Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual: Studies in Italian Urban Culture (Europa Sacra) 9782503541907, 2503541909

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Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual

EUROPA SACRA Editorial Board under the auspices of Monash University General Editor Peter Howard, Monash University Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monash University David Garrioch, Monash University Thomas Izbicki, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Carolyn James, Monash University Constant J. Mews, Monash University M. Michèle Mulchahey, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto Adriano Prosperi, Scuola Normale di Pisa

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Volume 7

Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual Studies in Italian Urban Culture Edited by

Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, and Fabrizio Ricciardelli

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Late medieval and early modern ritual : studies in Italian urban culture. -- (Europa sacra ; 7) 1. Ritual--Italy--History. 2. Rites and ceremonies--Italy--History. 3. City-states--Italy--History. 4. Renaissance--Italy. I. Series II. Cohn, Samuel Kline editor of compilation. III. Fantoni, Marcello editor of compilation. IV. Franceschi, Franco, editor of compilation. V. Ricciardelli, Fabrizio editor of compilation. 390'.0945'09024-dc23 ISBN-13: 9782503541907

© 2013, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2013/0095/108 ISBN: 978-2-503-54190-7 e-ISBN: 978-2-503-54202-7 Printed on acid-free paper

Contents

Illustrations Introduction: Symbols and Rituals Samuel Cohn Jr

1

Symbols and Rituals: Definition of a Field of Study Marcello Fantoni

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Part I. Consensus and Social Identity Between Rules and Ritual: The Election of the Signoria in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Ilaria Taddei

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The Rituals of the Guilds: Examples from Tuscan Cities (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries) Franco Franceschi

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The Rhetoric of Power in Renaissance Florence Fabrizio Ricciardelli

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Peace and Revolt: Oath-Taking Rituals in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy Carlo Taviani

119

Contents

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Part II. Family and Gender Family Rituals in Northern Italy (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries) Guido Alfani

The First Female Nudes of the Quattrocento Christiane Klapisch-Zuber

139 161

Part III. Death and Violence Honour and Insult: Military Rituals in Late Medieval Tuscany William Caferro

Philip II’s Royal Exequies in Two Italian Cities: His Deeds and Virtues as Seen in Florence and Naples John A. Marino

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies Andrea Zorzi

183

211 235

Part IV. Civic and Power Rituals Papal Sovereignty and Civic Rituals in the Early Modern Age Maria Antonietta Visceglia

Ritual Form and Urban Space in Early Modern Rome Genevieve Warwick

Symbol of Venice: The Doge in Ritual Andrew Hopkins

The Pope as Conqueror: Rites of Possession, Episodes, and Unexpected Events in 1598 Ferrara Giovanni Ricci

269 297 329

349

Illustrations

Figure 1, p. 164. Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, Jeune femme nue, København, Statens Museum for Kunst. c. 1460. Figure 2, p. 164. Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, Jeune homme nu, København, Statens Museum for Kunst. c. 1460. Figure 3, p. 167. ‘Couple couronné par des putti’, in Francesco Petrarca, Trionfi (incipit), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ital. 545, fol. 12r. 1456. Figure 4, p. 168. Baccio Baldini, Rond avec un couple de danseurs et un couple allongé, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 3687 L. R. 1475. Figure 5, p. 299. ‘Saracen’s Joust at Piazza Navona, 25 February, 1634’, Roma, Museo di Roma. c. 1634. Figure 6, p. 301. ‘Piazza Navona, 1638’, in Pompilio Totti, Ritratto di Roma moderna (Roma: Mascardi, 1638), p.  232, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 1638. Figure 7, p. 301. Johann Wilhelm Baur (attr.), Piazza Navona, c. 1630, Roma, Museo di Roma. c. 1630. Figure 8, p. 303. ‘Piazza Navona, Rome’. Figure 9, p. 310. ‘Fireworks, 1644, Mount Ararat’, in Laurentius Banck, Roma triumphans […] (Roma, 1645), Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. 1645. Figure 10, p. 311. ‘Fireworks, 1644, Four Continents’, in Laurentius Banck, Roma triumphans […], (Roma, 1645), Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apos­ tolica Vaticana. 1645.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 11, p. 318. Dominique Barrière, Piazza Navona, Resurrection parade, 1650, Roma, Museo di Roma. 1650. Figure 12, p. 319. Filippo Gagliardi (attr.), Innocent X viewing the Fountain of the Four Rivers, 1651, Roma, Museo di Roma. 1651.

Tables Table 1, p. 214. The Deeds and Victories of Charles V. Table 2, p. 217. Narrative Paintings from the Exequies for Philip II in Florence and Naples. Table 3, p. 226. Imprese of Philip II in Exequies at Naples. Twenty-four Emblems on apparato. Table 4, p. 227. Imprese of Philip II in Exequies at Naples. Forty-one coats of arms of the royal kingdoms and 33 emblems.

Introduction: Symbols and Rituals Samuel Cohn Jr

T

his collection of fourteen studies brings together scholars of late medieval, Renaissance, and early modern Italy to reflect on the multifaceted world of ritual over four centuries and across large expanses of the length and breadth of the Italian peninsula. As Marcello Fantoni suggests, ritual has been widely studied, perhaps too much: ‘Everything is “ritual” — revolts, games, religious liturgy, festivals, family life, diplomatic protocol, public executions, etc’. Yet, because of older presumptions about the modernity of the Renaissance and hence its supposed aversion to the irrational, scholarship on ritual life in Italian city-states of the Renaissance lagged behind that of the Middle Ages and of monarchies north of the Alps. In northern Europe beginning early in the twentieth century a rich vein of scholarly interests utilizing anthropological models has tapped into the power of oaths, the healing practices of kings, triumphal entries of princes, myths of patron saints, and more. By contrast, only by the 1990s had a wide range of scholars across disciplines become interested in these subjects and

Samuel Cohn Jr ([email protected]) received his PhD from Harvard University in 1978 and has been Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow since 1995. His books and articles investigate labour, popular insurrection, women, religious piety, and medical history during the medieval and early modern period, and his most recent monograph is Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Over the past decade he has concentrated on two themes, the history of popular insurrection and the history of epidemics. Presently he is engaged in new research funded in part by the Wellcome Trust: Epidemics: Waves of Disease, Waves of Hate from the Plague of Athens to AIDS. Samuel Cohn Jr was the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 1–14 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100765

2 Samuel Cohn Jr

approaches for the late medieval and early modern Italian city-state.1 As a consequence, historians have yet to attempt a synthesis of the variety of ritual forms for Renaissance Italy or to engage in comparative work on rituals either among city-states or regions in Italy or between Italy and places north of the Alps. The present work is not a synthesis, and despite occasional glimpses between city-states or beyond the peninsula (see the essays by John A. Marino and Carlo Taviani), this is not a book dedicated to comparative history. The editors gave no directives towards any synthesis, comparative vistas, or interlacing between essays. Instead, we relied on the strengths of individual scholars across a wide range of interests and specialties — constitutional, military, economic, art, architectural, literary, and geographic history. The results are twofold. Although ritual and symbols may now encompass almost every aspect of history and society — questions of the interaction of the sacred and the temporal, the civic and religious, mystical and magical forms of performance from grand political ceremonies to rites of passage in peasant households — have encouraged the scholars in this volume to revisit traditional topics such as constitutional forms, guilds, demography, and battles through a new prism. As a result they have drawn new conclusions about often well-trodden topics in Renaissance history. Secondly, certain broad outlines have emerged across the fourteen essays, creating a platform now to raise new questions about large changes over time and the similarity or distinctiveness of Italy in comparison with other regions of Europe. First, the essays in this volume overturn older notions of the supposed decline of ritual, especially in the secular sphere, during the Renaissance, a notion that persisted more or less through the first half of the twentieth century, if not longer.2 Instead of decline, this volume shows the opposite: the city-state of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was a great motor for ritual production, innovating 1  See Fantoni’s comments in his chapter below. As Fantoni shows and others in this volume imply, the works of Richard Trexler, Edward Muir, and Ronald Weissman in the early 1980s greatly contributed to the enthusiasm for studying rituals of late medieval and Renaissance Italy in the 1990s. For three important works showing new directions in the symbolic and ritual realms of late medieval and Renaissance Italy not mentioned by Fantoni, see Riti e rituali nelle società medievali, ed. by Chiffoleau, Martines, and Paravicini Bagliani, based on a conference at Erice in 1990; Martines, Strong Words; and Power, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas, ed. by Arnade and Rocke. 2  It should, however, be pointed out that in Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by Middlemore, a classic on the Renaissance as the gateway to modernity, first published in 1860, neither notions of the irrational, superstition, nor discussions of the rich festive and ceremonial life of Renaissance Italian cities were seen as contradictory to the Renaissance as a new period in Western civilization; see especially pt 5; ‘Society and Festivals’.

Introduction: Symbols and Rituals

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new practices and forms that expanded and intensified ceremonial life intermingling the sacred and civic and enhancing the power and authority of elites through hidden and mystical practices, by performance of oaths and through ever-more elaborate and theatrical ceremony. Exactly when this new motor cranked up — the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth century? — and to what extent ritual forms of the Middle Ages may have differed from those of the Renaissance is, however, left unanswered in these essays. Several concentrate on the latter half of the fourteenth century as with William Caferro’s ‘Warfare and Ritual’ or even earlier as with Andrea Zorzi’s ‘Rituals of Youthful Violence’ with examples that reach back to the beginning of that century without drawing any lines of demarcation with the Black Death or the rise of territorial states in Italy at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Others fixing on specific ritual changes can date them much more precisely as with Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s first female nudes that appear hidden under marriage chest lids in the 1440s. Yet, quite rightly, she does not generalize from this evidence for a transformation in Renaissance ritual practices. Curiously, not a single essay makes more than a passing reference to the Black Death or the continuation of plague during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as possible dividing lines, influencing change in the ritual experience of Italian city-states or monarchies. On the other hand, these essays examine with much greater attention the Renaissance’s end: the Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation culture that ensued into the seventeenth century is seen as pivotal in the ritual and ceremonial life in Italy. The essays do not, however, reinstate the old textbook barrier, perhaps most recently and vigorously argued by William Bouwsma’s The Waning of the Renaissance, whereby the Counter-Reformation rang the death knell to a Renaissance culture of ‘freedom and creativity’.3 Instead, essays by Marino, Andrew Hopkins, Guido Alfani, Maria Antonietta Visceglia, and Genevieve Warwick show ritual in the secular sphere continuing with great gusto and creativity into the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Marino’s ‘Philip II’s Royal Exequies in Two Italian Cities’ analyses innovations in imperial funerals in Florence and Naples at the end of the sixteenth century. Funerary paintings celebrating an emperor’s life were not new with Philip II’s death celebrations in 1598. However, previously with the three thousand funerary celebrations across Europe for his father Charles V in 1558, they were few in number and concentrated on only one or two key moments in this emperor’s career. By contrast, the Florentine funerary paintings for his son detail for the first time pictorially the chronological sweep of a monarch’s life from birth to death, a pictorial biography in praise of 3 

Bouwsma, The Waning of the Renaissance.

4 Samuel Cohn Jr

earthly achievement. At the same time Naples was equally inventive in its funerary devotion of the deceased emperor: a multiplication of devices (imprese) combined the design of new emblems or coats of arms with mottos, some derived from classical authors such as Virgil and Ovid, others invented by local poets of the ruling class. As Marino concludes: ‘At the turn of the seventeenth century, we are at the beginning not only of an explosion of emblematic invention but also of the creation of an audience trained both to understand and appreciate the intricacies of the genre’. This explosion was hardly one that turned its back on the secular to wax on the spiritual; rather the sacramental moment of death was this Counter-Reformation moment to focus on military and earthly accomplishment, and in so doing achieved political aims: the new ritual expressions exalted imperial ideologies of good government, cemented ties among members of city elites, and at the same time stimulated esteem for their emperors. Hopkins’s ‘Symbol of Venice: The Doge in Ritual’ illustrates inventions in ritual and architecture in Counter-Reformation Venice, changes in the doge’s role at San Marco and the new governmental rituals associated with annual ceremonies in the votive plague churches of the Redentore begun towards the end of the 1576 plague and Santa Maria della Salute during the plague of 1630. Alfani’s ‘Family Rituals in Northern Italy’ shows that Counter-Reformation innovations in ritual life were not limited to elites alone. Changes in the festive life surrounding the baptism and marriage wrought by the Council of Trent and later decrees such as the Rituale romanum of 1614 succeeded in curbing the ribaldry, joking, banqueting, and drunkenness that had previously accompanied these key events in the life cycle. By limiting the election of godparents to two, one from each sex, the Counter-Reformation church also greatly restricted the previous use of this rite of passage for building social networks across classes. Alfani suggests, however, that the Militant Church may not have been entirely successful in its designs to control the secular uses of these sacramental events. In marriage ceremonies, the church remained marginal to the celebrations well into the seventeenth century; only the Rituale romanum moved the event within a church building, and before the seventeenth century the role of the priest (if present at all) was only to ensure that curses had not been put on the marital bed. More subtle was an unintended consequence of the Counter-Reformation change in the ritual of marriage, which in effect replicated the network building that had now been banned by the church’s limitations placed on godparenting. In village communities around Ivrea and in Nonantola, the witnesses to marriages came to construct and heighten the social bonds of friendship once served by the selection of godparents. Maria Antonietta Visceglia, ‘Papal Sovereignty and Civic Rituals in the Early Modern Age’, shows a similar competition between the new Militant Church and

Introduction: Symbols and Rituals

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its absolutism in papal Rome, which despite its magnificence and power did not destroy entirely traditions or innovations from the secular elites of communal Rome. Along with the topography and architectural fabric of the city of Rome, Counter-Reformation popes transformed the city’s profane rituals that had previously been shared by the pontiff and the Roman people. ‘Slowly but inexorably’, the Counter-Reformation papacy withdrew public space from carnival, judged as an occasion of licentiousness and disorder, and the games in Testaccio ceased completely. The Counter-Reformation’s symbolic offensive however, failed to eradicate the profane culture of the commune. The secular elites of the old medieval commune not only continued to defend their jurisdictions and privileges through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; they created new forms of inquiry and rituals embedded in the new academies of antiquarians and exemplified by advances in new fields such as archaeology and local history. At the height of Counter-Reformation absolutism during the papacy of Sixtus V, the communal authorities still could show their teeth and challenge the symbolic and ritualistic power and prerogatives of the papacy by passing legislation against the pope erecting public statutes of himself or to living members of his family. Genevieve Warwick’s ‘Ritual Form and Urban Space in Early Modern Rome’ continues the story of ritual innovation and the transformation of public space where Visceglia’s papal Rome leaves off. Her recounting of the architectural and ceremonial transformation of squares such as Piazza Navona shows not merely the continuation of Renaissance exuberance in ritual invention and elaboration but its acceleration by the third decade of the seventeenth century: With the papacy of Innocent X, Rome itself became a ‘ceremonial city’ devoted to ritual performances with public squares transformed into new theatrical spaces exalting the princely power of the papacy. Now on a much vaster scale than seen in any earlier Renaissance city-state or region, artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, and others employed new materials and ingenuity to construct grandiose spectacles that interwove the imaginary and ephemeral with permanent transformations of the city fabric. Rome’s past of triumphal arches and the importation of Egyptian obelisks were positioned to transform the functions of its once-public spaces. The completion of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers on 12 June 1651 became Innocent X’s opportunity abruptly to close down one of the major food markets of Rome — the Piazza Navona — and to refigure it into a permanent open-air theatre, exclusively for papal and aristocratic festive consumption. Ballet, choruses of singing nymphs, orchestral music, sculpture, papier mâché, grandiose stage-sets, fireworks, and Bacchanalian consumption commemorated military victories and celebrated artistic accomplishments. These new ritual performances not only recalled the glories of the Rome’s past but

6 Samuel Cohn Jr

extended that city’s present glory whose Church now touched the four known continents of the world. Beyond the Renaissance’s integration of Christianity and the humanist revival of antiquity, now river gods and even Egyptian sun worship were put at the pope’s service to present the new Militant Church as the hallmark and trendsetter of princely court culture with exquisite display of the profane across Europe and the Americas. As the illusionist inventions of Bernini and the transformation of concrete urban structure attest, this Counter-Reformation culture by no means closed its doors to creative extravaganza or turned its back on the profane. The papal ‘court culture’s ceaseless quest for surprise and novelty in its festive forms’ instead of suppressing humanist achievements of the previous century extended Renaissance court culture as it co-opted medieval communal festivals to extol its own princely absolutism. While these essays may be uncertain on the question of exactly when or whether a new ritual life emerged in Italy with the Renaissance, without exception each essay is attentive to questions of chronology and broad changes in development of rituals over time; none pictures rituals as transhistorical or timeless as an earlier anthropological literature implicitly saw them. Even Giovanni Ricci’s detective story of the unexpected events accompanying papal princely entry into Ferrara in a single year, 1598, examines changes in ritual systems and conflicts from the late Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation. In so doing, these essays show the importance and maturity of historic anthropology. In addition, these essays raise new questions for new research. As suggested above, comparative analysis both among city-states and between Italy and places beyond the Alps now cries out for new ambitions and directions. How might the ritual systems of republics, for instance, differ from signori of the north,4 or between smaller city-states and the larger territorial ones, or between territorial city-states in north-central Italy and the monarchies of the south? As we have seen, Marino’s essay on the exequies of Charles V and Philip II compares innovations in funerary rituals of these rulers at Florence and Naples, but it was when Florence was no longer a republic. Moreover, the comparison does not explicitly juxtapose two different cultures or ritual systems. On the other hand, Carlo Taviani’s ‘Peace and Revolt: Oath-Taking Rituals in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy’ also compares two city-states, Perugia and Genoa, which at the time were under different political regimes and in large part because of the differences, the oaths and rituals of peacemaking show significant differences in sincerity and efficacy.

4 

On this score, it is worth revisiting the hypotheses of Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence.

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Perhaps more surprisingly, only one essay, Zorzi’s ‘Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Urban Societies’, alludes to differences in ritual between the later Middle Ages and the early modern Italian city-state. But this is no sustained comparative study. The tradition of confraternities in Italy, he contends, began to discipline the youth culture of violence, and by the second half of the sixteenth century the Counter-Reformation ‘could no longer tolerate violence on the part of youth’. But was the Counter-Reformation so successful in ending youth violence and their rituals of cruelty as Zorzi asserts? The essay of Giovanni Ricci on the end of Este rule and the transfer of power to the papacy in Ferrara, first with the triumphal entry of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, the nephew of the pope, and then with Pope Clement VIII himself in 1598, shows that well into the Counter-Reformation, even against papal absolutism, the political importance of youth culture and the threat of their ritual violence remained alive and well. Even the pope in a medium-sized city was forced to pay off the city’s noble youth in the hope of avoiding conflict in the princely entries into Ferrara. First symbolically and ritually the cardinal’s mule was ceremonially presented to the noble youth and later they were paid the excessive price of five hundred gold florins for the same mule. But this double payment was not enough to avoid the youth’s violence and disobedience. Furthermore, against the ceremonial script, the pope himself in the second princely entry to the city was violently ‘dethroned’ from his mule, with the youth who dethroned him riding triumphantly through the city, stopping to bequeath it to a noble maiden, who returned it to the pope but proudly, even stubbornly, refusing to accept the pope’s reward for it, rejecting his noblesse oblige. Still, further mysterious and unexpected violence ensued leaving twenty noble youth dead. Moreover, were the city-states and regions of Italy all much of a sameness in traditions of youth culture and cruelty as Zorzi implies by his selection of examples taken from chronicles and other sources across much of northern and central Italy from the beginning of the fourteenth to the end of the fifteenth without drawing any geographic divides or temporal ones before the Counter-Reformation? What he leaves out are examples of the opposite: in contrast to incidents of gruesome acts of youth violence in places such as Florence, children and adolescents in cities such as Naples and Parma often united in peace movements. Demonstrating with flags, twigs, and garlands of flowers, dancing and singing in streets and country lanes, these youths eschewed violence to protest against war and their rulers’ costly cruelty in the first half of the fourteenth century.5 By default these essays 5 

For a number of examples of such peace movements in the later Middle Ages, see Cohn, Lust for Liberty.

