in tears to those around him that the
condemnation was a great sin because Bompietro was asking for the sacra-
ment of the Lord’s body. Although later, on 16 May, he would deny those
words, Fra Guido exacted from him a security of £ 100 bon., one of the
highest required of a protester, and threatened him with jail should he dare
to speak against the judgment again.^146 One of the women present, Dotta di
Giovanino, from San Tommaso del Mercato, added her cries to the men’s
protest against the denial of Communion, shouting and repeating what Vale-
riano had said. Their cries may well have turned the crowds against the
friars and the judgment, since they were the only protesters in the square
whom Fra Guido would later threaten with imprisonment.^147 The onlookers’
logic was summed up beautifully by the wholly respectable Don Giovanni of
Vernazza, who was standing just under the Arenga.^148 He turned to the
crowd and shouted, ‘‘How can this be? This man seems to be a good Chris-
tian. I have seen that heretics despise the body of Christ, and this one is
asking for it. How is it possible to be a heretic when one is asking for the
body of Christ? This is not possible.’’ To the simple faithful and, no doubt,
to many of the clergy, his logic seemed impeccable. Pope Alexander IV
had specifically commanded that under no circumstances (nequaquam) was a
heretic, even if relapsed, to be denied confession and Communion if he asked
for it, a decree repeated by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298 as part of hisLiber
Sextus.^149 Execution of a relapsed heretic who had repented, although theo-
retically possible, was also virtually unknown.^150 How could the friars turn
away one who showed signs of repentance? It could only be the work of the
Devil.
The shouts to free Bompietro were joined by other voices calling for the
death of the inquisitor and the friars.^151 Saviabona di Gerardo of Venice, a
vendor of bands and belts, whose bench stood at the foot of the Arenga,
under the arcade next to that of the meat vendor Giacomo di Rolanduc-
cio,^152 took up the cry of ‘‘death to the friars.’’ She turned toward the crowd
and shouted that the friars should be burned instead of Bompietro and that,
were it not for the pictures of the saints there, their church of San Domenico
should also be put to the torch. She was heard by all those under the portico,
- Ibid., no. 147 , 1 : 162 – 63.
- He released her on £ 25 bon. bail. See her testimony, ibid., no. 131 , 1 : 155 , and sentence, no. 143 ,
1 : 160. - He was an official of his Societa`delle Armi, the Lombardi; see Bologna Stat.ii, 2 : 377.
149 .Liber Sextus, 5. 2. 4 , in vol. 2 ofCorpus Iuris Canonici, 2 d ed., ed. E. Friedberg (Leipzig: Tauchnitz,
1881 ). - Hamilton,Medieval Inquisition, 56.
151 .ASOB,nos. 264 – 65 , 1 : 200 – 201. - Saviabona’s whole process is preserved in ibid. (see, in order, nos. 26 , 37 , 247 , 278 , 330 , 42 , 379 ,
385 , 568 , 575 ). See also Paolini,Eresia, 69 – 72.