8 Samuel Cohn Jr

point to the difficulties of comparative history but at the same time to the need for Italianists now to do it, to branch beyond the borders of the peninsula and to use comparative methods to explore more systematically broad changes over time. In addition to the picture these essays paint as an ensemble, individually they present exciting new material about Italian politics, society, and culture through raising questions about ritual, performance, and symbols from the late Middle Ages to the modern period. The first section — ‘Consensus and Social Identity’ — concentrates on Tuscan cities and republics. Through the analysis of the rituals of elections, oath taking, statute making, political rhetoric, and political protest, it provides new insights into traditional subjects of juridical and constitutional history. As Fantoni suggests, these subjects have been largely under-investigated for the Italian, and especially, the republican city-state, because of earlier assumptions about the Renaissance and its modernity, that such places, especially as regards statecraft, remained immune from the rigmarole and magic of ritual. As Illaria Taddei argues persuasively, the swearing of oaths, the sacred nature of electing Florence’s signorie, the role of clerics in protecting the secrecy of ballots, the strictly regulated procedures of opening the ballot box in the Palazzo della Signoria, the importance of symbols such as in the electoral crowning of Florence’s Marzocco, the enforced closing of shops, and the city’s need of a large attendance across social classes to witness the swearing of oaths, the kiss of peace, the offering of wax candles to Florence’s patron saint, John the Baptist, have been neglected in studies even by those attuned to the importance of ritual life in Renaissance Florence such as Richard Trexler. The choreographed movement of the Florentine elections from Eucharistic secrecy to the widest public participation charts Arnold Van Gennep’s tripartite ‘rites of passage’: the isolation of secret balloting; the crossing of thresholds with the drawing of names and the opening of palace doors, and finally the movement from the palace to the piazza (or the Loggia of Orcagna if it were raining) to celebrate the investiture of the new lords. Franco Franceschi’s ‘The Rituals of the Guilds’ is the first systematic exploration of the numerous guild statutes that have been published across Tuscany largely from the Fascist period to the present. It describes the rich ritual life of the guilds from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, arguing that solemn oaths, common meals and banquets, funerals of guild brothers, annual celebrations of commemorating guild saints, the induction of new members, and more showcase the guilds as ‘the great inventors of ritual’. Against earlier assumptions in the historiography, Franceschi argues effectively that the transition in guild functions at the end of the thirteenth century, from organizations focused principally on charitable assistance to ones that entered more into the economic and

Introduction: Symbols and Rituals

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political life of communes, did not end the importance of the ritual practices of guilds. Nor did the widening hierarchical divide between masters and workers detract from communal participation, masters along with their dependents, in guild banquets and their participation in solemn processions. But did these social and economic changes in guild life alter their rituals? Can the late fourteenth or fifteenth centuries be described as a motor for ritual innovation and increase, or was this one area of ritual life that may have well been on the decline? Fabrizio Ricciardelli’s ‘The Rhetoric of Power in Renaissance Florence’ examines the role of ceremonial ritual and rhetoric to smooth over the ever-present tensions within Florentine politics between the domination of oligarchies, on the one hand, and the ideology of republican forms of government with their cries for liberty and the nominal participation of a wide guild community of artisans and shopkeepers, on the other. The problems and contradictions became accentuated with Florence’s territorial expansion and acquisition of formerly independent city-states such as Prato, Pistoia, Arezzo, and Pisa. By the second half of the fifteenth century and especially during the period of Lorenzo il Magnifico, the ritual overtures of pax florentina that extolled the virtues of Florentine liberty and republicanism declined to be replaced by the rhetoric of Florentina superioritas. Revived feudal jousts and praise of Florentine power clothed in ancient triumphs along side the capital’s recent subjugation of earlier independent city-states now ritualistically combined in the service of propagandizing Florence’s imperium. Carlo Taviani’s ‘Peace and Revolt’ focuses on the ritual of oaths in peacemaking as a means of achieving unity and weakening factions. It compares the sixteenthcentury histories of popular revolt and factional conflict in Genoa and Perugia finding that oaths entered into freely, largely on the volition of artisans in Genoa were more efficacious than those imposed from above by the papacy on the noble factions in Perugia. Again, in accord with the general trend found throughout the essays of this volume, this study brings into question earlier regressive models of ritual, which saw oaths as archaic and on the decline with the growth of the supposed more rational state of the Renaissance. Instead, Taviani’s comparisons illustrates that these rituals not only continued into the early modern period, they could be employed effectively to quell factional conflict and as negotiating tools in places such as Genoa. By these means, artisans could successfully impose their own agendas against the violence and domination of aristocrats. Part II, ‘Family and Gender’, moves from high politics and rituals of governance to the private sphere. Alfani’s ‘Family Rituals’ focuses on the character of family events, baptism and marriage, showing, as we have seen above, the complex ways in which the doctrine and rules of the Council of Trent and the CounterReformation impinged on more than just the moral and religious worlds of

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peasants in places such as Ivrea in Piedmont and Nonantola in Emilia. He shows the ways in which these central events and rites of passage fundamentally affected the economics of the early modern period, where marriage and baptismal banquets could weigh heavily on peasant budgets, becoming the focus of 30 per cent of all sumptuary laws in Italy. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber in ‘The First Female Nudes of the Quattrocento’ interprets both female and male nudes painted hidden under the lids of Florentine wedding chests, arguing that these chests holding the trousseau that brides traditionally brought to grooms were constructed in pairs and that the two were meant to stand in communication with one another thereafter in matrimonial chambers. Klapisch-Zuber places these new images within the larger contexts of changes in wedding rituals and dowry law that occurred in tandem in the 1430s. The transition also marked a Renaissance shift from images of courtly love to Ovidian themes. At the moment of the presentation of these new wedding chests with their new imagery, women were losing control over their dowries previously protected by Roman law. In addition, now husbands possessed the chests and commissioned the images, where the emphasis suddenly shifted from evoking an egalitarian alliance between lineages to one focused on the relation between spouses. This relation was hardly egalitarian; instead the favourite themes of these chests — the Rape of the Sabines and the Griselda story — sounded the virtues of husbandly authority and absolute obedience of the newly wed wife. Again, rather than a decline in the importance of magic and ritualistic power in the Renaissance, marriage chest paintings along with the deschi da parto also with hidden images, these of putti on the reverse sides, were imbued with magical power aimed at increasing the wife’s fertility. To what extent were the changes of the private realm — marriage and fertility — linked to broader changes in Florentine politics, with the rise of the Medici at the same moment and its steady abrogation of republican forms of government and the rise of Florentine territorial absolutism? The next section, ‘Death and Violence’, gathers essays concentrating on different themes, regions, and political periods. Through a broad survey of records reflecting on military history, William Caferro’s ‘Honour and Insult: Military Rituals in Late Medieval Tuscany’, uncovers a rich field of symbols and the rituals of insults and praise employed by city-states and mercenaries during the fourteenth century: the defamatory use of animals and their ritualistic slaughter to insult enemies — defaming pictures of war lords defecating on rivals, humiliation of flags and other symbols of city-state pride, minted money of donkeys hanged upside down, defamatory foot-races of whores and Jews, choreographed celebrations of victory on battlefields, lavish funerals in praise of mercenaries

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aimed simultaneously at insulting rivals. These ritual ceremonies integrated a wide variety of forms and media: the theatrical, musical, visual, and written. According to Caferro, these rituals spiralled to excess during Florence’s war with Pisa (1362–64). But can we point to larger changes in this rich language of insult and praise over a longer period of the Renaissance from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century? In conjunction with one underlying theme of this volume, did these military insults and symbols mark a ritual revolution of the Renaissance? Did their symbolic richness and inventiveness peak in early Renaissance of the post-plague fourteenth century as the experience of Florence’s war with Pisa might suggest? Did these theatres of insults change in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when mercenary captains and their troops shifted from a predominance of foreigners to native Italians? And was the ritual of military slurs substantially different in Italy from those produced north of the Alps? As with the majority of essays in this volume, Marino’s ‘Philip II’s Royal Exequies’ crosses disciplines making equal use of pictorial and literary analysis and in the case of the Neapolitan imprese, showing the interaction between the two. While Caferro investigates the early Renaissance, Marino looks at the late sixteenth century, usually seen as the end of the Renaissance. As discussed above, the ending shows no signs of decline in the vitality and creativity of ritual or symbolic production, or a shift from the secular to the spiritual as might have been expected from an earlier historiography, even with a subject so central to church doctrine and its sacraments as death and funerary rites. The final section, ‘Civic and Power Rituals’, concentrates on urban rituals of space and architecture and the movement through that space in religious processions, ceremonial entries of rulers, and ‘unexpected’ rides of youths in opposition to the official choreographed drama of absolutist power. All four of these essays concentrate on the late sixteenth or seventeenth century and in places extend as late as the eighteenth. As with Marino’s study, they show the vitality of Counter-Reformation culture and absolutism in producing new forms of ritual: in Italy this culture appears to have been as much a ‘factory of models of iconography and ritual’ with even greater new bursts of creativity than seen in the Renaissance. As Warwick shows for seventeenth-century Rome, the inventiveness, scale, and technology of ritual display accelerated beyond what would have been imaginable earlier. The same may have been true in other cities such as Venice,6 which also became ceremonial cities with urban space as dedicated theatres for aristocratic festive life and the growing absolutism of doges as seen in Hopkins’s essay. In addition, as hinted above, this creativity did not emerge solely 6 

See Fenlon, The Ceremonial City.

12 Samuel Cohn Jr

from the absolutist forces of the church or state but derived also from other social groups, whose rituals and symbols the church and state were aiming to suppress. Not only did the voices, symbols, and rituals of secular and communal culture survive into the late sixteenth century and beyond; the conflict itself was a motor of creativity. The forces in opposition, in turn, also transformed the dominant powers as with the papacy in Rome, where its zeal for princely power created new ceremonial demands within the secular sphere that contradicted not only its medieval principles of asceticism, charity, and Christian piety, but new ones then being espoused and elaborated by the new Counter-Reformation church. Finally, Marcello Fantoni crisply reviews the anthropological literature on ritual and historians’ use of it over the last twenty years or so, the development of a distinctive literature of historical ritual for the European Middle Ages and early modern periods. It is now a genre with its own modern classics, works by John Bossy, Richard Trexler, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Edward Muir, Otto Gerhard Oexle, Philippe Buc, and others — names that recur throughout this volume. Fantoni provides an insightful and useful map of the historiographical traditions with their intersections and borrowings from different schools of anthropology. In addition to posing the big questions now confronting studies of ritual in the city-states of Italy, his observations should also serve students of anthropological history from late antiquity to the present. In conclusion, these essays exemplify what is now a well-developed sub-discipline of historical anthropology, illustrating that ritual life, its rhythms and symbolic language were hardly static but historical and malleable, and it is the historian’s task to uncover and analyse these changes. In addition to serving up a veritable feast of new examples from military slurs of defecating generals to elegant and witty mottos of the Neapolitan humanists, these essays hammer out two important points for the historiography of rituals writ large and the Renaissance. First, the old view that ‘ritual is proper to the “tribal”, irrational stages of civilization’ and that the rise of Renaissance culture, modernity, and the rational state caused these supposed archaic forms of behaviour to decline certainly can no longer hold water. Instead, the essays illustrate the opposite: with the melding of Christianity and new sources of ancient literature and learning, with the development of territorial states and more ‘disciplined’ forms of control, ritual life and symbolic inventiveness flourished; the late medieval and Renaissance city-state was a factory producing new oaths, processions, presenting new urban forms of space, architecture, and topography, where new theatres of ritual unfolded.7 Secondly, 7 

A chapter on the inventiveness of plague processions in the Renaissance and especially during the Counter-Reformation in Italy would have certainly boosted these points; for these,

Introduction: Symbols and Rituals

13

the waning of the Renaissance and emergence of Counter-Reformation culture did not suddenly end ritual creativity, new uses of ceremonial space, or new symbolic expressions in the spiritual as well as the secular spheres. From peasants at Nonantola to noble youth in Ferrara and academicians in Rome, this secular culture not only survived but branched out in creative new directions. At times it escaped the notice of new absolutist authorities as with the uncensored counter-chronicle of Agostino Faustini published in 1646 on the ceremonial mix-up at Ferrara a half century earlier. At times, it managed to turn the new CounterReformation regulations and rituals to reinforce older secular needs as with witnesses to marriage in seventeenth-century Emilia. At times, secular rituals were absorbed within the parallel growth of state and church absolutism as with the exequies in Naples and Florence for Philip II, and at times the space for communal and secular ritual developed in opposition to the new forces of absolutism as seen in seventeenth-century Rome, when the Roman commune legislated against Sixtus V expanding his ritual space and familial propaganda by erecting public statues to himself and his family members.

see Cohn, Cultures of Plague.

14 Samuel Cohn Jr

Works Cited Secondary Studies Arnade, Peter, and Michael Rocke, eds, Power, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard C. Trexler (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008) Bouwsma, William, The Waning of the Renaissance, 1550–1640 (New Haven: Yale Uni­ versity Press, 2000) Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by S. C. G. Middle­ more (New York: Random House, 1954) Chiffoleau, Jacques, Lauro Martines, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, eds, Riti e rituali nelle società medievali (Spoleto: Centro italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo, 1994) Cohn, Samuel K., Jr, Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) —— , Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200–1425 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) Fenlon, Iain, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) Martines, Lauro, Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) Trexler, Richard, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)

Symbols and Rituals: Definition of a Field of Study Marcello Fantoni

R

ituals have been widely explored. As sometimes happens in the study of history, a slowly developing initial interest evolves into a later obsession. Everything is ‘ritual’ — revolts, religious liturgy, festivals, family life, diplomatic protocol, public executions, etc. — and entire civilizations have ended up being considered ‘ritualistic’. Rituals have become a component of almost all of society’s collective expressions, and in many cases have been transformed into a veritable hermeneutic passepartout by which everything can be explained. Our task will be to reconstruct this process, seeking its roots in theory, reasoning about its results and evaluating its impact on the historiography on the Italian city. This also provides a framework for many avenues of research on rituals, specifically those appearing in this volume, that is in itself evidence of the growth of interest in the subject and of the diversification of topics and interpretations. Marcello Fantoni ([email protected]) is Associate Provost and Professor of History of Architecture at Kent State University, Ohio. He received his PhD in History and Civilization in 1991 from the European University Institute. In 1998–99 he was a fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Between 1995 and 2004 he was Director of Georgetown University in Florence, and in 2002 received tenure as Full Professor in Early European History at the Università di Teramo. He taught at the Università di Teramo for several years, where he also served as Chair of the Department of Communication (2005–10) and Vice-President for International Affairs (2007–10). In 2005 he was appointed Director of Kent State University in Florence and Europe Manager in 2011. He has been Director of Europa delle Corti since 2004, member of the board of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles since 2007, and founder and president of Court Studies Forum since 2007. Some of his publications include: La corte del Granduca: forme e simboli del potere mediceo fra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Bulzoni, 1994); ed., The Anglo-Americans and Florence: Idea and Invention of the Renaissance (Roma: Bulzoni, 2000); Il potere dello spazio: principi e città nell’Italia dei secoli xv–xvii (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002). Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 15–40 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100766

16 Marcello Fantoni

We can start from an incontestable fact: historians’ interest in rituals derives from anthropology and arose in the early 1980s. It is impossible to reconstruct in detail the debate on rituals that took place in the social sciences, but it is necessary nonetheless to take it into account for an awareness of the theoretical premises that inspired historians. Despite the fact that it is a concept ‘toujours mobile et aux contours flous’ (hence the impossibility of referring to a definition that is ‘stricte, capable de faire l’unanimité des chercheurs’),1 we must nonetheless start here if we want to comprehend the research on medieval and early modern Italy. We must then trace the developments of this scholarship, and we also have to bring into focus what this implies in terms of new investigative perspectives. We must rethink old categories. Searching for the roots of the history of rituals, thus, forces us to go into methodological questions, for at least two different reasons: in order to shed light on the relation between rite and symbol on one hand, and ritual and ceremonial on the other, but also to clarify the connection between ritual and the sacred. In fact, these are issues that have had the most direct impact on the approach taken in historical studies.2

Definition The first pair of terms, rite and symbol, has been long debated. Ritual has been seen as one of the many manifestations of symbolism, but at the same time symbolism is the raw material of ritual; symbols are also considered the language or content of rites, and a rite could also be ‘action wrapped in a web of symbolism’.3 These variants already hint at a basic ambiguity. Sometimes rituals belong to the ‘forms of communication’; ritual is in turn a formal and ‘symbolic manner of communicating’, but we also discover that it can ‘be considered a symbolic evaluation of the real situation’, and in any case there exists a ‘symbolic idiom of ritual’.4 When addressing ‘symbolic behavior’, others have instead seen ritual as a ‘dramatization’ of social life and a collective ‘symbolic act’.5 If we then consider that rite has also been conceived as a proper synonym of symbol, if not a ‘symbolic act’ in 1 

Taddei and Bertrand, ‘Le Rituel et ses approches’, p. 1. For Edmund Leach, ‘ritual was one of the areas of greatest disagreement in the social sciences’; Leach, ‘Ritual’, p. 526. 3  Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, p. 9. See also Isambert, Rite et efficacité symbolique. For a report on the theoretical debate on symbolism and ritual, see Valeri, ‘Rito’. 4  Firth, Symbols: Public and Private, p. 150 and following. 5  Nadel, Foundations of Social Anthropology, p. 262 and following. 2 

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and of itself, we realize how shaky are the presuppositions on which the research is based. In spite of this, there is a relative consensus emerging that ritual is one possible way symbolism can be expressed, while at the same time it makes up its lexicon. However, this does not resolve the ambiguity on whether symbolism contains ritual while at the same time it is its content. There is a bit of all this in the historiography on ritual in medieval, Renaissance, and early modern Italy, and this is one of the concerns shared by the authors of this book. The assimilation of ritual, festival, liturgy, and spectacle was in turn problematic for a long time. In particular, the demarcation between rite and ceremonial was not always clear. From the early twentieth century, in the field of anthropology and later of history,6 the question was debated whether they might possibly be homologues, so as to legitimate their interchangeable use. And not infrequently, the two terms were used as synonyms, later opting for a nonetheless controversial distinction that chooses the sacred component as discrimen, following the line of interpretation that harks back to Émile Durkheim, according to whom a ‘rite’ is ‘a symbolic act that implies the involvement of a supernatural entity’.7 This brings into play the link between rite and the sacred. Since 1912, the year of Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, much has been written about this topic, and with great disagreement. Not everyone is satisfied with a definition of rite confined within the purely sacred sphere, but still the idea seems settled that it is a symbolic act which is an expression of the social structure and for which religion is the necessary ingredient.8 On the other hand, the difference between ritual and ceremonial is sometimes attributed to the opposition between different phases of social evolution: ritual is proper to the ‘tribal’, irrational stage, imbued with the sacred, while ceremonial is expressive of modern society, rational, and by this point stripped clear of its substrate of mysticism.9 But the scenario is anything but well-defined, if even respected voices assert that ‘a ceremonial consists of a specific sequence of ritual acts’.10 6 

See Rituale, cerimoniale, etichetta, ed. by Bertelli and Crifò. See also Cuisenier, ‘Céré­ monial ou rituel’, and Valeri, ‘Cerimoniale’. 7  See Durkheim, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, pp. 123–30. 8  For a definition of rite, see also Leach, ‘Ritual’. The traditional definition of rite is judged inadequate by Mary Douglas; see Douglas, Purity and Danger. See also Valeri, ‘Cerimoniale’, and Valeri, ‘Rito’. 9  See Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations, ed. by Gluckman, p. 5 and following. 10  Goody, ‘Religion and Ritual’, p. 159.

18 Marcello Fantoni

What is more, this is intertwined with an often casual use by historians of the category of the sacred. Sacred, holy, divine, magic, and numinous are frequently mixed together in one sole, undefined notion of the supernatural, but fail to pinpoint the peculiar characteristics of power, religion, and — more to the point — ritual acts. More specifically, we find a constant swing back and forth between a generically sacred dimension of premodernity and a more peculiar Christian view of this same culture. Thus the paired terms sacred/profane and sacred/secular lose their clarity.11 Traditional historians or those inclined to interdisciplinary approaches, whether Catholic or Protestant, have here chosen more or less open paths, besides having recognized, or not recognized, phenomena of divergence between magic and religion in Western civilization between the Middle Ages and the early modern age, both on the level of mental attitudes and of doctrinal statements.12 However, religion is in recent studies more authentically the horizon of the sacred. The shift to this culturally contextualized idea of the sacred is actually almost a generational divide between the pioneering and the ‘mature’ stage of ritual studies. Much depended on the fact that historians have not infrequently borrowed the category of rite from anthropologists, without working out their own specific applications to history. The result is not only the absence of a historical definition of rite, but also — and above all — a dubious hermeneutical efficaciousness of the category. Besides this, the historian has the further problem of fitting these categories into contexts that are well defined and, additionally, distant in time and type from those whose investigation was used as the basis for elaborating interpretative keys. Among the many risks this entails, there is that of a more targeted meaning of rite, but this also affects (and we should return to this) the paradigm of modernity as the age of decreasing ritual in public life, and — consequentially — the entire scheme of historical periodization. Furthermore, it is an accomplishment to have let go of the conception of rite as a ‘phenomenon proper to the irrational phase of civilization’. 13 This idea was again maintained by anthropologists. For Victor Turner, rite is a device whose purpose is to re-establish order in a situation in which normal ‘juridical’ procedures have not yet been produced. The very presence of ritual is, therefore, evidence of a structural contradiction that the social organization is not capable of resolving using properly ‘political’ or, more generally, ‘rational’ mechanisms.14 For 11 

See Otto, Il sacro, ed. by Buonaiuti. An exemplary study in this regard is Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic. 13  See Lowie, ‘Ceremony, Primitive’. 14  See Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society, pp. 122–25. 12 

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many, this leaves open various problems, from that of ritual as a solution to conflict or the conflict itself, to that of assigning to ritual a role of ‘representation’ rather than of being a factor in the construction of reality. This too can be perceived in the historiography on Italian cities in the early modern age, especially in the ‘early’ stage of the discipline’s approach to the social sciences, when it often ended up isolating within ‘complex societies’ issues similar to those of ‘simple societies’ lumping their significance together. Moreover, it is not uncommon to find between the lines the reference to different anthropological theories without, however, being fully aware of the fact that following the teaching of one school (or individual scholar) rather than another means making a precise epistemological choice.15 In this regard as well, there has been considerable progress in the specificity of historical studies. The social sciences are still among the unavoidable tools of the historian, but — after the initial enthusiasms — the social, religious, political, and cultural conjunctures have regained relevance. As a matter of fact, the notion of conflict and the role played by rituals are, in this book, not even considered as issues, and many of the essays have metabolized, and therefore simply imply, this debate. In the majority of cases, the study of rituals has also been done from the political perspective, in the sense of a ‘histoire anthropologique du pouvoir’, thus this is the line which most needs clarification.16 Fundamental in this regard is the validity (or lack thereof ) of the assumption that any form of power contains a component of rituality: everything that is ritual necessarily pertains to the sphere of politics. Here, however, we must pose the problem where the boundaries of the political lie, and thus of the field within which we can legitimately use the term ‘political rituals’.17 Besides, rituals have brought about the result of giving the domain of ‘politics’ a much broader meaning than that deriving from the history of the state. But here, much depends on the orientations adopted by the various national historiographies. In France, for example, it was mostly ethnology that furnished history with exegetical tools, with its significant preponderance of French 15 

In the end, the good sense of ‘letting oneself be guided by the sources’ is refreshing, and this does not at all mean ignoring, but mastering both one’s own discipline and the discipline with which one enters into dialogue. Visceglia, La città rituale, especially the introductory pages. 16  On the various currents of political anthropology, see, among others, Balandier, Political Anthropology; Political Anthropology, ed. by Swartz, Turner, and Tuden; Vincent, Anthropology and Politics; Anthropological Approaches to Political Behavior, ed. by McGlynn and Tuden, pp. 3–44; and Lewellen, Political Anthropology, pp. 7–19. 17  See Navarini, Le forme rituali della politica.

20 Marcello Fantoni

scholars. Fundamental points of reference, too, were the works of Marc Bloch and Ernst Kantorowicz, as well as the stimulus coming from the school of the Annales. In any case, research has prevalently centred on the divinity of the monarch, dealing with topics that have become veritable clichés, such as funerals, triumphal entries, the lit de justice, anointment, and the theory of the king’s dual nature.18 Different paths have been followed by Anglophone historians, and different too are their anthropological referents.19 In the wake of the myth of the Renaissance created by the English in the nineteenth century, these historians were, among other things, the first to study Italian urban ritual, which was obviously republican in matrix. In Italy there has instead been more reluctance to follow these innovative paths. The picture has changed only recently. In the field of politics, a deterrent to the study of ritual has probably been the paradigm of the ‘modern state’, which has made rituals antithetical to politics. They have been seen as an indicator, and later as a ‘relict’, of pre-political practices, in the sense of expressions of something — politics — that in order to assume a form had to be turned into a ‘science’. Another facet of this vicious circle consisted in not having recognized as legitimate the alliance with anthropology, almost as if its use could end up emphasizing the ‘primitive’ side of the state, when instead the desire was that it be modern. Not least, the fact that French historiography — the closest to the Italian — was focused on regality, a type of auctoritas that did not correspond to any form of sovereignty found in Italy, certainly did not favour an openness to new approaches.20 Moreover, this very orientation precluded for a long time the possibility of using ritual to understand other aspects of the culture or the collective mentality. The tendency was to think that the purpose of all rituals was to put politics on stage, which further implied assimilation between ritual and ‘performance’. And yet, as early as the 1960s, it was demonstrated that ritual is a creative process immanent in history, a process and not a representation of a process.21 Ritual, then, is 18  In the abundant literature on the sacredness of the king, see among others Bloch, Les Rois thaumaturges; Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies; Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France; Hanley, The Lit de justice of the Kings of France; Giesey, Cérémonial et puissance souveraine; Boureau, Le Simple Corps du roi; and Bertelli, Il corpo del re. 19  See Douglas, Purity and Danger; Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures; also Geertz, Local Knowledge, and Evans-Pritchard, The Azande. 20  On two ‘special’ figures of sovereigns, the Aragonese king of Naples and the pope, see respectively Vitale, Ritualità monarchica, cerimonie e pratiche devozionali, and Paravicini Bagliani, Il corpo del papa. 21  By Victor Turner, see especially Turner, The Forest of Symbols, and Turner, The Ritual Process.

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not a reflection, but a constitutive process of reality. Ritual is not ‘ephemeral’,22 but is a creator of reality; it is itself (collective) social, political, religious reality. Ritual ‘action not only gives meaning to the universe, it becomes part of the universe’.23 Whether Clifford Geertz’s idea is borrowed or the metaphor comes from the history of pageantry and court spectacles, the vision of a ‘theatrical’ power is in any case misleading: first of all because a type of state is imagined that, in the absence of institutions, bases its functioning on ritual dramatization, and secondly because it involves behaviours and symbols that are an accessory to and not constitutive of power. On the other hand, it is doubtful that it is not so much that rites are at the service of politics as that politics is at the service of ritual.24 In this sense, art historians may perhaps have been ahead of historians when they overturned the formula of ‘images of power’ into ‘the power of images’, so that instead of continuing along the path traced out by iconology, they turned their attention to the ‘effects’ of images by analysing the reactions these aroused.25 In the case, too, of studies of Italian civic rituals between the Middle Ages and the baroque period, attention has focused much more on a reading of ritual as decoding of its semantics than on how it is perceived, and on its emotional and psychological impact. To whom is the ritual addressed? Where does the dividing line between actors and spectators lie? Does this distinction really exist? These are now obvious questions, but little is found on them in the historiography on Italy at least until the 1990s.26 The mere fact of having accepted ritual as a legitimate and intrinsic element of power was, however, enough to set in motion an unravelling of the political phenomenology. Broadening the sense and introducing new perspectives on politics has in turn inevitably ended up changing the distinctive features of the state. It could even be said that different approaches have led to different canons of the state. After Max Weber and Leopold von Ranke, constitutionalism and the idea of sozialdisziplinierung, and prosopography and network analysis, it was ritual’s 22 

See Tambiah, ‘A Performative Approach to Ritual’. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. by Manheim, p. 38. 24  See Geertz, Negara, and Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. 25  See Freedberg, The Power of Images. 26  Among others, this fact was lamented by Sergio Bertelli in 1983, referring, perhaps too severely, to the three studies by Edward Muir, Richard Trexler, and Ronald Weissmann on Florentine and Venetian rituals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. See Bertelli, ‘Ceti dirigenti e dinamica del potere’, pp. 44–45. The three works in question are Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence; Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice; and Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. 23 

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turn to sketch the outlines of a new notion of the state and of ‘modern’ politics.27 In short, it could be said that restricting the coordinates of ritual to politics led to a progressive broadening of the concept of power. However, if for scholars of early modern history the state is for the most part eminently an absolute one, for a medievalist it takes form primarily in republican structures. A preferred field of studies of ritual has thus been the commune, and here the works by Edward Muir and Richard Trexler have undoubtedly blazed the trail for the study of civic ritual.28 With them, the path of civic ritual was born, but not always with a precise idea of how much ‘political’ was contained in ‘civic’ and how much was ‘civic’ in the sense of social. In this regard, in his introduction Muir put forth the hypothesis that ‘civic ritual [is a] hybrid of liturgical and ceremonial elements’.29 That is to say, it consists in the concerted action of several actors in society. A civic ritual, in other words, is the fruit of the intertwining of non-homogeneous levels of social bodies. Instead of dealing with the formal behaviour of the individual actors taken out of their context, ritual is found at the intersection between different groups and constitutes their interaction. Rituals seem to be the way the tension is expressed between various bodies in dividing up the socio-political dominion that coincides with the patrimony of symbols and the public imagination.30 For Venice, another important nexus was highlighted between non-homogeneous levels — that between political ideology and public behaviour.31 Instead a recent book on Roman rituals clarifies the complexity through which the dialectic between communal jurisdiction, papal authority (in and of itself dual), and the power of the aristocracy (both ecclesiastic and secular) is articulated.32 By now the time has passed in which ritual was viewed as a mechanism for transforming disorder into order and conflict into harmony. The reasons why historians believed in this are many: among others because they were dazzled by 27 

See Culture et idéologie dans la genèse de l’Etat Moderne; Rituals of Royalty, ed. by Cannadine and Price; Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe; and Rites of Power, ed. by Wilentz. 28  See Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, and Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. See also Braunstein and Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Florence et Venise’, and Boholm, The Doge of Venice. 29  Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, p. 5. 30  See Vitale, ‘Il culto di S. Gennaro a Napoli in età aragonese’, and Visceglia, ‘Rituali religiosi e gerarchie politiche a Napoli in età moderna’. 31  See Cozzi, ‘Venezia, una repubblica di principi?’. 32  See Cérémonial et rituel à Rome, ed. by Visceglia and Brice. See also Visceglia, La città rituale.

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the theory of the rites of passage; or because they were influenced by the thesis that rite was nothing other than a ‘dramatization of the social structure that acts on real reactions in order to modify or fix them’.33 Through rituals society represents its values with the aim of ‘repairing’ its own internal anomalies and contradictions. Ritual was, so to speak, portrayed as a sort of (irrational) medicine by means of which a society without institutional (or rational) instruments turns to rites in order to restore a condition of internal balance. ‘Representation’ and ‘order’ are two typical catchwords in a certain way of understanding rituality in the 1960s and 1970s which have been viewed with increasing scepticism, to the point of having been almost completely abandoned. Their progressive wane has had as a repercussion, among other things, the emergence of opposed interpretations, that is to say, of a ritual understood as the expression, and not as the resolution, of conflict.34 Because of their presumed archaic nature, rituals have raised not a few problems also in relation to the category of Modernity, in that the prevailing tendency considers them the essence of pre-politics. Therefore, ever since Machiavelli and the appearance of the ‘modern state’, we no longer deal with rituals, because of the birth of political ‘doctrine’ on one hand and the apparatus of government on the other. By virtue of this same premise, Modernity emerged with the decline of the ritual dimension in public life. In short, we should question the evaluation of Modernity on the basis of the decreasing amount of ritual (and thus of the sacred) by which it functions. Ritual would thus fill the void left by a still fragile bureaucracy and compensate for a not-yet-complete development of the institutions. Along these same lines, rituals have also been used as the indicator for a hypothetical process of disciplining imposed by the rising state power.35 And here again we encounter the problem of the divergence between rite and the sacred, at the point when the split between religion and power occurs. That is to say, what happens to the rite when politics loses its sacred content? Is ritual a prerogative of medieval political theology and of the religio regis of the early modern age? How legitimate is it to circumscribe ritual to the mystical expressions of power? What happens with the symbolic forms of modern politics, and when 33  See the classical works of Van Gennep, Les Rites de passage, and Gluckman, Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society. 34  The conclusion that rituals express both conflict and cooperation was reached also, for example, by Max Gluckman studying ‘rituals of rebellion’; see Gluckman, Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa. Ceremonials are ‘un campo di rappresentazione sociale animato da soggetti, logiche e forze concorrenti’; see Benigno, ‘Leggere il cerimoniale nella Sicilia spagnola’, p. 133. 35  See Ricci, I giovani, i morti.

24 Marcello Fantoni

does its secularization occur? Is secularization really a synonym of the disappearance of ritual? Would this, in turn, mean that modern political regimes have no rituals? Or, rather, would asking what is, or whether there is any Modernity for rituals merely be a consequence of our teleological approach to the study of history? Defining the transition from one age to another is a complex task. In this regard, rituals, one could argue, make it even more difficult, as quite often their evolution does not coincide with the conventional chronologies. In fact, rituals often appear to be following their own rhythm and to have their own dynamics, which has made many of the efforts to use them as supplementary element validating shifts rather implausible. In other words (and this book transcends these limitations) classifying rituals according to traditional historical periods could be a procrustean bed. It may be that the dividing line between early modernity and modernity is less pronounced than the one between the Middle Ages and early modernity, and perhaps the rebirth of antiquity plays a role in this. But also in this case, the threshold between the two ages often blurs, and what prevails for rituals seems rather a pattern of continuity, declining, and reappearing that obeys an internal logic. Survivals and renewals revolve, in other words, around events, agents and conjectures that follow their own pace. This reveals the inadequacy of a periodization codified by the Kulturgeschichte or by the histoire événementielle, and suggests that — in the case of rituals — there appear to be multiple layers and speeds, with constant change and, at the same time, continuities, with some rituals evolving and others perpetuating themselves, with rituals maintaining their organization but changing their meaning and symbols expressing themselves through different rituals. Histoire immobile and historical process are inextricably intertwined and it is not easy to understand which rituals belong to these different categories. An interesting alternative to this paradigm, but one that has left little trace of itself, stresses the activity of producing symbols and rites as a distinguishing characteristic of society, lamenting in this regard the deficiencies of the present age.36 From this follows not so much a ‘modernity’ emancipated from rituals, but rather one lacking in ritual, in that its capacity to generate symbols grows sterile. A generative capacity, seems instead to have been a vocation of Renaissance Italy — a veritable factory of iconographical and ritual models that were later adopted throughout Europe. It would be worthwhile reflecting on this aspect, if for no other reason than to attempt to achieve an understanding of the cultural background — in this case probably the encounter between antiquity and Christianity — which created the conditions propitious to this phenomenon. 36 

See Douglas, Natural Symbols, p. 151 and following.

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In reality, no waning of ritual in favour of a hypothetical growth either of a political doctrine or of ‘modern’ government practice has been found. Looking then at the component of sacredness, moreover, the problem becomes more complex, because it is not a question, simplistically, of a balance between ‘religion and the decline of magic’;37 in fact we should rather think in terms of different forms of the sacred, peculiar to different stages of culture, and thus it is, if anything, a matter of a metamorphosis of the sacred. The supposed process of progressive secularization, which implies a non-ritual modernity, has equally led to the contradiction of describing early modernity as the age par excellence of politics and religion weighed down by ritual.38 Only one of these can be true. But also — still within the perspective of power — it is one thing to see modernity as emancipation from rite, and another altogether to regard modernity absorption of magic into the religious, or, to put it in other terms, a ‘normalization’ of the sacred within confessional schemes and thus a power that takes shape in orthodox Christian rituals. Behind this still lurks the old axiom which says that the progressive decline of rituals gives the measure of progress, in the form of revealed religions, laicization, and the juridical legitimization of authority. But even if this were true, indeed because of this, an attempt to date this process should have been made to establish what it consisted of, to find its causes and explain what it became. Little or none of this is found, however, in the histories of urban ritual in Italy from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. No matter what theoretical premises are used, a characteristic of the studies on rituals has precisely been this one of examining cases that are circumscribed in time, photographing a static image, instead of posing the problem of their metamorphosis. Studying rituals ‘in motion’ (which is, among others, one of the goals of this book) would require new methods of investigation and is for sure not an easy objective, yet this would open new research horizons and provide precious answers not only for alternative periodizations, but also for a deeper comprehension of rituals and collective behaviours. In fact, rituals evolve hand in hand with institutions and forms of power. The symbolism of which they are composed is not an immutable archaism. Like any other social expression, this too is in constant evolution. Ritual is a process correlated to history and its rules are in a continuous state of becoming. One of the dominant traits of the rite is precisely this ‘malleability’, that is to say its ‘ability to […] adapt to social change’.39 Accepting 37 

See Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic. See Quondam, ‘Il barocco e la letterature’. 39  Segalen, Riti e rituali contemporanei, p. 8. 38 

26 Marcello Fantoni

this would lead to a revolution in the interpretation of rituals, moving them from being elements of conservation to tools for innovation: for modernization. And here, note carefully, innovation is meant in its literal significance of change, and not as a process of progressively drawing nearer to the present. Even just in the sphere of early modernity, it is not hard to identify circumstances when ritual played an innovative role. Think for example of the revival of the ‘triumph’ which took place in the age of Charles V, as a symptom of cultural renewal but also as an ideological operation of recovery of the classical canon of the imperator.40 Repercussions were certainly set off by the plagues, political crises, wars — think of the effect of the legend of Lepanto on the late sixteenthcentury Venetian and European imagination — or the interchange between the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The Jesuit order in turn had among its leading figures some of the principal theorists of a theatrical liturgy, codified in texts that act as a canvas for the elaboration of Roman ritual starting with Leo X.41 But ritual is a dynamic expression also because, as we shall see, it takes shape according to the evolution of political regimes. Another widespread cliché was that the birth of political ritual emancipated it from its subjugation to religion. This is the same thing as saying that the expropriation by the State of the Church’s symbolic expressions is an indicator that the State took shape at the expense of the other powers. More and more, this reading too has waned in the face of evidence that there isn’t any form of power completely immune from an eschatological vein. Since a ‘desacralized’ culture would automatically be modern, it followed, as we have already said, that ritual could not be a characteristic of the contemporary age. However, rather than talking about ‘deritualization’, the hypothesis advanced is that of a ‘dislocation of the field of ritual […] from the centre to the edges of the social stage’, such as sports, tourism, or fashion.42 Starting from the premise that ‘it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts’, others have come to the much more radical thesis of the ‘ubiquity of political rituals’, from which ‘modern bureaucratic nations are not exempt’.43 As the result of a great deal of research, there seems by now to be no doubt that ‘political rites are important 40 

See Yates, Astrea; Bonvecchio, ‘Imago imperii imago mundi’; Cremades, Carlos V; and Leydi, ‘Sub umbra imperialis aquilæ’. Specifically on triumphs, see Fagiolo and Madonna, ‘Il revival del trionfo classico’, and Visceglia, ‘Cerimoniali romani’. 41  See Filippi, ‘“Grandes et petites actions”’, and I Gesuiti e la ‘Ratio studiorum’, ed. by Hinz, Righi, and Zardin. 42  Segalen, Riti e rituali contemporanei, p. 29 and following. 43  Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, pp. x, 3, and 9.

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in all societies, because political power relations are everywhere expressed and modified through symbolic means of communication’, and, even more categorically, ‘there can be no politics without symbols, or without accompanying rites’.44 If this has not always been recognized, the blame lies in the ‘irrational obsession’45 instilled in us by Enlightenment thought, which leads us to mistrust so-called non-rational expressions of social behaviour, or, more simply, because ‘our own symbols are the most difficult to see’.46 Moreover, many who studied ritual in the contemporary age have placed their emphasis on Fascism, Nazism, or Communism, that is to say on totalitarian regimes. This happened because ritual has been considered in any case a ‘peculiar phenomenon of the degenerative expressions of politics’, 47 just as for the Middle Ages and the early modern age it was thought that ritual was the instrument proper to princely sovereignty, while republicanism was less infected by it; another taboo that had to be overcome was that of accepting that present democratic regimes also base their functioning on rituals. This idea has found support in the abundant literature on charisma and propaganda.48 Even the age of liberalism has thus begun to be described as a great forge of ritual. For Italy, numerous studies exist in this regard, dealing with the themes of the fabrication of identity in the period immediately after unification, the birth of a new calendar of national holidays, the ‘myth’ of the figure of the milite ignoto, and all that concerns the process of building a common fatherland.49 If extended to the present, the function of rituals has been described as ‘maintaining and transmitting from one generation to the next the emotional arrangements on which the very existence of society depends’, including politics.50 And 44 

Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, pp. 178 and 181. Lipsitz, ‘If, As Verba Says, the State Functions as a Religion’, p. 533. 46  Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, p. 184. 47  See Kertzer, ‘Politics and Ritual’, but above all Golomstock, Totalitarian Art. 48  See Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses. On Fascism, see Gentile, Il culto del littorio. See also Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation, ed. by Ellenius. 49  See Isnenghi, L’Italia in piazza; Porciani, La festa della nazione; Tobia, Una patria per gli italiani; Immagini della nazione nell’Italia del Risorgimento, ed. by Banti and Bizzocchi; Il teatro del potere, ed. by Bertelli. On the role of tradition, an indispensable reference is The Invention of Tradition, ed. by Hobsbawm and Ranger. 50  Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders, p. 233. A veritable school of social anthropology has thus reassessed the ‘emotionality of politics’, with the intent of proving through it the existence of a democratic rituality. See especially Rivière, Les Liturgies politiques, and Braud, L’Émotion en politique. We should also mention Rivière, Les Rites profanes. 45 

28 Marcello Fantoni

here lies, for us, one of the distinguishing elements between Old Regime ritual and its contemporary equivalent, since the person perceiving is in a passive position — the spectator of a media event in which he is no longer actively involved. The real difference between the old and the modern is not a decline but an unbounded amplification of the ritual dimension, both in terms of means and of types, to the detriment of participation in the performance of it. It is a case now of a ‘virtualization’ of rituals, that also become more volatile.51

Field of Study But how do these aspects fit into the situation of urban Italy in the early modern age and what is their effect on research? In other words, does there exist in any case a hiatus between premodern ritual expressions and those of today? We believe so, since even if ritual does not disappear, and still remains an intrinsic part of politics and social dynamics, it is transformed hand in hand with the changing context. We are faced with two (or maybe more) forms of rituality, which means that we cannot put the two (or more) ages on the same plane, nor can we use the same hermeneutical category. In short, we have to work out different definitions of rituals: everything is ritual — as we said in the beginning — but not all rituals are equal. The task, indeed the duty, of the historian is to calibrate the interpretive keys to the specifics of the culture being investigated. The fact of having applied the same notion of ritual to different historical and cultural situations has for quite some time represented the real shallowness of the study of rituals. Certainly, then, for the history of Italian cities between the Middle Ages and the early modern age, ritual should not be confused with the sociological idea that it is a mere form of interaction. Rituals are always to be considered aspects of broader social processes and are made up of materials drawn out of the cultural context. It is important never to lose sight of the overall framework in which they take place.52 These reminders, as far as Italy is concerned, are made especially appropriate by the nature of the historical reality: Italy is a mosaic of states with many similarities, but just as many differences. City-states and communes, aristocratic oligarchies and mercantile patriciates, micro-lordships 51 

See Lippmann, L’opinione pubblica, trans. by Mannucci; Dayan and Katz, La Télévision cérémonielle, and Gallini, ‘Le Rituel médiatique’. Peppino Ortoleva’s considerations are also interesting in this regard: Ortoleva, Il secolo dei media. This presupposes a particular ‘religion’ of reason that in any case makes use of ritual and which for some has already emerged in revolutionary France; see Ozouf, La Fête révolutionnaire. 52  See Turner, The Forest of Symbols.

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and regional principalities, feudal estates founded on imperial legitimization, monarchies, and theocratic powers all coexist, enter into alliances, and face off against each other on the same territory.53 But each of these also has a history of its own; each one is the site of construction of different political ideologies, with their own foundation rites, their own heroes and patron saints, and they take different cultural models as referents, base themselves on different juridical systems, have their own social configurations, and create different ties with monarchies beyond the Alps and with the Church. All this constitutes a picture of extreme fluidity, with continual government turnover, frequent transitions from one regime to another, frequent births and deaths of political entities, states lasting a millennium and others that run their course within just a few years, with entire parts of the peninsula remaining for centuries under the dominion of foreign dynasties and others that proudly take shape with their own libertas, territorial extensions of the most disparate sorts, and a variety of economies and institutions in constant change. Not all these cases have come onto the radar screen of the historian. Weighing on many of them were myths that refused to die; many have been considered marginal, while others were raised up as historical paradigms; some have been taken by storm by foreign historians, while others have remained the exclusive terrain of Italian scholars; some have risen to a European dimension while others have remained confined to local history; in the study of some, innovative methods have been applied, while others stayed at the level of local erudition. How can we draw an overall view of rituals from such a pulverized and variegated picture? Despite well-established monographic research, the fact is that an overall view does not yet exist. That is to say, we are faced with a vast number of particular studies, but with few comparative ones, and this is another reason why the book we are presenting here makes sense. Venice, Florence, and Rome are certainly the best known cases. Florence in particular has been a great scholarly laboratory, originally in its republican phase and now also in the period of the Medici rule. A significant growth of interest, after decades of marginality, has been seen in principalities, while the so-called ‘minor’ states are still not as well known. But we have also witnessed a change since the gap began to narrow between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’. Furthermore, rituals are viewed from a more transversal perspective since the Italian Renaissance has begun to be seen as an interrelated system.54 53  For an overall picture of this complex political geography, see Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane. 54  See Reinhardt, Il Rinascimento in Italia. Some points for reflection on these questions

30 Marcello Fantoni

Even a brief overview shows that by now there are not only differences, but also similarities between republican and princely rituals (this was shown by comparative works on Venice and Florence),55 and this dismantles the case which posited the republican city-states as forerunners of modern democracies, while princely courts were viewed as imbued with rituals and thus as a twilight phase of politics. This is not only consistent to what the social sciences theorized about rituals, but herein lies one of the crucial nodes of the thesis of the ‘crisis of the early Italian Renaissance’. Lastly, these considerations have served as the starting point for formulating the cliché of the baroque period as the age of ‘decadence’, before the catharsis of enlightened absolutism.56 Even where there are marked institutional and juridical differences, it is thus unanimously accepted that between the Middle Ages and the French Revolution we are still within the sphere of ritual powers. It is a matter, if anything, of investigating what really happens in the transition from one regime to another: which ritual forms survive and which ones die out? Which rituals are targets of damnatio memoriae (and why)? But we also have to understand how central ritual is in the redefinition of the political ideology and forms of government. What happens then during the age of the Protestant Reformation, during and after the parliamentary revolutions (see England and the Low Countries), or in the moments of revolt (for example with Masaniello)? What happens in Florence during the transition from republic to principality? We know that there is a move towards a Medici monopoly on ritual which entails a new calendar of holidays, the total centrality of the sovereign, and a new map which puts the dynasty in control of the city’s sanctuaries.57 But when is all this a vernissage and when, instead, do the social and cultural foundations of the Florentine ritual tradition actually change? Already, the fact of being able to ask these questions is a sign that there exists by now a solid tradition of studies on ritual for the cities of Italy, and this is true, as we have said, at least since the publication of the two books by Trexler and Muir.58 Even though the two authors come from different backgrounds, they introduced the change of approach which led to the recognition of a social and political role can be found in Fantoni, ‘Storia europea e storia locale nella ricerca di Cesare Mozzarelli’, and Tocci, ‘Il Rinascimento in provincia’. See also Tocci, ‘Il sistema dei piccoli stati’. See also Zenobi, Le ‘ben regolate città’. 55  See Casini, ‘“Dux habet formam regis”’, and especially, Casini, I gesti del principe. 56  See Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. 57  See Pietrosanti, Sacralità medicee. 58  See Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, and Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice.

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for rituals. It is also true that the interest in rituals began with historians of the Middle Ages. Here the problem arises, again, for us to verify if their results and methods are applicable to early modernity. Following this path, we reach the conclusion that with the history of rituals we enter a long durée dimension, but if on one side we cannot avoid adopting this view, on the other their infinite variants and continuing evolution compel us to admit a flexible category of ritual. Precisely this blend between change and continuity, and the stratification it produces, makes rituals into a multifaceted and almost omnipresent phenomenon, whose analysis requires a sophisticated epistemological and multidisciplinary approach. This too is reflected in this volume, in which the single essay, and the crossing between them, clearly shows that rituals are pervasive, multiform, and multi-semantic. They penetrate into, and substantiate, a lot of different aspects of the urban communities: the state, the family, religious orders, guilds, confraternities, academies, the army, the university, etc. We also realize that rituals are not simply an expression of formal institutions, rather they are the common language of different groups. They are at the same time social and juridical practices, but also the routine manifestation of social dynamics. Therefore, studying rituals only in terms of politics or religion is extremely reductive. Likewise, thanks to the contribution of rituals, we now know that politics and religion are profoundly interrelated domains. In order to develop a satisfying understanding of rituals we also have to consider many different elements: rituals are multimedia events that include gestures and space, objects and individuals, clothing and music. Let us, for instance, consider space. Rituals confer meaning to it, but they are also producers of space and reason for its destruction.59 Space is, moreover, an active part of rituals, certainly not its inert background. Just think of the network of places of worship, the processional itineraries, the routes for entries and triumphs, or the sites of justice, with all the buildings, monuments, or ephemera located in these spaces.60 Ritual has an impact on space also in the sense of determining its symbolic density and its hold on the public memory.61 From it derives the monetary value 59 

Trachtenberg, Dominion of the Eye; Visceglia, La città rituale; The Public Face of Archi­ tecture, ed. by Glazer and Lilla, and Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio. See also Lo spazio e il culto, ed. by Stabenow. These provide a guide to the extremely vast bibliography on the subject. See also Lefebvre, La Production de l’espace. 60  Just one of many, see Momenti di architettura, and in it, in particular, the essays by Spini, ‘I Medici e l’organizzazione del territorio’; Guidoni, ‘L’arte di costruire una capitale’; and Spezzaferro, ‘La Roma di Sisto V’. But also see La città e il sacro, ed. by Cardini. 61  On the qualitative production of memory, we should mention Franceschi, ‘La Mémoire

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of buildings and the social profile of the residents; it determines also the presence of monuments, the aesthetics of the architecture, the quality of materials used, and whether streets and squares are paved or not. The entire city is a ritual space. Without ritual there is no longer a civitas, since precisely the ensemble of ritual practices defines the community’s identity through the solemnization of its anniversaries and holidays, the repetition of its traditions, the worship of its holy images, the expulsion of its enemies, the glorification of its saints, the legitimization of its rulers, the staging of its norms, and so on. It is the rite that makes the community exist, that makes it recognizable and gives it cohesion, but it is also through ritual that it expresses its tensions and contradictions. There is for example a conflict of power/s for the appropriation of the sacred that can set against each other bishop, sovereign, civic administration, but also guilds, religious orders, family clans, or neighbourhoods.62 The sacred is thus no longer a legitimating and aggregating element, but a factor of division and conflict for which ritual serves as sounding board and instrument at the same time. Every city has its own ritual topography, and it is this that gives meaning to the city as a whole. Not all the spaces are necessarily sacred, but certainly all of them are ritual, if they are shared and tied to the community’s symbols: in all of them a value that brings the community together is manifested. All these places are in any case ‘active terminals’ of the city’s ritual repertory and cycle.63 Bringing into focus the ritual map of a city thus means penetrating the symbolic density of its life: the location of ritual is the site of a periodic re-evocation of an event, a founder, or patron saint, public executions, or social celebrations, and precisely by virtue of this rite’s cyclic nature one can say that the city lives a ritual ‘eternal present’.64 This dense network of physical places of ritual refers to and retraces the mental and cultural map of the community. The totality of space, and of social ranks and groups characterize urban rituals. In this sense, men and women, adults and children, laymen and ecclesiastics, merchants, nobles, and outcasts are active subjects, actors, and promoters of rituals. In des laboratores à Florence au début du xve siècle’. 62  Powers and groups that contend with each other for relics, sanctuaries, or miraculous images can be found in Genoa and Naples for control of the relics of the Holy Basin and San Gennaro respectively, in Turin for the Holy Shroud, or in Palermo for the icon of Saint Rosalia. See Ricciardelli, ‘Introduzione’; Fantoni, ‘Il culto dell’Annunziata e la sacralità del potere mediceo’; Vitale, ‘Il culto di S. Gennaro a Napoli in età aragonese’; and Cozzo, La geografia celeste dei duchi di Savoia. 63  Benvenuti, “‘Santuario”: un percorso semantico’, p. 23. 64  See Eliade, Le Sacré et le profane.

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the fresco of the Palio of Ferrara in the cycle of the months in Palazzo Schifanoia, Jews, mendicants, and prostitutes follow the courtiers. ‘Sodomites’ and slaves are active participants in the rituals; barattieri (rogue-cheats) play a leading role in urban rituals in medieval Tuscany, and the same is true for prisoners sentenced to die.65 According to their characteristics, each actor plays a particular role and has a precise symbolical meaning. Just one example would be the ‘young boys’, whose intrinsic ‘purity’ makes them protagonists in the triumphs as well as in manifestations of ritual violence.66 It is in any case the polyphony of subjects that delineates the physiognomy of the various types of ritual. Everything falls within a logic that views ritual as the mirror of the configuration of society, a deterrent against deviance, an expression of conflict, an epiphany of power, a manifestation of repression, a builder of cohesion, the ratifying of peace.67 Not just the ruler or the political institutions, but also the families, confraternities, Venetian scuole, Florentine potenze, Sienese contrade, or Neapolitan seggi, and Genoa factions create rituals; and ‘great promoters of rituals’ are the guilds.68 In this sense, even just a glance at the numerous studies produced to date makes clear that is no longer plausible to imagine a division between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, between the plane of high culture and of folklore, between the commoners and the aristocracy: the rite sees everyone participating in different ways but fully sharing in the beliefs and the coordination of gestures. For these same reasons, the city is almost always the site of ritual; for the celebrations of the guilds, the gonfaloni, the consorterie, each one with its own saints to glorify, liturgies, and leaders to legitimate. Ritual is practised collectively, both in the sense of the entire civitas and in portions of it, and — by virtue of this ubiquity — it is closely interwoven into the fabric of everyday life. The rite is routine, not an exceptional event. But, to return to where we started, since not all rites are equal and not all perform the same function, rituals must also be taken apart into their various ‘types’. Rites of legitimization of the sovereign are something different from the rites of justice; swearing an oath has its own ritual which is different 65 

See Fineschi, Cristo e Giuda. See the article of Andrea Zorzi in this volume; Ricci, I giovani, i morti, and Niccoli, Il seme della violenza. 67  See Taddei, ‘I ribaldi-barattieri nella Toscana tardo-medievale’. 68  Bossy, L’occidente cristiano, p. 70. See also Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion, and Terpstra, The Politics of Ritual Kinship. Finally, see also Trexler, ‘The Magi Enter Florence’, and Astarita, ‘Charity Begins at Home’. 66 

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from that of peacemaking, the festival is not a ritual tout court, just as ‘games’ have ritual aspects that cannot be likened to diplomatic ceremonials.69 We have said that this phantasmagorical ritual began to be a crucial key to interpretation at the point when the history of politics and the state yielded the stage to the history of power; the same can be said when new figures of social marginality emerged, or when the study of aggregations like family clans or neighbourhoods took the field. But a crucial factor was also the opening of new paths of research on collective mentality or popular culture; the idea that ritual expresses the hidden impulses and dynamics of a society, widely held among anthropologists, spread to historians. The study of ritual would thus be useful in a Jungian sense for penetrating the hidden depths of social reality and otherwise inaccessible phenomena through the study of observable data. Everyone, or almost everyone, has believed this. This led to the proliferation of studies on urban ritual in Italy. Since this remains a valid premise, we decided to devote this collection of essays to ritual if for no other reason than to demonstrate how the study of rituality has improved epistemologically, how it has attained full historical status, and to give examples of the many various forms and faces that rituality can assume.

69 

See, just as some examples, Prodi, Il sacramento del potere; Clastres, Archeologia della violenza, especially pp. 147–98, and Niccoli, Perdonare.

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Works Cited Secondary Studies Astarita, Tommaso, ‘Charity Begins at Home: Community, Identity, and Solidarity in the Naples Guilds’, Italian History & Culture, 9 (2003), 7–30 Balandier, Georges, Political Anthropology (New York: Pantheon, 1970) Banti, Alberto Mario, and Roberto Bizzocchi, eds, Immagini della nazione nell’Italia del Risorgimento (Roma: Carocci, 2002) Baron, Hans, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955) Benigno, Francesco, ‘Leggere il cerimoniale nella Sicilia spagnola’, Mediterranea, 5 (2008), 133–48 Benvenuti, Anna, ‘“Santuario”: un percorso semantico’, in I luoghi del sacro: il sacro e la città fra medioevo ed età moderna; atti del convegno, Georgetown University, Center for the Study of Italian History and Culture, Fiesole, 12–13 giugno 2006, ed. by Fabrizio Ricciardelli (Firenze: Pagliai, 2008), pp. 19–42 Bertelli, Sergio, ‘Ceti dirigenti e dinamica del potere nel dibattito contemporaneo’, in I ceti dirigenti nella Toscana del Quattrocento. Atti del v e vi convegno: Firenze, 10–11 dicembre 1982; 2–3 dicembre 1983, ed. by Comitato di studi sulla storia dei ceti dirigenti in Toscana (Firenze: Papafava, 1985), pp. 1–47 —— , Il corpo del re: la sacralità del potere nell’Europa medievale e moderna (Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1990) —— , ed., Il teatro del potere: scenari e rappresentazione del politico fra Otto e Novecento (Roma: Carocci, 2000) —— , and Giuliano Crifò, eds, Rituale, cerimoniale, etichetta (Milano: Bompiani, 1985) Bloch, Marc, Les Rois thaumaturges (Paris: Colin, 1923) Boholm, Åsa, The Doge of Venice: The Symbolism of State Power in the Renaissance (Göteburg: Institutet för socialantropologisk forskning, 1990) Bonvecchio, Carlo, ‘Imago imperii imago mundi’: sovranità simbolica e figura imperiale (Padova: Cedam, 1997) Bossy, John, L’occidente cristiano, 1400–1700 (Torino: Einaudi, 1990) (orig. publ. as Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)) Boureau, Alain, Le Simple Corps du roi: l’impossible sacralité des souverains français, xve– xviiie siècle (Paris: Éditions de Paris, 1988) Braud, Philippe, L’Émotion en politique: problèmes d’analyse (Paris: Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1996) Braunstein, Philippe, and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Florence et Venise: les rituals publics à l’époque de la Renaissance’, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, 38 (1983), 1110–24 Cannadine, David, and Simon Price, eds, Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) Cardini, Franco, ed., La città e il sacro (Milano: Scheiwiller, 1994)

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Casini, Matteo, ‘“Dux habet formam regis”: morte e intronizzazione del principe a Venezia e Firenze nel Cinquecento’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 27 (1993), 273–351 —— , I gesti del principe: la festa politica a Firenze e Venezia in età rinascimentale (Venezia: Marsilio, 1996) Cassirer, Ernst, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. by Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955) Clastres, Pierre, Archeologia della violenza e altri scritti di antropologia politica (Milano: Salamandra, 1982) Cozzi, Gaetano, ‘Venezia, una repubblica di principi?’, Studi veneziani, 11 (1986), 139–57 Cozzo, Paolo, La geografia celeste dei duchi di Savoia (Bologna: Mulino, 2006) Cremades, Fernando Checa, Carlos V: la imagen del poder en el Renacimiento (Madrid: Plaza, 1999) Cuisenier, Jean, ‘Cérémonial ou rituel’, Ethnologie française, 28 (1998), 10–19 Culture et idéologie dans la genèse de l’État Moderne: actes de la table ronde organisée par le Centre national de la recherches scientifique et l’École française de Rome; Rome, 15–17 octobre 1984, with an intro. by Jean-Philippe Genêt (Roma: École française de Rome, 1985) Dayan, Daniel, and Elihu Katz, La Télévision cérémonielle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1996) Douglas, Mary, Natural Symbols (London: Cresset, 1970) —— , Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966) Durkheim, Émile, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1912) Eliade, Mircea, Le Sacré et le profane (Paris: Gallimard, 1956; repr. 2003) Ellenius, Allan, ed., Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan, The Azande: History and Political Institutions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) Fagiolo, Marcello, and Maria Luisa Madonna, ‘Il revival del trionfo classico: Da Alessandro VI alla sfilata dei Rioni’, in La festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al 1870, ed. by Marcello Fagiolo (Torino: Allemandi, 1997), pp. 34–41 Fantoni, Marcello, ‘Il culto dell’Annunziata e la sacralità del potere mediceo’, Archivio storico italiano, 147 (1989), 771–93 —— , Il potere dello spazio: principi e città nell’Italia dei secoli xv–xvii (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002) —— , ‘Storia europea e storia locale nella ricerca di Cesare Mozzarelli’, in Cesare Mozzarelli storico e organizzatore di cultura, ed. by Nicoletta Azzi (= Bollettino storico mantovano, 5 (2006)), pp. 15–45 Filippi, Bruna, ‘“Grandes et petites actions” au Collège romain: formation rhétorique et théâtre jésuite au xviie siècle’, in Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (xvie–xixe siècle), ed. by Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice (Roma: École française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1997), pp. 177–99

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Fineschi, Filippo, Cristo e Giuda: rituali di giustizia a Firenze in età moderna (Firenze: Bruschi, 1995) Firth, Raymond, Symbols: Public and Private (London: Allen & Unwin, 1973) Franceschi, Franco, ‘La Mémoire des laboratores à Florence au début du xve siècle’, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, 5 (1990), 1143–67 Freedberg, David, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) Gallini, Clara, ‘Le Rituel médiatique’, in Vers une ethnologie du présent, ed. by Gérard Althabe, Daniel Fabre, and Gérard Lenclud (Paris: Sciences de l’Homme, 1992), pp. 117–26 Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973) —— , Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983) —— , Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1980) Gentile, Emilio, Il culto del littorio: la sacralizzazione della politica nell’Italia fascista (Roma: Laterza, 1993) Giesey, Ralph E., Cérémonial et puissance souveraine: France, xve–xviie siècles (Paris: Colin, 1987) —— , The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Genève: Droz, 1960) Glazer, Nathan, and Mark Lilla, eds, The Public Face of Architecture (New York: Free, 1987) Gluckman, Max, Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (London: Harper and Row, 1963) —— , Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (New York: Humanities, 1968) —— , ed., Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations (New York: Humanities, 1962) Golomstock, I., Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy, and the People’s Republic of China (New York: St Martin, 1990) Goody, Jack, ‘Religion and Ritual: The Definitional Problem’, British Journal of Sociology, 12 (1961), 142–64 Guidoni, Enrico, ‘L’arte di costruire una capitale: istituzioni e progetti a Palermo nel Cinquecento’, in Storia dell’arte italiana, ed. by Giovanni Previtali and Federico Zeri, 12 vols in 14 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979–88), Part 3: Situazioni, momenti, indagini, ed. by Federico Zeri, v: Momenti di architettura (1983), pp. 265–97 Hanley, Sarah, The Lit de justice of the Kings of France: Constitutional Ideology in Legend, Ritual and Discourse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983) Hinz, Manfred, Roberto Righi, and Danilo Zardin, eds, I Gesuiti e la ‘Ratio studiorum’ (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004) Hobsbawm, Eric J., and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) Isambert, Francois-André, Rite et efficacité symbolique: essai d’antropologie sociologique (Paris: Cerf, 1979) Isnenghi, Mario, L’Italia in piazza: i luoghi della vita pubblica dal 1848 ai giorni nostri (Milano: Mondadori, 1994)

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Kantorowicz, Ernst H., The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957) Kertzer, David, ‘Politics and Ritual: The Communist Festa in Italy’, Anthropological Quarterly, 47 (1974), 374–89 —— , Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) Leach, Edmund R., ‘Ritual’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. by David Sills, 18 vols (New York: Macmillan, 1968–79), xiii: Psyc– Samp (1968), pp. 520–26 Lefebvre, Henri, La Production de l’espace (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1974) Lewellen, Ted C., Political Anthropology: An Introduction (Westport: Routledge, 1992) Leydi, Silvio, ‘Sub umbra imperialis aquilæ’: immagini del potere e consenso politico nella Milano di Carlo V (Firenze: Olschki, 1999) Lippmann, Walter, L’opinione pubblica, trans. by Cesare Mannucci (Roma: Edizioni Lavoro, 1995; orig. publ. 1922) Lipsitz, Lewis, ‘If, As Verba Says, the State Functions as a Religion, What Are We to Do Then to Save Our Souls?’, American Political Science Review, 62 (1968), 527–96 Lowie, Robert H., ‘Ceremony, Primitive’, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences , ed. by Edwin  R.  A. Seligman, 15 vols (London: Routledge, 1930–38), iii: Bright– Commentators (1930), p. 314 McGlynn, Frank, and Arthur Tuden, eds, Anthropological Approaches to Political Behavior (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991) Momenti di architettura, in Storia dell’arte italiana, ed. by Giovanni Previtali and Federico Zeri, 12 vols in 14 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979–88), Part 3: Situazioni, momenti, indagini, ed. by Federico Zeri, v (1983) Mosse, George L., The Nationalization of the Masses (New York: Fertig, 1975) Muir, Edward, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981) —— , Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Nadel, Siegfried F., Foundations of Social Anthropology (London: Cohen and West, 1951) Navarini, Gianmarco, Le forme rituali della politica (Roma: Laterza, 2001) Niccoli, Ottavia, Perdonare: idee, pratiche, rituali in Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Laterza, 2007) —— , Il seme della violenza: putti, fanciulli e mammoli nell’Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Laterza, 1995) Ortoleva, Peppino, Il secolo dei media: riti, abitudini, mitologie (Milano: Saggiatore, 2009) Otto, Rudolf, Il sacro: l’irrazionale nell’idea del divino e la sua relazione al razionale, ed. by Ernesto Buonaiuti, 2nd edn (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1987) Ozouf, Mona, La Fête révolutionnaire, 1789–1799 (Paris: Gallimard, 1976) Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino, Il corpo del papa (Torino: Einaudi, 1994) Pietrosanti, Susanna, Sacralità medicee (Firenze: Firenze Libri, 1991) Porciani, Ilaria, La festa della nazione: rappresentazione dello Stato e spazi sociali nell’Italia unita (Bologna: Mulino, 1997) Prodi, Paolo, Il sacramento del potere: il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna: Mulino, 1992)

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Quondam, Amedeo, ‘Il barocco e la letteratura: genealogie del mito della decadenza italiana’, in I capricci di Proteo: percorsi e linguaggi del barocco; Atti del Convegno internazionale di Lecce, 23–26 ottobre 2000, ed. by Maria Luisa Doglio (Roma: Salerno, 2002), pp. 111–75 Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald, The Andaman Islanders (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1922) Reinhardt, Volker, Il Rinascimento in Italia (Bologna: Mulino, 2004) Ricci, Giovanni, I giovani, i morti: sfide al Rinascimento (Bologna: Mulino, 2007) Ricciardelli, Fabrizio, ‘Introduzione’, in I luoghi del sacro: il sacro e la città fra medioevo ed età moderna; atti del convegno, Georgetown University, Center for the Study of Italian History and Culture, Fiesole, 12–13 giugno 2006, ed. by Fabrizio Ricciardelli (Firenze: Pagliai, 2008), pp. 11–14 Rivière, Claude, Les Liturgies politiques (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1988) —— , Les Rites profanes (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995) Segalen, Martine, Riti e rituali contemporanei (Bologna: Mulino, 2002) Spagnoletti, Angelantonio, Le dinastie italiane nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Mulino, 2003) Spezzaferro, Luigi, ‘La Roma di Sisto V’, in Storia dell’arte italiana, ed. by Giovanni Previtali and Federico Zeri, 12 vols in 14 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979–88), Part 3: Situazioni, mo­ menti, indagini, ed. by Federico Zeri, v: Momenti di architettura (1983), pp. 363–405 Spini, Giorgio, ‘I Medici e l’organizzazione del territorio’, in Storia dell’arte italiana, ed. by Giovanni Previtali and Federico Zeri, 12 vols in 14 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979–88), Part 3: Situazioni, momenti, indagini, ed. by Federico Zeri, v: Momenti di architettura (1983), pp. 161–212 Stabenow, Jörg, ed., Lo spazio e il culto: relazioni tra edificio ecclesiastico e uso liturgico dal xv al xvi secolo (Venezia: Marsilio, 2006) Swartz, Marc J., Victor Turner, and Arthur Tuden, eds, Political Anthropology (Chicago: Aldine, 1966) Taddei, Ilaria, ‘I ribaldi-barattieri nella Toscana tardo-medievale: ruoli e rituali urbani’, Ricerche storiche, 26 (1996), 25–58 —— , and Gilles Bertrand, ‘Le Rituel et ses approches’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-France-Allemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 1–11 Tambiah, Stanley J., ‘A Performative Approach to Ritual’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 65 (1979), 113–69 Terpstra, Nicholas, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) —— , The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Belief in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971) Tobia, Bruno, Una patria per gli italiani: spazi, itinerari, monumenti nell’Italia unita (1870–1900) (Roma: Laterza, 1991)

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Tocci, Giovanni Ivan, ‘Il Rinascimento in provincia’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, ed. by Giovanni Luigi Fontana and Luca Mola, 6 vols to date (Treviso: Colla, 2005–), i: Storia e storiografia, ed. by Marcello Fantoni (2005), pp. 387–413 —— , ‘Il sistema dei piccoli stati padani tra Cinque e Seicento’, in Vespasiano Gonzaga e il Ducato di Sabbioneta, ed. by Ugo Bazzotti, Daniela Ferrari, and Cesare Mozzarelli (Mantua: Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, 1993), pp. 11–31 Trachtenberg, Marvin, Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Trexler, Richard C., ‘The Magi Enter Florence: The Ubriachi of Florence and Venice’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 4 (1981), 91–177 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 2nd edn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) Turner, Victor, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967) —— , The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969) —— , Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1957) Valeri, Valerio, ‘Cerimoniale’, in Enciclopedia Einaudi, ed. by Ruggiero Romano, 16 vols (Torino: Einaudi, 1977–84), ii: Ateo–Ciclo (1977), pp. 954–67 —— , ‘Rito’, in Enciclopedia Einaudi, ed. by Ruggiero Romano, 16 vols (Torino: Einaudi, 1977–84), xii: Ricerca–Socializzazione (1981), pp. 210–43 Van Gennep, Arnold, Les Rites de passage (Paris: Nourry, 1909) Vincent, Joan, Anthropology and Politics (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990) Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, ‘Cerimoniali romani: il ritorno e la trasfigurazione dei trionfi antichi’, in Storia d’Italia: Annali xvi. Roma, la città del papa: vita civile e religiosa dal giubilieo di Bonifacio VIII al giubileo di papa Wojtyla, ed. by Luigi Fiorani and Adriano Prosperi (Torino: Einaudi, 2000), pp. 111–70 —— , La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna (Roma: Viella, 2002) —— , ‘Rituali religiosi e gerarchie politiche a Napoli in età moderna’, in Fra storia e storiografia: scritti in onore di Pasquale Villani, ed. by Paolo Macry and Angelo Massafra (Bologna: Mulino, 1994), pp. 587–620 —— , and Catherine Brice, eds, Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (xvie–xixe siècle) (Roma: École française de Rome, 1997) Vitale, Giuliana, ‘Il culto di S. Gennaro a Napoli in età aragonese’, Campania sacra, 20 (1989), 239–67 —— , Ritualità monarchica, cerimonie e pratiche devozionali nella Napoli aragonese (Napoli: Laveglia, 2006) Weissman, Ronald F. E., Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic, 1982) Wilentz, Sean, ed., Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999) Yates, Frances, Astrea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975) Zenobi, Giacomo Bandino, Le ‘ben regolate città’: modelli politici nel governo della periferia pontificia in età moderna (Roma: Bulzoni, 1994)

Part I Consensus and Social Identity

Between Rules and Ritual: The Election of the Signoria in Florence in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Ilaria Taddei

A Rich and Complex Language As is well known, the electoral system is a central instrument of the mechanisms of government. It typifies the nature of a regime, creating a fundamental political bond between the communal institution and the body politic. From its very origins, the commune, in Florence as elsewhere, found itself facing an essential antinomy: on one side, the rapid rotation of public offices which, in keeping with the ideology of the commune, was meant to ensure broad participation of the Ilaria Taddei ([email protected]) received her PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute, and has been teaching medieval history at the Université de Grenoble II since 1999. Between 1997 and 1998 she was a member of the École française de Rome. Her research focuses on Italian social, cultural, and political history during the late Middle Ages. She is the author of Fête, jeunesse et pouvoirs: l’abbaye des Nobles Enfants de Lausanne (Lausanne: Université de Lausanne, 1991); Fanciulli e giovani: crescere a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Firenze: Olschki, 2001); with Franco Franceschi, Le città italiane nel Medioevo, xii–xiv secolo (Bologna: Mulino, 2012); co-editor of Les Lieux de sociabilité religieuse à la fin du Moyen Âge, (Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2006); Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-France-Allemagne (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008); Entre France et Italie: vitalité et rayonnement d’une rencontre, Mélanges offerts à Pierrette Paravy (Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2009). She has published several essays on youth confraternities, games, rituals, sumptuary laws, the notion of age, cultural education, and, most recently, some articles on the electoral system of the Signoria in Florence and on ambassadorial correspondence. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 43–64 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100767

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citizens in the res publica; on the other, the desire for hegemony on the part of a more restricted group of families in a struggle for political monopoly. The oligarchic regime instituted in Florence after the Ciompi revolt under the hegemony of the powerful Albizzi family, between 1382 and 1434, tried out new strategies for the establishment and concentration of power; these strategies to a large degree depended on manipulation of the procedures adopted for the election of the socalled Signoria, that is to say the eight priors and the Gonfalonier of Justice who made up the supreme governing body of the Florentine republic. Today we are very familiar with the mechanisms by which the Albizzi faction tried to condition the city’s political orientation, mechanisms that were later taken up again and further developed more restrictively by the Medici. Since the 1970s, numerous studies with varying historiographical slants have clearly described the tools used by the Albizzi to ensure their control of electoral policy. Prominent among these are the recourse to the balìe, ad hoc commissions with special powers; the creation of a special purse, called the borsellino, containing the names of the most faithful partisans; the introduction of the practice of the rimbotto, which enabled the insertion into new purses of candidates selected in earlier rounds of voting, and of the even more binding election ‘by hand’, that is to say with more restricted purses containing the names of men who had been chosen earlier.1 Although these studies are rich and varied, the ritual dimension of the electoral procedure for the Florentine Signoria has been more or less neglected. This absence appears even more peculiar when we consider that Florence, like Venice, is at the centre of a fertile current of research on civic ritual. But, in contrast with Venice, where the election of the doge has been the subject of specific analyses, the electoral procedure for Florentine priors has not attracted the attention of historians, with one partial but meaningful exception: I am referring to the pioneering research by Richard Trexler, who in the 1970s initiated the studies of Florentine civic rituals.2 To this American scholar is unquestioningly due the merit of having brought out the symbolic meaning of the election of the Signoria, evaluated from the perspective of an analysis of the ceremonial aimed at explicating the honour and sacredness of the Florentine republic. 1 

Brucker, Dal Comune alla Signoria, trans. by Panzieri, pp. 79–124; Molho, ‘The Florentine Oligarchy and the Balìe’; Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, pp. 79–98; Fubini, Quattrocento fiorentino; Fubini, ‘Dalla rappresentanza sociale alla rappresentanza politica’; Ninci, ‘Tecniche e manipolazioni elettorali’; Ninci, ‘Lo scrutinio elettorale’; Tanzini, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze, especially p. 42; and Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici. 2  Trexler, ‘Ritual Behavior in Renaissance Florence’.

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Despite the innovative approach of this line of thinking, in Trexler’s work, as in the numerous studies of ritual in Florence, there is no overall analysis of the ritual language marking the various phases of the electoral procedure: from the solemnity of the secret of the ballot box to the progressive passage to the public sphere with the drawing of lots, to the grand final show of the official investiture of the priors and Gonfalonier of Justice in the public square. This is, in effect, a rich and complex set of rituals on a level with the refinement of the electoral mechanisms the Florentine oligarchy installed with the aim of reinforcing and concentrating power in its own hands. The city statutes and communal resolutions, as we shall see, make evident through the codification of the written rule what a posteriori is called ‘ritual’, but was viewed by contemporaries as something inherent in the ‘form’, in relation to the essence itself of procedure, in other words a sort of symbolic formalization of the way of carrying out the election that dictated how and where it could be done. The connection between ritual and juridical language is here practically unbreakable; not only did the statutory regulation transmit the ritual, but it was an integral part of it, granting final value to the ritual itself; and the reality, taking symbolic form in juridical language, determined what was de facto the political status. In a stimulating discussion, Philippe Buc recently underlined the fundamental role played by the text of documents in the process of the formalization of ritual, contemporary with that of writing, a role that he considers even more meaningful than that of the expressive gesture, giving here a glimpse of one of the major problems an historian has to face in dealing with the complexity of the concept of ritual.3 Going beyond the discussions that have enlivened the still animated historiographical debate on the nature and function of rituals, the purpose of this essay is to bring out the consistence of the juridical and ritual structure of the election of the Signoria and the heuristic necessity to examine the overall unfolding of the electoral process, indispensable for evaluating fully the ritual dynamic underlying the legislative language: first of all, the ritual secret that shapes the entire voting phase, with the consequent isolation in space of the voting, and the recourse to a level of allusion that can be traced to the realm of the sacred; then the drawing of lots, in which the gestures and words become open and visible; and finally the investiture of the priors in the public square, which forcefully calls 3 

Buc, The Dangers of Ritual; Buc, ‘Rituels et institutions’, pp. 265–66 (in the same volume, see also Althoff, ‘Les Rituels’; Melville, ‘L’Institutionnalité médiévale dans sa pluridimensionnalité’; and Gauvard, ‘Le Rituel, object d’histoire’). A synthetic approach to this question is in Taddei and Bertrand, ‘Le Rituel et ses approches’.

46 Ilaria Taddei

for the presence of the citizens to honour the cohesion of the civitas gathered together around its newly elected leaders using the strongly celebratory language of festivals. First, however, we must review briefly the most significant processes that led to the configuration of the mixed system of election — voting and drawing lots — and its subsequent codification in the city statutes of 1415.

Electoral Procedure The electoral system based on the dual mechanism of voting and drawing lots was assuredly adopted in 1323, with the end of the brief rule of Robert of Anjou. This choice was in keeping with the traditional value of impartiality lying at the origin of the institution of the commune, a desire that was reinforced with the death of Charles of Calabria, who between 1325 and 1328 had renewed the political experience of his father. After winning back its ancient liberty and fully re-establishing the communal regime, the Florentine government perfected its electoral procedure and mechanisms of control, adopting a complex system that regulated in detail the practices of voting and drawing names that had long been left undefined.4 The voting, in Florence called squittinio (in Italian scrutinio), constituted the central moment of the electoral process. It was preceded by a preliminary phase in which an exhaustive list of eligible citizens was drawn up, including all those who enjoyed political rights, organized according to the district to which they belonged (quartiere, or neighbourhood, and gonfalone, or ensign) and their guild. This latter aspect should be emphasized, because it plainly shows that political representation in Florence involved the professional component as much as the territorial sphere of the city-state. On the basis of this list, called reductio or recata, all the names of the eligible candidates were progressively put to a vote. Those who received two-thirds of the votes were then distributed into separate purses according to the gonfalon to which they belonged and the type of office involved. Every two months, the names of the candidates were drawn from the purses; the practice of drawing lots was called the tratta, and the candidates called imborsati. But this operation did not lead automatically to assignment of the position in question; a series of divieti, that is to say of temporary impediments, such as being 4 

On the Florentine electoral system and its evolution during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Guidi, ‘I sistemi elettorali agli uffici del Comune di Firenze’; Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus; Viti and Zaccaria, ‘Sistemi di elezione e di nomina’.

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listed among the commune’s debtors (the specchio from 1375 on) or the fact of already holding another office, could block a candidate’s appointment. If, on the contrary, no obstacle prevented it, he would be officially vested in office. Even if the oligarchic government in power between 1382 and 1424 initiated a series of profound manipulations of the electoral system aimed at shaping these principles of representation to a more selective political picture, it did not question either the criterion of the rapid rotation of public offices, a traditional guarantee of Florentine libertas, or the dual system of voting and drawing names. Certainly, there had been no lack of direct attempts to contest the procedure of drawing lots, which, as Leonardo Bruni maintained, led sometimes to the election of citizens who were not well qualified. But the more ‘popular’ orientation prevailed, which strongly supported the traditional electoral procedure.5 The fact is that the mixed system was celebrated as the most suitable solution, as the right balance between two apparently antithetical principles: on one side, the chance implicit in drawing names confirmed the criterion of impartiality and the rotation of offices, muting the tone of the political struggle; on the other, the preliminary voting was intended to guarantee the ‘professionalism’ of the ruling class, assigning the major offices to citizens of proven virtue.6 This procedure would be perfected by a further element, the introduction of the divieti mentioned above, whose purpose was to temper the hazards of chance in accordance with the Aristotelian ideal of distributive justice and thus to prevent also an accumulation of offices. The explicit reference to the Aristotelian political tradition was intended to demonstrate that this mixed system, uniting the criteria of chance and virtue, was the best suited for republican government. 5 

One this aspect, see Fubini, ‘Osservazioni sopra gli “Historiarum Florentini populi libri xii”’, p. 420. 6  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 431, not numbered: ‘La tratta fu introdotta in questa città per opportuno rimedio in tempo di discordia tra cittadini, se ben di poi mantenuto più presto per favor populare che altro et sì come tal modo è tratta a sorte causa buon effetto che non suscita l’invidie, non scopre gli odii et fa che il grande et l’inferiore può egualmente sperare e quietarsi ciascuno alla sua sorte, così dall’altra banda suol esser nocivo per rispetto che gli uomini non si conservano sempre nel medesimo essere e qualità e perciò e crescono o diminuiscono di merito et a questo non può provedere a distinguer la sorte, ma ecco che con bellissimo ordine vien provisto e rimediato per mezzo delli squittini generali che si fanno ogni 12 o 15 anni […]. Con tal modo di squittinare sono ancora stimolati gli uomini a seguitar la strada della virtù e dell’onore non si potendo così confidare nella sorte se prima non hanno la virtù e i meriti per guida; e, perché la sorte non a caso figurata cieca potrebbe ad alcuni dare ogni cosa et ad altri niente, sono ordinati i divieti in tal maniera che mediante essi la giustitia distributiva abbia il luogo suo’.

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The city statutes of 1415 codified these election practices by a systematic organization in which the ritual value of each phase of the procedure was laid out.7 The text of the statutes devoted major attention to the concluding moment of the election of the signori, devoting an entire rubric to the installation ceremony and specifying in meticulous detail the procedures to be followed.8 This was an eloquent sign of the institutional and symbolic significance the election of the Signoria had assumed in Florentine public life, where every two months the passage of power into the hands of the newly elected governors was ratified by an official ceremony closely orchestrated by the commune. All this, moreover, as Riccardo Fubini and Lorenzo Tanzini have pointed out, corresponded to a more pronounced institutional supremacy assigned by the city statutes of 1415 to the Signoria, whose effective power had progressively expanded and consolidated.9 This highly symbolic ceremony, as we shall see, extolled in fact the sovereignty of the Signoria over the community of citizens, who were summoned to the public square to witness the event and by their presence confirmed the final result of a long ritual sequence that up to that moment had safeguarded the secret of the voting in an isolated place, protected from the outside world. Thus we shall start with the ritual form that marked the secret of the ballot and the placing the names in the bag, and then go on to analyse the opposite dynamic aimed at rendering the result of the name-drawing visible to all, a ritual itinerary that moves from the secret of the palace to the public sphere of the square.

The Solemnity of the Secret The ‘solemn and secret’ ballot, as a provision dated September 1400 spelled out,10 was held inside the Palazzo della Signoria, headquarters of the priors.11 This grand 7 

Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii (1778), bk v, r. 4, ‘De scrutinio trium offitiorum et aliorum et eius formam’ [sic], pp. 481–91; r. 5, ‘Quod scrutinium non fiat sine capitaneis partis guelfe et sex mercantiae nisi etc’, pp. 491–92; r. 8, ‘De tracta dominorum et collegiorum’, p. 495–98; r. 18, ‘De observantiis dominorum in eorum deliberationibus’, pp. 521–23. 8  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, pp. 501–04. 9  Tanzini, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze; Fubini, ‘Dalla rappresentanza sociale alla rappresentanza politica’. 10  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 89, fols 134r–135r (‘Fiat scrutinium de tribus maiorum offitiis’, 27 September 1400). 11  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4, ‘De scrutinio trium offitiorum et aliorum et eius formam’ [sic], pp. 481–91.

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building, the construction of which was decreed right after the establishment of the Republic of the Guilds according to plans commissioned in 1285 from the famous Arnolfo di Cambio, indelibly embodied the power of the Florentine commune. In this building, the ceremony of the opening of the electoral purses took place. There, in the political heart of the city, the electoral body came together in the Sala Magna, known as the Sala del Dugento, to deliberate.12 Nothing was left to chance in this salient phase of the election; every tiny detail was carefully studied to ensure the inviolability of the secret as well as the impartiality of the scrutineers and all the persons present, whether laymen or ecclesiastics. To this end, a highly sophisticated system of crosschecks and shared duties was enacted, of which I shall mention here only some preliminary measures spelled out by the statues to guarantee the equity of the procedure.13 In the phase that preceded the voting, the Signoria chose six religious, the accoppiatori, and the notaries, who were asked to take a specific oath to keep the ballot secret.14 Moreover, none of them could have kinship ties with the members of the council taking part in the deliberations, much less be one of the eligible candidates. The accoppiatori were obliged to leave the room during the actual 12 

Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Squittino modo di farlo’, fol. 520r. For a detailed analysis of this system, see Taddei, ‘Du secret à la place publique’, pp. 123–29. 14  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 99, fol. 161r–v, ‘De secretis scructinii retinendis’, 23 January 1411: ‘Secundo provisionem in infrascriptum super intrascriptas omnibus et singulis deliberatam et factam per dictos dominos priores et vexilliferum, gonfalonerios sotietatum populi et duodecim bonos viros comunis Florentie secundum formam ordinamentorum dicti comunis, que talis est, videlicet: certis ut dixerunt recordantibus more magnifici et potentes domini priores artium et vexillifer iustitie populi et comunis Florentie et habita super predictis et infrascriptis omnibus et singulis invicem et via cum offitiis gonfaloneriorum societatum populi et duodecim bonorum virorum comunis Florentie deliberatione solenni et demum inter ipsos omnes in sufficienti numero congregatos in palatio populi Florentino, et premisso facto et celebrato inter eos solenni et secreto scructineo et obtento partito ad fabas nigras et albas secundum ordinamenta dicti comunis, eorum proprio motu pro utilitate comunis eiusdem et omni modo via et iure que et quibus magis et melius potuerunt, providerunt, ordinaverunt et deliberaverunt, die vigesimo tertio mensis ianuarii anno Domini millesimo quadrigentesimo decimo indictione quarta, quod ad retinenda secreta cuiuslibet scructinea quod de cetero fiet et imbursaretur et seu pro imbursando pro offitiis priorum artium et vexilliferi iustitie et gonfalonierorum societatum populi et duodecim bonorum virorum interesse debeant ultra alios continue et comuniter consuetos, videlicet: duo fratres minores, duo fratres de loco fratrum Angelorum civitatis Florentie et duo fratres de ordine Montisoliveti, qui fratres eliguntur et eligi possint per officia dominorum priorum et vexilliferi iustitie pro tempore existentes, et insuper interesse debeant accoppiatores qui pro dictis offitiis eliguntur secundum ordinamenta’. 13 

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voting as well as to abstain from placing the names of the citizens belonging to their same gonfalone in the bag. Besides the quota established according to the hierarchy of the guilds, these had to represent in equal measure the four districts (quartieri) and six gonfaloni of the city.15 Thus this room in the Palazzo della Signoria contained a miniature replica of the city itself, with each of its territorial and professional components. From this derives also the necessity to draw lots to choose the quartiere and gonfaloniere who would begin the voting, on the basis of the lists of citizens whose name appeared on the recata. From the raised dais, an official of the commune read loudly and clearly — as the statutes required ‘so that everyone present could hear clearly’ — the name of each candidate, followed by that of his father, his patronymic, and the gonfalone to which he belonged. Voting took place immediately afterward.16 At that point, other officials, laymen or religious, intervened; it was their job to take the black and white beans (fabis nigris et albis) — black to indicate a positive vote, white for a negative one — that each voter had placed with his closed hand in a jar referred to as the pisside.17 This term, which usually refers to the sacred vessel called a ciborium, was used in the statutes to designate the cylindrical jar, more commonly known as the bossolo or bussolotto, used to protect the secrecy of the balloting.18 This object, considered in this precise sphere where the gestures, words, and even the silences tended in equal measure to impart a sacred nature to the voting, reflects a clear analogy with the liturgical vessel destined to preserve the mystery of the transubstantiation of the body of Christ. Like the sacrament of the Eucharist, the rite par excellence, so too the solemn secret of the voting was kept far from indiscreet eyes and carried ad locum secretum to which only the officials, called appropriately ‘del segreto’, had access.19 These were palace officials (the first chancellor, the Notary of Riformagioni and the Notary of the Tratte) as well as three friars, one of whom was a Franciscan, one a Camaldolese from Santa Maria degli Angeli, and one an Olivetan. Together 15 

Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 99, fol. 161r–v; Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Carte di Corredo 67, fol. 1r; Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4, ‘De scrutinio trium offitiorum et aliorum et eius formam’, pp. 481–91. 16  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4: ‘quod ab omnibus in scrutineo existentibus bene audiatur’, p. 486. 17  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4, p. 486. 18  On the bossolo, employed also by Florentine confraternities for their electoral procedures, see La chiesa e la città, ed. by Rolfi, Sebregondi, and Viti, especially Sebregondi, ‘La chiesa e i laici’, p. 91 and Sebregondi, ‘L’apparato liturgico’, pp. 160–61. 19  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4, p. 487.

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with the ecclesiastics assigned to the Camera d’armi of the commune, they were entrusted — in the greatest secrecy — with emptying the pisside, counting the markers, and writing the results for each candidate in a notebook, it too eloquently called ‘del segreto’, closed and sealed with the seal of the commune.20 The notebook was then deposited in a very safe place in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella.21 Only after the voting was over, in the required presence of the friars, the Notary of the Riformagioni, who was connected with the city councils, and the chancellor, representing the Signoria, the seal was broken and the names of the qualified citizens were distributed among the purses.22 It was also necessary for the bags containing the ‘pellets’ of wax enclosing the slips of parchment with the names of the eligible candidates to be carefully safeguarded in a strongbox locked with three keys, one held by the Gonfalonier of Justice, one by the podestà, and one by the Guardian of the Friars Minor. The ultimate keepers of the secret of the vote were the Franciscans of Santa Croce, who faithfully safeguarded the box holding the electoral treasure in the church sacristy, inside a cabinet, it too obviously locked with a key.23 Then, finally, the moment arrived to reveal the secret and, for this, the statutes prescribed other ritual procedures and other gestures.

The Doors of the Palace are Opened Every two months, three days before the end of the mandate of the priors and the Gonfalonier of Justice, an official, dressed for the occasion in red and white clothing and stockings, the heraldic colours of the commune, was charged with picking up the famous box and taking it to the Palazzo della Signoria. The Captain of the People, the podestà, their councils, the priors, and the Gonfalonier of Justice all assembled once more in the Sala del Dugento, whose 20  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 89, fols 134 r–135r, 23 January 1411; Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Carte di Corredo 67, fol. 1r–v; Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Squittino modo di farlo’, fols 520–522. 21  Trexler, ‘Honor among Thieves’, p. 324. 22  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 4, p. 487. 23  On the role of religious people in the administration and in the political life of Florence, see Trexler, ‘Honor among Thieves’; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 31–32; Pirillo, ‘I Cistercensi e il Comune di Firenze’. See also Caby, ‘A propos du De seculo et religione’. It should be pointed out, however, that the reasons why the commune employed specific religious orders in the different sectors of the Florentine public life are not really known: this matter will be clarified by Frances Andrews’s researches in progress.

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doors, as the statutes specify, starting from this moment had to remain open during the entire ceremony.24 Once again, the statutes defined in minute detail every move to be made. Thus the Notary of the Riformagioni proceeded to open the box, then read the list of the commune’s divieti and, before touching the bags, invoked a divine blessing by making the sign of the cross. Showing the bags he held in his hands, he was required to pronounce in a loud voice the ritual formula: ‘Here is the bag in which are inserted the names of those who, in this district, will be drawn by lot for the priorate, as is the custom’.25 Similarly, the podestà, after making the sign of the cross, had to take the slips one at a time from the bags, holding his hand high — as the statutes prescribed — so that his gestures would be clearly visible to all. These were the ceremonial formalities, gestures, and words meticulously prescribed by the statutory norms and destined to be repeated, unchanged, every time names were drawn for the Signoria. Behind this apparent continuity, formalized by the language of the rules for performing this act, nonetheless, emerge important changes made by the Florentine oligarchy to the electoral procedure with the clear intent of concentrating power in their hands. In 1393 the Albizzi faction succeeded in imposing the creation of a special purse, the borsellino, as mentioned above, containing the names of the most faithful partisans of the regime, hand-chosen by the Gonfalonier of Justice and four other members of the major guilds. Recourse to this instrument was meant to ensure for the Albizzi faction the political consensus it needed to govern.26 A further innovation was brought by the so-called rimbotto, which allowed the insertion in the new purses of the names of candidates selected in earlier voting.27 Even if the oligarchy used this practice assiduously between 1387 and 1415, the city statutes did not mention it. In effect, the rimbotto contradicted the principle of the inviolability of the vote on which the juridical and ritual apparatus of the election of the Signoria had been solidly based. Irreparably damaged by this was the very sacredness of the ritual, and consequently the legitimacy of the entire system solemnly founded on the secrecy of the ballot and the placing of names in the bag. Thus it is not 24 

Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 8, ‘De tracta dominorum et collegiorum’, pp. 495–98. 25  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae ii, bk v,: ‘haec est bursa, in qua sunt imbursata nomina illorum, qui debent extrahi ad offitium dominorum Priorum artium in tali quarterio, ut moris est’, p. 496. 26  Ninci, ‘Tecniche e manipolazioni elettorali’, pp. 752–53. 27  Viti and Zaccaria, ‘Sistemi di elezione e di nomina’, pp.  27–34; Ninci, ‘Tecniche e manipolazioni elettorali’, pp. 752–53.

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surprising that the statutes do not mention this practice at all, which after all was considered ‘illegal’ by the statutes of 1355. The text of the legislation did take pains, however, to furnish an entire rubrics of the ceremony of investiture of the priors and the Gonfalonier of Justice, orchestrated right in the Piazza della Signoria, so it could be watched and later remembered by a vast audience.28

The City Celebrates the Investiture of the Signori Now the ritual, kept up to this point within the confines of the commune’s official building — Palazzo Vecchio — comes out of this closed space and invades the public square.29 The people are summoned to the beating heart of power, the place that constitutes the tangible expression of the communal ideology, to be present in large number at the official ceremony of the installation of the priors and Gonfalonier of Justice. But the people’s role is not limited merely to that of simple spectators: their presence is perceived as an essential element for the efficacy of the ritual that aims at celebrating the ideal continuity between the newly elected officials and the entire urban community. Here, in Piazza della Signoria, all the city’s components, social, professional, and territorial, are called to reconstitute symbolically the united body of citizens, the res publica. To this end, a provision of October 1390 called for the closing of artisans’ shops and merchants’ warehouses at least until 9 a.m.; any transgressors were to be fined twenty-five lire, with that amount doubled for the officials of the Mercanzia who failed to punish the guilty merchants.30 As can easily be seen, this regulation responded explicitly to the desire of the communal authorities to mobilize a vast audience, who were expected to attend the ceremony of investiture of the signori.31 The tone is by now the unmistakable one of celebratory festivities mounted and paid for by the commune. At the ringing of the bells, the newly elected 28  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, pp. 501–04. 29  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fols 20–21. 30  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 79, fols 239 v–240r, 25 October 1390, ‘De infrascriptis diebus celebrandis’. See also the following law: Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 155, fols 243v–244r, 11 March 1466, ‘Feris qualibet die introitus dominorum et gonfaloneriorum societatum’, quoted in Trexler, ‘Ritual Behavior in Renaissance Florence’, p. 132. 31  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, pp. 501–04 (p. 501).

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officials, accompanied by the outgoing priors, descend the palace steps as far as the railing (ringhiera), renovated in 1349 to hold the most solemn public ceremonies.32 Here, hierarchically, the principal actors of Florentine political life take their place: first of all the Gonfalonier of Justice, supreme head of the republic, with the podestà next to him; then the priors together with the Captain of the People and the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice, and finally, in the last row, their aides and the judges. Down below, at the priors’ feet, sit the citizens called here to act as guarantors (fideiussori) to ensure that the entire ceremony is carried out correctly.33 In case of rain — nothing is left to chance — the entire show moved to the new Loggia of Orcagna, built between 1376 and 1382 to hold the Signoria’s public ceremonies in case of bad weather, first and foremost that of its investiture.34 For that occasion, the loggia, named for the artist who designed it, was ‘superbly covered with beautiful tapestries and other decorations no less rich and beautiful’. 35 Then came the central moment of the political ritual, when the standard of justice was raised and the crown placed on the head of the famous statue of a lion, the Marzocco. The act of investiture was then hailed with the ‘sweet harmony of trumpets, fifes, castanets, and many other similar instruments’.36 The roaring lion, the unmistakable symbol of Guelf Florence of the popolo, had probably been placed there in the square of the Signoria to watch over and protect the grand building in 1349, the year of the renovation of Palazzo Vecchio’s ringhiera.37 And in 1377, this very emblem par excellence of Guelf Florence was the object of a verse tribute by Franco Sacchetti, in lines intended to be engraved on the lion’s crown, the regal insignia placed on the Marzocco’s head in the salient

32 

Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, pp. 17–18. Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, pp. 501–04. 34  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fols 20–21. On this loggia, see Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, pp. 83–87. 35  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fols 20–21. 36  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22: ‘Accomodato ciascuno al suo luogo era innalzato lo stendardo della giustizia davanti li Signori Priori e gonfaloniere di Giustizia e posta la corona in capo al leone, si facevan fra tanto soave armonia dalli trombetti, pifferi, naccherini e molti simili altri in strumenti, gente stipendiata al servizio della Signoria’. See also Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, p. 501. 37  Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, pp. 17–18. 33 

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moments of the most elevated public ceremonies.38 The lines Sacchetti wrote for the lion to enunciate solemnly are: ‘I wear the crown for the worthy fatherland, so that liberty may be maintained for all’,39 a diptych destined to characterize the Marzocco so deeply that it became a synonym of liberty, and in this sense was used as a political slogan.40 The political message summed up in the vulgate words of the poet, who — it bears pointing out — belonged to the ruling class, is clear, incisive, capable of involving a vast public, and at the same time possesses a strong symbolic charge. It expresses with great efficacy the communicative link between the communal ideal of Florentine libertas, of which the rapid rotation of public office is a foundational element, and the new concept of libertas that spread in the political culture of the fourteenth century; that is to say, the ‘patriotic’ liberty so highly extolled by Coluccio Salutati, in which the value of the defence of the city and the idea of the centrality of Florence were united with the demand for a strengthening of the sovereignty of the Signoria. Two emblems and two gestures thus distinguish the ceremony of investiture of the Florentine Signoria: the standard with the arms of the People, a vermilion cross on a white ground, raised in front of the signori, and the crown with Sacchetti’s lines impressed on it, placed on the lion’s head.41 Meaningful in this sense is a comparison with the case of Venice, where from the thirteenth century the doge, at his investiture, received besides the flag of Saint Mark also the famous pointed hat, the corno, which had a gold band and precious stones at its base. To be sure, this was not yet a real coronation, a ritual that would be added to the investiture ceremony only in 1485, but already that early, the doge’s corno included a gold crown.42 As has been observed, with the institution of the Commune of Venice, the transformation of the doge’s power had begun to take shape, which in the course of the final centuries of the Middle Ages, moving farther and farther 38 

Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fols 20–21. 39  Sacchetti, Libro delle rime, ed. by Brambilla Ageno, p. 278. On this point, see Battaglia Ricci, Palazzo Vecchio e dintorni, especially pp. 34–35, 39–41. 40  See for example Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, pp. 54, 187, 211. 41  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, p. 501: ‘cum Vexillo iustitiae erecto stante ante praesentiam praefati domini Vexilliferi, et apposita corona in capite leonis’. See also Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22. 42  Pertusi, ‘Quidam regalia insignia’; Muir, Il rituale civico, pp. 287–317; Crouzet Pavan, Venise triomphante, pp. 287–301; Casini, I gesti del principe, pp. 29–72.

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away from the influences coming from the Byzantine world, would lead to the superimposition of the image of the doge with that of the Commune of Venice. Thus, while the doge’s prerogatives in the sphere of sovereignty were being progressively reduced (with the disappearance — among other things — of the sceptre as the symbol of an eminently personal authority, replaced by the standard), the trend towards representation of the doge’s power with princely, almost royal, attributes, grew stronger.43 The ceremony of investiture of the doge thus worked to attenuate the tension between two powers different in nature, one linked to the person of the elected magistrate and the other to his function as representative of the res publica: a split between two separate and distinct realities that were, however, concentrated in the same figure which had at the same time a natural body and a political body. The corno with the gold band, destined to become a precious crown, was unquestionably one of the most representative elements of this latter abstract, superior, and unchanging entity that ensured the perennial nature of the state function.44 It is evident that a similar representation of political power could not be adequate to a political reality like that of the Florentine republic, where the supreme government magistracy was subject to constant rotation. In Florence the problem of institutional continuity was posited in very different terms: for it was the statue of the lion that was given solemn dignity, not the person of the Gonfalonier of Justice, who was elected for only two months. As we have seen, the symbol of his power, which was full but limited in time, was the standard of justice, the emblem of a public power which had nothing of the personal about it, ‘the flag of the good and just citizens’, according to the words pronounced by Donato Acciaiuoli in his oration on justice — ‘the banner of lovers of the rep[ublic]’, ‘the standard that represents what should be its excellent and perfect governance’.45 It was thus a matter of honouring and glorifying the function, not the person, of the signori, so as to exalt, together with them, the city and its government in a celebratory act that united the entire community.46 The fact, then, that it was the podestà, 43 

Casini, I gesti del principe, pp. 29–72. On this matter it is impossible to avoid citing the classic work of Kantorowicz, Les Deux Corps du roi, trans. by Genêt and Genêt, especially pp. 243–47. On the symbolic and ideological value of the crown, see also the observations by Krynen, L’Empire du roi, pp. 125–53. 45  Santini, ‘La Protestatio de Iustitia nella Firenze medicea del sec. xv’, especially p. 53, ‘Protesto facto da Donato di Neri di Messer Donato Acciaiuoli Gonfaloniere di Compagnia a dì 15 maggio 1469’. 46  The investiture of the Gonfalonier, as the commune’s statutes specify, was destined ‘ad manutentionem honorem, et exaltationem officii praefatorum dominorum, et status totius civi44 

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the most ancient ‘foreign’ official, who handed the insignia to the Gonfalonier of Justice stood to signify that his power still emanated directly from the traditional magistracy’s of the commune. On the other hand, we do not know who actually crowned the Marzocco, given that the statutory legislation does not specify this, but on the plane of symbolic representation this aspect must have appeared completely secondary. The fact is that here recourse was had to a pure abstraction of power, an emblem that, as such, was devoid of any physical material substance — a statue, in fact, that represented a completely disembodied and atemporal authority. Following a dynamic that expresses the deepest sense of medieval political ritual, the heraldic figure of the crowned lion embodied perfectly the perennial nature of the iura regalia inherent in the totality of the body politic of the Florentine commune, the superior, unchanging body symbolized by the crown that ensured the preservation of libertas florentina and consolidated the sovereignty of the Signoria. Next to the crowned lion, one of the two outside magistrates in the communal tradition — the podestà or the Captain of the People, or if they could not do it, one of their aides — recited in the vulgate an oration praising the priors (the so-called Protestatio de Iustitia), in which reference necessarily had to be made to the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, Latin poets, and the laws.47 In the same way, the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice delivered another speech honouring the Gonfalonier of Justice.48 In fact, it was the statutory legislation that sanctioned the practice of the orations on justice, establishing their manner, terms, and principal aims as the tatis, et honorem, et exaltationem, et augumentum sacrosantae, et inconvincibilis partis guelfae dictae civitatis’: Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, p. 502. An oration admonished the signori as follows: ‘voi in questo palazo del Comune o vero per reggere o vero per consigl[i]are entraste, doveste sapere che vi spogliavate di quella persona che avevate in casa vostra et un’altra persona vi vestivate che è del Comune et nella quale è la dignità; et così fusse l’utilità del Comune’; Santini, ‘La Protestatio de Iustitia nella Firenze medicea del sec. xv’, p. 98. 47  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk  v, r.  10: ‘Et accedente dicto domino Potestate, vel eius collaterali, vel domino Capitaneo, vel eius collaterali, prout occurrerit diceriam facere debeat, et sermonem vulgari sermone cum auctoritatibus divinae scripturae, vel poetarum, vel legum, prout libuerit ad commendationem praefati offitii dominorum Priorum et Vexilliferi iustitia, et totius status popularis, et guelfi dictae civitatis, et personarum, et offitii eserciti per dominos tunc exeuntes, et ad confortandum dominos tunc intrantes’, p. 502. See also Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22. 48  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, p. 503.

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fulcrum of the ceremony.49 Necessarily, the speeches made by the podestà and the Captain of the People and by the Executor of the Ordinances of Justice had to be in the vulgate and make reference to the Holy Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the Latin poets and the texts of the laws.50 The objectives explicitly assigned to these exemplary elocutions were two: on one hand, to honour solemnly the Signoria, the popular, Guelf status of Florence, and the outgoing officials, as well as the heavenly court of the patron saints of the city; on the other, to encourage and urge the new signori to govern according to justice, respecting the laws of the commune. With these eminently apologetic intents, the oration had to be ‘well composed and erudite’,51 that is to say it had to follow the models of humanist rhetoric, paying ample tribute to classical eloquence, and to echo closely the ideals of the ruling elite of the city. Thus to justice, the central theme around which the whole narrative of the speeches pivoted, were added the other civic virtues, and particularly that of liberty. This concept, elaborated by Coluccio Salutati in various shades of meaning, assumed in this sphere a specific value in relation to the electoral procedures, whose principal ideological connections were recalled. Taking up again the traditional image of Florence as the direct heir of republican Rome, the political ideal of libertas was understood here in Cicero’s sense of obedience of the laws, as paritas iuris and equitas Reipublicae adeundae, that is to say the equal opportunity to reach public office.52 The fact that the statutory rules prescribed the obligation to pronounce the orations near the Marzocco certainly had its importance. In effect, there was a profound affinity, or rather an ideological collusion, between the values 49  On these civil orations called protesti, see Santini, Firenze e i suoi oratori; Santini, ‘La Protestatio de Iustitia nella Firenze medicea del sec. xv’; Miglio, ‘Viva la libertà et populo di Roma’, pp. 422–25. 50  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, p. 502: ‘Et accedente dicto domino Potestate, vel eius collaterali, vel domino Capitaneo, vel eius collaterali, prout occurrerit diceriam facere debeat, et sermonem vulgari sermone cum auctoritatibus divinae scripturae, vel poetarum, vel legum, prout libuerit ad commendationem praefati offitii dominorum Priorum et Vexilliferi iustitia, et totius status popularis, et guelfi dictae civitatis, et personarum, et offitii eserciti per dominos tunc exeuntes, et ad confortandum dominos tunc intrantes’. See also Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22. 51  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22: ‘una ben composta et erudite oratione’. 52  Miglio, ‘Viva la libertà et populo di Roma’, pp.  404–07; Santini, ‘La Protestatio de Iustitia nella Firenze medicea del sec. xv’, especially ‘Protesto fatto per ser Filippo Pandolfini’, pp. 66–74. On this conception of libertas, see De Rosa, Coluccio Salutati, especially p. 101.

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transmitted by the speeches and those embodied in the statue of the crowned lion, symbol of the sovereignty of the Guelf Florence of the popolo. The praise of the old and new signori enunciated in the oration openly recalled this image of institutional continuity and unity of the city stressed by the crowning of the Marzocco, while the words with a strong celebratory value blended seamlessly with the titulus engraved on the lion’s crown, the encomiastic lines by Sacchetti adorning the sign of royalty, the attribute that more than any other was suited to the majesty of the great feline. Thus the crown placed on that occasion on the lion’s head was displayed as a guarantee of the ideal of city liberty implemented in the sphere of legality and the institutions. Against the backdrop of the sovereign authority of the crown, the oration thus defined the specific context in which the power of the signori would be able to take concrete form, the element that in a certain sense made possible its implementation. Corinne Péneau has brought out the functional and ritual power of words in the election procedure, highlighting the original connection between verbal communication and election, in which the voice was a basic tool for rendering power effective.53 In this fabric of more or less ritual words, the oration undoubtedly played a central role, indispensable for the investiture of the signori, a foundational trait of the ‘cérémonies du consensus’, as Olivier Christin has meaningfully called elections of the early modern age, in which the element of consensus prevailed.54 After the oration came the solemn oath sworn aloud, as prescribed by the statutes, without which neither the priors nor the Gonfalonier of Justice could take office.55 Swearing on the Holy Scriptures, they committed to respect both divine law and the laws of the Florentine commune as formulated in the Ordinances of Justice and the city statues, and to defend the Guelf party. In other words, the priors and the supreme head of the Florentine republic had to submit to the supremacy of the law against any possible arbitrary exercise of power. The new political bond was then ratified by the traditional gesture of the kiss of peace, which the podestà placed on the forehead of the Gonfalonier of Justice as a sign of deep unity. Only then did the supreme head of the Florentine republic receive the 53  Péneau, ‘Élections et pouvoirs politiques’, especially pp. 20–24: ‘Élire, c’est choisir, mais c’est avant tout parler comme le montre l’étymologie: eligere vient de logos, la parole et voter, de votum, le vœu; l’élection, dans le sens politique que nous tentons de saisir, est, plus que le mécanisme du choix, sa formulation plus ou moins ritualisée, son expression par la voix’, pp. 20–21. 54  Christin, ‘A quoi sert de voter aux xvie–xviiie siècles?’, esp. p. 22. 55  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, ‘De tempore modo et forma iuramenti dominorum et collegiorum’, p. 502.

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standard from the longest-standing magistrate in the tradition of the commune; at this point he was officially vested with his authority. Then the act of investiture was greeted with the ‘sweet harmony of trumpets, fifes, castanets, and many other similar instruments’.56 The last element which brought the celebratory ritual to a close was the customary offering of wax candles that the priors carried as a tribute to Saint John the Baptist, patron saint of the city.57 Thus the entire ritual cycle ended in the Baptistery, with this gift of light that, as Catherine Vincent has efficaciously demonstrated, emerged in the course of the fifteenth century in all the rites of passage as an unmistakable sign of peace, joy, and harmony, capable of dissolving the tension of the ritual communication, a total union that expressed the deepest sense of the unifying gesture of the electoral ‘faire corps’.58 How could that message be forgotten? In fact, the incessant repetition of the ritual, cadenced by the frenetic rhythm of the political calendar, reinforced and renewed constantly the communal memory on which the identity of the Florentine republic, established in the statutes, was constructed, and solidified the shared feeling of belonging to the civitas sealed in this final act of the ritual, the moment when the original union between the city and its patron saint, between the body politic and the religious body of the commune, was given concrete form. * * * From the site of power inside Palazzo Vecchio, the centre of political life, the electoral ritual thus comes outside, and the ceremony invades the public square, then to conclude in the Cathedral, the fulcrum of religious life. And each of the phases of the election of the signori up to their investiture entails specific languages and formalities that conform faithfully to the space where they take place, recalling the classic tripartite model of rites of passage worked out by Arnold Van Gennep.59 First, the isolation of the secret of the ballot that distinguishes, 56  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, ‘Signori Priori e varie cose circa il loro officio e carica’, fol. 22: ‘Accomodato ciascuno al suo luogo era innalzato lo stendardo della giustizia davanti li Signori Priori e Gonfaloniere di Giustizia e posta la corona in capo al leone, si facevan fra tanto soave armonia dalli trombetti, pifferi, naccherini e molti simili altri in strumenti, gente stipendiata al servizio della Signoria’. See also Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, ii, bk v, r. 10, p. 501. 57  Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, r. 10, p. 503; Firenze, Archivio di Stato, MS 197, fols 22–24. 58  Vincent, ‘Fiat Lux’. 59  Van Gennep, Les Rites de passage.

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with a language deriving from the sacred, the crucial moments of the voting and the placing the names in the bag, where the longa manus of the oligarchic regime faithful could act with impunity; then the moment of drawing the names, when the doors of the palace were opened and the gestures and words had the aim of rendering manifest the result entrusted to chance; and finally, crossing the threshold of the palace, the ritual takes possession of the square to celebrate the investiture of the signori with the tones typical of a festivity aimed at obtaining popular consensus. The presence of the public at that point becomes an absolute necessity: shops were ordered to close, a loggia — and what a loggia! — was built, musicians were summoned, and sumptuous drapes were spread over the railing. In this way, outside Palazzo Vecchio, in the political centre of the city, every two months without fail was repeated a true act of political communication which, by evoking and nourishing the founding principles of libertas florentina, legitimizes the sovereignty of the Florentine Signoria with an unprecedented depth of self-celebration. The statutory laws codified through juridical regulation a ritual of investiture of the Signoria in which, also on the level of representation, the power of the supreme magistrate of the Florentine republic, elected for two months, remained something distinct from the sovereignty embodied in the Marzocco. In a political system characterized by incessant rotation of the highest government offices, this split in all probability seemed to be a real necessity, a more or less obligatory solution for representing the political permanence of the Florentine Signoria which, moreover, resonated constantly in the gestures and words that characterized the entire ceremony.60 Finally, the representation of the crowned lion constitutes the most extreme form of abstraction of royalty: it was an immaterial power which had no need of real traits, an ideological construction or a political ‘fiction’, to borrow Kantorowicz’s words,61 which however stood to bear witness to the degree of maturity and cultural and ideological awareness reached by the republican system of Florence, capable on the plane of theory, as on that of representation, of conceiving and legitimizing, by way of a refined, cohesive system of signs and gestures, the sovereignty of the Florentine state.

60 

In this regard, it is worthwhile to note the statutory provision that the oration on justice had to be delivered near the Marzocco, therefore near the sovereign authority that defended the rights of the entire political body and constituted a fundamental element of the legitimation of the authority of the signori. 61  Kantorowicz, Les Deux Corps du roi, trans. by Genêt and Genêt, pp. 213–27, especially pp. 222–23.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Carte di Corredo 67 —— , MS 197 —— , MS 431 Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 79 (‘De infrascriptis diebus celebrandis’, 25 October 1390) —— , Provvisioni, Registri 89 (Fiat scrutinium de tribus maiorum offitiis, 27 September 1400) —— , Provvisioni, Registri 99 (‘De secretis scructinii retinendis’, 23 January 1411) —— , Provvisioni, Registri 155 (‘Feris qualibet die introitus dominorum et gonfaloneriorum societatum’, 11 March 1466)

Primary Sources Landucci, Luca, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516, continuato da un anonimo fino al 1542, ed. by Iodoco del Badia (Firenze: Sansoni, 1985; orig. publ. 1883) Sacchetti, Franco, Libro delle rime, ed. by Franca Brambilla Ageno (Firenze: Olschki, 1990) Statuta populi et communis Florentiae: publica auctoritate collecta castigata et praeposita, anno salutis MCCCCXV, 3 vols (Firenze: Kluch, 1778–83)

Secondary Studies Althoff, Gerd, ‘Les Rituels’, in Les Tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne, ed. by Jean-Claude Schmitt, Jacques Revel, and Otto Gerhard Oexle (Paris: Sorbonne, 2003), pp. 231–42 Battaglia Ricci, L., Palazzo Vecchio e dintorni: studio su Franco Sacchetti e le fabbriche di Firenze (Roma: Salerno, 1990) Brucker, Gene Adam, Dal Comune alla Signoria: la vita pubblica a Firenze nel primo Rinascimento, trans. by Davide Panzieri (Bologna: Mulino, 1981) Buc, Philippe, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) —— , ‘Rituels et institutions: commentaire’, in Les Tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne, ed. by Jean-Claude Schmitt, Jacques Revel, and Otto Gerhard Oexle (Paris: Sorbonne, 2003), pp. 265–68 Caby, Cécile, ‘À propos du De seculo et religione: Coluccio Salutati et Santa Maria degli Angeli’, in Vie active et vie contemplative au Moyen Âge et au tournant de la Renaissance, ed. by Christian Trottman (Roma: École française de Rome, 2009), pp.  483–529; available online in Retí medíevalí, Biblioteca [accessed 13 July 2012]

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Casini, Matteo, I gesti del principe: la festa politica a Firenze e a Venezia in età rinascimentale (Venezia: Marsilio, 1996) Christin, Olivier, ‘À quoi sert de voter aux xvie–xviiie siècles?’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 140 (2001), 21–30 Crouzet Pavan, Élisabeth, Venise triomphante: les horizons d’un mythe (Paris: Michel, 2004) De Rosa, Daniela, Coluccio Salutati: il cancelliere e il pensatore politico (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1980) Fubini, Riccardo, ‘Dalla rappresentanza sociale alla rappresentanza politica: alcune osservazioni sull’evoluzione politico-costituzionale di Firenze nel Rinascimento’, Rivista storica italiana, 102 (1990), 279–301 —— , ‘Osservazioni sopra gli “Historiarum Florentini populi libri xii” di Leonardo Bruni’, in Studi di storia medievale e moderna per Ernesto Sestan, ed. by Ernesto Sestan, 2 vols (Firenze: Olschki, 1980), i, 403–48 —— , Quattrocento fiorentino: politica, diplomazia, cultura (Pisa: Pacini, 1996) Gauvard, Claude, ‘Le Rituel, objet d’histoire’, in Les Tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne, ed. by Jean-Claude Schmitt, Jacques Revel, and Otto Gerhard Oexle (Paris: Sorbonne, 2003), pp. 269–81 Guidi, Guidubaldo, ‘I sistemi elettorali agli uffici del Comune di Firenze nel primo Trecento: il sorgere della elezione per squittino (1300–1328)’, Archivio storico italiano, 130 (1972), 345–407 Kantorowicz, Ernst, Les Deux Corps du roi, essai sur la théologie politique au Moyen-Âge, trans. by Jean-Phillipe Genêt and Nicole Genêt (Paris: Gallimard, 1989) Krynen, J., L’Empire du roi: idées et croyances politiques en France, xiiie–xve siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1993) Melville, Gert, ‘L’Institutionnalité médiévale dans sa pluridimensionnalité’, in Les Ten­ dances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne, ed. by JeanClaude Schmitt, Jacques Revel, and Otto Gerhard Oexle (Paris: Sorbonne, 2003), pp. 243–64 Miglio, Massimo, ‘Viva la libertà et populo di Roma: oratoria e politica: Stefano Porcari’, in Palaeographica, diplomatica et archivistica: studi in onore di Giulio Battelli, ed. by Scuola speciale per archivisti e bibliotecari dell’università di Roma, 2 vols (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1979), i, 381–428 Molho, Antony, ‘The Florentine Oligarchy and the Balìe of the late Trecento’, Speculum, 43 (1968), 23–51 Muir, Edward, Il rituale civico a Venezia nel Rinascimento, trans. by Eleonora Zambelli (Roma: Veltro, 1984) Najemy, John M., Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982) Ninci, Renzo, ‘Lo scrutinio elettorale nel periodo albizzesco (1393–1434)’, in Istituzioni e società in Toscana nell’età moderna: atti delle giornate di studio dedicate a Giuseppe Pansini, Firenze, 4–5 dicembre 1992, ed. by Claudio Lamioni, 2 vols (Roma: Pub­ blicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1994), i, 39–60 —— , ‘Tecniche e manipolazioni elettorali nel Comune di Firenze tra il xiv e il xv secolo (1382–1434)’, Archivio storico italiano, 150 (1992), 735–73

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Péneau, Corinne, ‘Élections et pouvoirs politiques: une introduction’, in Élections et pouvoirs politiques du viie au xviie siècle, ed. by Corinne Péneau (Paris: Brière, 2009), pp. 13–40 Pertusi, Agostino, ‘Quidam regalia insignia: ricerche sulle insegne del potere ducale a Venezia durante il Medioevo’, Studi veneziani, 7 (1965), 3–123 Pirillo, Paolo, ‘I Cistercensi e il Comune di Firenze (secoli xiii–xiv)’, Studi storici, 2 (1999), 395–405 Rolfi, Gianfranco, Ludovica Sebregondi, and Paolo Viti, eds, La chiesa e la città nel xv secolo: Firenze, Sotterranei di San Lorenzo, 6 giugno–6 settembre 1992 (Firenze: Silvana, 1992) Rubinstein, Nicolai, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434–1494), 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) —— , The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298–1532: Government, Architecture and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Santini, Emilio, Firenze e i suoi oratori nel Quattrocento (Milano: Sandron, 1922) —— , ‘La Protestatio de Iustitia nella Firenze medicea del sec. xv: nuovi testi in volgare del Quattrocento’, Rinascimento, 10 (1959), 33–106 Sebregondi, Ludovica, ‘L’apparato liturgico’, in La chiesa e la città nel xv secolo: Firenze, Sotterranei di San Lorenzo, 6 giugno–6 settembre 1992, ed. by Gianfranco Rolfi, Ludovica Sebregondi, and Paolo Viti (Firenze: Silvana, 1992), pp. 159–217 —— , ‘La chiesa e i laici: le confraternite’, in La chiesa e la città nel xv secolo: Firenze, Sotterranei di San Lorenzo, 6 giugno–6 settembre 1992, ed. by Gianfranco Rolfi, Ludovica Sebregondi, and Paolo Viti (Firenze: Silvana, 1992), pp. 87–102 Taddei, Ilaria, ‘Du secret à la place publique: l’entrée en charge de la Seigneurie à Florence (xive–xve siècles)’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, ItalieFrance-Allemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 116–41 —— , and Gilles Bertrand, ‘Le Rituel et ses approches’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-France-Allemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 1–11 Tanzini, Lorenzo, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: Lo statuto cittadino del 1409 (Firenze: Olschki, 2004) Trexler, Richard C., ‘Honor among Thieves: The Trust Function of the Urban Clergy in the Florentine Republic’, in Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore, ed. by Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus, 2 vols (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1978), i, 317–34 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980) —— , ‘Ritual Behavior in Renaissance Florence: The Setting’, Medievalia et humanistica, 4 (1973), 125–44 Van Gennep, Arnold, Les Rites de passage (Paris: Nourry, 1909; Paris: Picard, 1981) Vincent, Catherine, ‘Fiat Lux’: lumière et luminaires dans la vie religieuse en Occident du xiie au xvie siècle (Paris: Cerf, 2004) Viti, Paolo, and Raffaella M. Zaccaria, ‘Sistemi di elezione e di nomina per le magistrature fiorentine nei secoli xiii–xviii’, in Archivio delle Tratte, ed. by Paolo Viti and Raffaella M. Zaccaria (Roma: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1989), pp. 3–54

The Rituals of the Guilds: Examples from Tuscan Cities (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries) Franco Franceschi

A Little-Explored Field of Study The birth and spread of guilds, commonly called arti in medieval Italy (other names were paratici, fraglie, scuole, società, compagnie, ordini, università, or collegi), should be viewed within the framework of the more general tendency to create various forms of association, which reached its fullest expression in the establishment of the communes. Like the communes, the guilds were the result of pacts stipulated among individuals — merchants, artisans, retailers, professionals — who practised the same business and felt the need to join together in order to protect and promote their own interests. These associations, however, did not have only economic aims, but tended to carve out for themselves an autonomous political space in the system of power in the city and to reserve for themselves Franco Franceschi ([email protected]) is Professor of Medieval History at the Università di Siena. He has been a fellow of the Istituto italiano per gli studi storici in Naples and of the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence. He has presented his research at many Italian and foreign universities, including the Sorbonne and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (ÉHESS) in Paris, the universities of London, Ghent, Barcelona, and Valencia. A specialist in Italian urban history, he has published the volumes Oltre il ‘Tumulto’: I lavoratori fiorentini dell’Arte della Lana fra Tre e Quattrocento (Firenze: Olschki, 1993) and, together with Ilaria Taddei, Le città italiane nel Medioevo, xii–xiv secolo (Bologna: Mulino, 2012). He is the author of numerous essays on the world of work, the history of guilds, economic policies, the transmission of knowledge, and the mentality of the working classes from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 65–92 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100768

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judicial competences within their respective fields of activity. They also promoted solidarity and assistance among their members, carried out works of charity in the community, and organized religious ceremonies and events.1 In light of the variety of functions that characterized the arti, it is easy to understand how important belonging to the group was in practical terms as well as psychologically.2 According to Antony Black, author of a book on the role of guild ‘ideology’ in European political thought, bonds within the guilds were deeper than they are in private associations today. ‘The sentiment of brotherly membership was often strong; loyalty to one’s craft might rival or outweigh loyalty to the state’.3 For John Bossy, these associations, like the confraternities of which they were the variant in the economic sphere, represented the concrete, institutional translation of the ideals of charity, brotherhood, and peace, which their contemporaries considered ‘the principal end of the Christian Life’.4 In this sense, nonetheless, they maintained an ambiguous nature: with their type of organizational structure, the arti offered more room for integration into society than was given by ties of kinship or friendship, but this was still necessarily limited, because the ideal of universal charity was a hard one to achieve,5 and the guilds implemented it in a pragmatic, limited manner.6 Internal brotherhood was inevitably counterbalanced by a sense of exclusion directed towards the outside world, in a singular blend of altruism and selfishness that — as Otto Gerhard Oexle has pointed out — appears to be one of the most distinctive traits of the history of the guilds.7 In truth, some scholars have offered a dynamic image of the multifarious activity of the Italian arti, proposing a sort of scheme of evolution in relation to social change.8 To put it very synthetically: in the oldest statutes of the Italian guilds (dating to the central decades of the thirteenth century and mainly coming from Bologna and Venice), egalitarian concerns were expressed in the ongoing effort to 1  For a synthetic overview and preliminary approach to the issues, see Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale, chap. 4, pp. 119–47, and relevant bibliography. 2  Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought, p. 14. 3  Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought, p. 27. 4  Bossy, Christianity in the West, pp. 57–58. 5  Bossy, Christianity in the West, p. 57. 6  Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought, p. 13. 7  Oexle, ‘Gilda’, p. 464. 8  See Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza’; Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale, pp. 143–46; Greci, ‘Economia, religiosità, politica’, pp. 82–87.

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provide assistance to its sick members, financial aid to those who fell into poverty, and moral and spiritual support at the death of members of the arte or someone in their family. But between the end of the thirteenth century and the early decades of the fourteenth, a distinct change of direction in the guilds’ actions and attitudes took place: the task of the guilds became more specialized and restricted to the economic and political sphere, and their internal hierarchies were accentuated, resulting in the emergence of a deeper and deeper fracture between the masters and the various categories of subordinate workers. This process ended up relegating to second place the aims of solidarity and assistance, which were being more adequately fulfilled by the rapidly growing devotional confraternities and by new institutions being created for this purpose by the communal governments. Thus, in a few decades, the arti, especially the richest and most powerful ones, shed their old provisions for aid to their poor and sick members, while practices like accompanying the dead were maintained here and there, but their original significance was lost; the result was a lack of participation that in some places led guilds to reinforce the obligation by imposing or increasing fines, and in others to abandon the custom.9

Personally, I am somewhat reluctant to accept very sharp breaks between periods, especially when the documentary base examined is markedly uneven. As we shall see, information about the holding of funerals for the artifices continues to be anything but scarce at the end of the Middle Ages, nor is there any lack in later collections of the continuance of economic solidarity. Just to give a few examples: in the statutes of the Tailors’ Guild (Arte dei Sarti) in Pistoia, datable to the first half of the fourteenth century, a specific rubric required the rectors to gather the members together and propose to them to furnish aid to a master who had fallen on hard times.10 A similar regulation was included in the set of rules issued in 1349 by the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries (Arte dei Medici e Speziali) in Florence, who extended their financial contribution to burial expenses for indigent members.11 The Masons and Carpenters (Maestri di Pietra e Legname) in 9 

Degrassi, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale, p. 145. ‘Ordinatum et statutum est quod si aliquis magister dicte artis venerit in paupertatem et non haberet de quo viveret quod rectores dicte artis teneantur vinculo iuramenti coadunare artem predictam et homines dicte artis et coram eis proponere nominando personam de aiutorio faciendo dicto magistro qui devenerit in paupertatem quod si non fecerint puniantur dicti rectores qualibet vice in soldis XX’: Altieri, ‘Statuti delle arti dei sarti’, r. 11, p. 137. 11  ‘Ordinato è che, quando alcuno della detta arte a necessità e inopia diverrà, che a llui si provegga per l’amor di Dio de’ denari della detta arte, come piacerà a’ consoli e consiglieri della 10 

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Arezzo also provided in their statutes of 1387, if a member were in grave need and asked his colleagues for financial support, for the heads of the association to be able to assign to him a small sum of money.12 Are these exceptions? It is possible, but above and beyond these, I do not believe that the process presented so synthetically here should be considered irreversible. As far as we know, in the centuries of the early modern age, the guilds continued to be imbued with a strong religious ethos and feelings of solidarity that took concrete form in a vast range of functions in the areas of devotion, charity, and aid,13 and made them — to return to the words of Bossy and the topic of this essay — ‘great inventors of rituals’.14 If, then, it is legitimate to hypothesize that, above and beyond short-term changes, these latter aspects embodied long-lasting tendencies, we must at the same time stress that they have never been subjected to an in-depth analysis. This is true also about the situation of Tuscany, even though its high degree of urbanization and strong demographic and economic dynamism imparted a special importance to the phenomenon of corporative associations and thus is the subject of a significant number of studies and publications of sources (for Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Siena, Lucca, and others still).15 Precisely the existence of this published documentary material, in particular of the legislation issued by the arti of Tuscany between the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, makes it possible to fill, at least partially, the current gaps in the scholarship. As to the directions that the investigation should follow, I believe it could be useful to take up some observations of the above-mentioned Otto Gerhard Oexle. According to this German scholar, the detta arte per gli tempi existenti. E se tale in necessità predetta morrà, e consoli della detta arte sieno tenuti e debbino alle spese della detta arte esso tale fare sepellire nella sepoltura di tale morto’: ‘Statuto dell’arte dei medici, speziali e merciai del 1349’, ed. by Ciasca, r. 36, ‘Di aiutare gli artefici vegnienti in povertà’, p. 144. 12  ‘Se alcuno della detta compagnia per alcuno tempo fosse per troppa povertà e necessità aggravato e esso addomandasse ai Rettori che saranno per lo tempo e aloro conseglieri di alcuna quantità de moneta che a loro bisogni, chessi rettori con li loro conseglieri possano questo cotale subvenire e a lui dare delavere dela detta compagnia enfine en quantità de libbre cinque’: Del Vita, Gli statuti medioevali aretini, p. 11. 13  On these aspects, see Guenzi and Massa, ‘Introduzione’, pp. 23–26, in Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, ed. by Guenzi, Massa, and Moioli; and also pt 3 of the same book, in particular Mascilli Migliorini, ‘Confraternite e corporazioni a Napoli’. See also the observations by Frigo, ‘Continuità, innovazioni e riforme’. 14  Bossy, Christianity in the West, p. 59. 15  A useful review of published materials is provided in Bibliografia delle edizioni di statuti toscani, ed. by Raveggi and Tanzini.

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constitutive elements of a guild (Gilde) — a term which he uses to cover a vast range of associative organisms — were the oath and the common banquet, from which other fundamental characteristics derived.16 Oexle writes: The mutual oath was a foundational and binding juridical act; […] it established equality (parity) among the members of the Gilde, and by force of the adoption of statutes, it created an autonomous juridical sphere. […] The meal had the function of permanently renewing the sworn brotherhood […], it was connected with the Divine Office, works of charity and the remembrance of the dead, and thus also to the celebration of historical anniversaries.17

Adapting these indications to the world of late medieval Tuscan guilds, we can identify at least four distinct topics for an investigation of the ritual dimension of the life of the guildsmen: the solemn oath which ratified their entrance into the guild, the group banquet, the ceremonies accompanying the death and burial of a member, and the celebration of holidays, in particular the feast day of the association’s patron saint. I am aware of the fact that an approach like this one, based on an examination of the normative sources, tends to favour the self-image that the members of the guilds had or wanted to project, rather than perception from outside, but in a discussion like the one on which I would like to embark, this does not seem to me to be a limitation.

The Oath and the Common Meal Naturally, it is not possible to look in statutes that usually refer to a period significantly later than the time when the arti were formed for an oath that sealed their birth, but traces of this founding ritual, in which words and gestures are closely interwoven, are still easily discernible in the rubrics containing the formulas by which every new member committed himself to observing the guild’s rules. ‘All of us of this Università’, reads the second rubric of the statutes of the Butchers’ Guild (Arte dei Carnaiuoli) of Siena of 1288, ‘swear to obey the rectors of this Arte and Università […], and to see that everything stipulated by the Università in this statutes is observed’.18 The promise to ‘obey all the just and honourables 16 

Oexle, ‘Die mittelalterlichen Gilden’; Oexle, ‘Gilden als soziale Gruppen in der Karo­ linger­zeit’; Oexle, ‘Gilda’. 17  Oexle, ‘Gilda’, pp. 465–66. 18  ‘Noi tutti quanti della detta Università giuramo d’obedire et osservare a’ rettori della detta Arte et Università, a’ mandati et commandamenti [che loro et] ciascheduno di loro a noi, per loro o vero per altrui, facessero per fatto o stato della detta Arte; et fare osservare tutto et cio

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decrees’ established by the rectors and not to commit fraud, solemnly uttered with a hand on the Gospel, introduces also the rules drawn up by the Used-Cloth Merchants (Rigattieri) of Florence in 1296.19 The guild remained a sworn association and the coniuratio was renewed with each new entry: only the force of this oath enabled the individual to establish a new social bond distinguished by the fact of being freely given and by the acceptance of laws that ensured the resolution of internal controversies and maintaining peace between the members.20 But the sacramentum, in the late medieval ‘sworn society’,21 permeated also other moments in the guilds’ life: first and foremost the induction of the consuls and other magistrates of the association, for whom the commitment to respect and ensure respect for the common rules, as well as to perform their duties in good faith and without fraud, was the indispensable condition for being able to hold office. Moreover, among the obligations imposed on the officers by their own oath was that of requiring all the guildsmen to swear their loyalty to the arte. The situation is partly different concerning the guild banquet. Already in the early twentieth century, Robert Davidsohn, the author of a monumental history of medieval Florence, had pointed out in his research the differences that could be found in this regard between the ‘associations in German cities, where fellowship of the table was an indispensable characteristic, and the Italian arti, Florentine in particular, where ‘gathering together all the members […] in a shared meal represented a rare exception’.22 In effect, the statutes are fairly silent concerning this point, but various elements suggest that a more nuanced position is advisable. Convivial meetings were sometimes prescribed for new members at the moment of joining the arte; in the 1464 addition to their statutes, che è ordinato per la Università in questo Breve: salvi i commandamenti di misser la Podestà e di misser lo Capitano et de’ signori Dodici et del Commune di Siena’: ‘Statuto dell’Università ed Arte dei Carnajuoli della città di Siena (1288–1361)’, ed. by Banchi and Polidori (r. 2, ‘Come tutti i Carnaiuoli giurano di obbedire li signori della detta Arte’, p. 61). 19  ‘Ego qui sum vel ero de arte predicta iuro ad sancta Dei evangelia observare omnia et singula iusta et honesta precepta et quodlibet singulare mandatum, quod, que et quot et quando michi fecerint rectores huius artis qui pro tempore fuerint, vel alter eorum, per se vel per alium, seu eorum nuntium, pro facto vel de rebus pertinentibus ad hanc artem et in fraudem non cessare, nisi essent contra honorem et bonum statum comunis Florentie’: ‘Statuto dei Rigattieri (1296)’, ed. by Sartini (‘De juramento hominum huius artis’, p. 3). 20  On the efforts of the rectors as peacemakers, see ‘Breve dell’Arte dei pittori senesi dell’anno mccclv’, ed. by Milanesi (r. 19, ‘Che ‘l rettore debbia mettere pace’, pp. 8–9). 21  Prodi, Il sacramento del potere, p. 161. 22  Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, vi (1965), 219.

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for example, the Sienese Apothecaries (Speziali) recorded the commitment to organize ‘the lunch that it is customary to hold when the enrolment of some new master apothecary is ratified’,23 while in 1483 the Judges and Notaries (Giudici e Notai) of Lucca, ‘in order that the association’s old and excellent custom be maintained and not be lost’, required new members, even before the chancellor registered them as enrolled, to invite all their colleagues for a meal.24 For the consuls and other guild magistrates, the banquet could take the form of a duty connected with the assumption of the office: thus every new officer of the Furriers’ Guild (Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai) in Florence had to offer an ‘honourable’ luncheon to the other consuls and notary of the Guild.25 In the Locksmiths’ Guild (Arte dei Chiavaioli), during that same period, the election of the notary was not valid if he did not invite the rectors for a meal.26 The statutory legislation shows, too, that also in the Tuscan guilds the banquet was connected mainly with the annual meetings held for the festivities of their patron saint’s day. In Pisa, for example, the Blacksmiths (Fabbri) established in 1365 that on the morning of the feast of Saint Giles, each master had to contribute to the expenses ‘for the offering and for the festivities and dinner’. 27 In Prato, for the feast of Saint John in 1533, the Wool Guild (Arte della Lana) proceeded to earmark funds for organization of the banquet.28 In Florence the guild meal was explicitly provided for by the Shoemakers, who gathered together on the feast day of Saint Philip, and by the Innkeepers (Albergatori), whose rectors, according to the statutes of 1338, had the obligation of convoking all the members in order to settle any controversies that might have arisen among them.29 23 

Breve degli speziali, ed. by Cecchini and Prunai, p. 79. ‘ut antiquus et optimus mos dicte universitatis persevetur et non deleatur’: ‘Statuta iudicum et notariorum lucensis civitatis 1483’, ed. by Romiti and Tori (r. 14, ‘De colationibus fiendis per admissos in collegio iudicum vel notariorum’, p. 86). 25  ‘Statuti dell’Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai’, ed. by Camerani Marri (r. 1, ‘De electione et scruptinio consulum dicte Artis’, p. 70). 26  Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, vi, 218. 27  ‘per la offerta e per fare la festa et la collactione’: ‘Breve artis fabrorum pisane civitatis’ (r. 22, ‘Che ogni maestro sia tenuto dare la matina di sacto Alò soldi sette per la offerta’, p. 44). 28  ‘Riforme (1321–1533)’, ed. by Piattoli and Nuti (‘Riforma del 1533’, r. 6, ‘Delli festaiuoli per Santo Giovanni’, p. 150). 29  ‘E che ’l camerlingo dell’arte de’ danari della arte possa spendere, per riconciliare per ciascuna discordia, in uno mangiare soldi XL fiorini piccoli’: ‘Statuto degli albergatori volgarizzato (1338)’, ed. by Sartini (r. 37, ‘Che li rectori dell’arte sieno tenuti di recare a concordia gli uomini dell’arte che quistionassono, e quel che possano spendere’, p. 298). 24 

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In some instances, we are informed of the existence of these gatherings at the moment when they are called into discussion: this is the case, once again in Florence, with the Masons and Carpenters (Maestri di Pietra e Legname), who in 1466 lamented the fact that at the collatione of the arte’s feast day, ‘many come more to drink and eat than to make offerings’ and ‘indulge in unseemly behaviour, as if they were at a tavern’.30 The importance of the common meal — well summarized in the caustic statement of a clerical opponent of English fraternities, according to whom ‘if it were not for the feasting, few or none would come’31 — comes out unusually clearly in the ordinances of a peculiar association in Lucca, the ‘fraternity and guild’ of San Bartolomeo in Silice, called delle Sette Arti (‘of the seven guilds’).32 Here, according to the deliberations of 1361, the ‘general eating’ that was organized every year in November was the opportunity to cement ‘love, faith, and charity among all the members of the brotherhood’. During the feast, which began with a first course of wether or veal and continued with a pork dish, ‘fruit and other things’, the chapters of the association were read ‘aloud, so that everyone can hear, understand, and absorb them’. The diners were supposed to listen in silence and only after the reading had ended were allowed to take the floor to ‘speak well and honourably of us and our fraternity’. At the end of the meal, the guild treasurer, from the head of the table, asked each member for an offering according to his ability, then one of the officers entertained the audience with ‘some good parable’. During the banquet, no one could upbraid his confreres or give rise to ‘any scandal’, as, it was stressed, had happened in the past.33 30  ‘Molti vengono più per bere e mangiare che per offerere o fare el debito loro verso de l’arte, e nonché faccino collatione ma tengono modi meno che honesti chome se fussino alla taverna o in altro luogho disonesto con gran vergogna e carico di detta arte e degli huomini di quella’: quoted in Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, p. 267 n. 44. See also Doren, Le arti fiorentine, ii, 236 n. 1. 31  Quoted in Rosser, ‘Going to the Fraternity Feast’, p. 431. 32  The name reflected the fact that the association was formed of seven different arti connected with the building trade: see Lazzareschi, ‘Fonti d’archivio per lo studio delle corporazioni artigiane’, pp. 78–79; Paoli and Ulivieri, ‘La compagnia di S. Bartolomeo’. 33  ‘Ordiniamo e vogliamo, per bene e per acrrescimento d’amore, fede e caritade fra tutti li confrati della nostra fraternita, si facci ogni anno, del mese di Novembre, la prima domenica che viene doppo la festa del beato messer sancto Martino, nello nostro luogo, uno mangiare generale, allo quale sieno tenuti venire tutti li maestri e confrati, li quali sono sotto la nostra fraternita e arte’: Mazzarosa, Capitoli riformati nel 1361 (r. 3, p. 198). ‘Anco ordiniamo e voglamo, che questi nostri ordinamenti e capitoli si debbino leggere e manifestare ogni anno una volta, lo die che si fa lo nostro mangiare generale, cioè in questo modo: che quando li maestri saranno posti

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These testimonials confirm that the essential goals of the common meal unquestionably included the strengthening of ties of solidarity and reconciliation among the members of the guild, but at the same time they show that the moments when the guild displayed its greatest cohesion were also those in which there existed a high probability of manifestation of internal conflict. This gives further evidence that, as has been rightly observed, ‘it is precisely the fact that people cannot agree which makes rituals of solidarity necessary’.34

The Guildsmen in the Presence of Death Even more than the annual banquet which brought together all the members of the guild, the death of an artifex was the occasion when the network of solidarity and ties between fellow tradesmen was called to manifest itself, and in an openly public way. A rite of bidding farewell to the deceased, an opportunity to pray for his soul and to celebrate his ‘birth into heaven’, funerals were also an important form of social recognition for the guildsmen.35 Consequently the obligation to attend funerals was a rule established by almost all the Tuscan guilds, which sometimes even set a minimum number of participants.36 In some cases, too, the a taula et lo priore di sancto Bartolomeo arà dato la sua benedictione, sì come è usansa, allora vegna la prima vivanda et investinsi le taule di ciò che bisogna, e avendo così investito lo nostro Camarlingho, o vero una delle guardie, o vero a chi commettesseno, si rechi in mano e pigli li nostri capitoli e ordinamenti, e legali sì altamente e in tal modo che tutti li maestri li possino bene udire e intendere e incorporare, acciò che ogni anno li possino avere a mente, e contra a quelli non fare. E che tutti li maestri che sono quine, per buono costume, debbino mangiare, e stare cheti, e tenere silentio acciò che non impedisca colui che lege, e che ognuno possi meglo intendere; e così lecto, sia licito a ciascuno parlare, cioè di bene e di honore di noi e della nostra fraternita e vietare che quando si mangia niuno non ardisca presentare l’uno all’altro niuna cosa, come per altre volte è stato fatto, acciò che per quello presentare non potesse nascere alcuno scandalo’ (Mazzarosa, Capitoli riformati nel 1361, r. 4, p. 199). ‘Anco ordiniamo e voglamo che quando li maestri ànno così mangiato, che il nostro Camarlingo sia tenuto e debbia avere scripto in uno foglio di carta tutti li nomi di quelli sono allo nostro mangiare, e pigli lo bacinetto e vada a uno a auno, faccendosi da capo della taula, e domandi li danari del nostro mangiare, come è usansa; e quelli maestri debbino dare poco o assai a loro voluntà, come più credeno meritare, acciò questa nostra fraternita si possa mantenere’ (Mazzarosa, Capitoli riformati nel 1361, r. 5, p. 199). ‘Hanco ordiniamo e vogliamo che così mangiato una delle nostre guardie, o vero a chi lo commettesseno, vada allo nostro luogo usato, lo quale è per aringare, e quivi stia ritto e dica qualche buona paraula, come Dio lo amaesterrà’ (Mazzarosa, Capitoli riformati nel 1361, r. 7, p. 200). 34  Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, p. 4. 35  Strocchia, Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence, p. 83. 36  This is the case with the Florentine Doctors and Apothecaries, whose by-laws of 1349

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rulemakers felt the need to express the deeper meaning of this type of regulation and did so with statements that testify yet once more the ambiguity of the guild ethic, constantly wavering between group solidarity and Christian mercy, between the reality of internal relations and the image of these relations that the guild wanted to project to outsiders. Thus, according to the Sienese Bakers, writing in the fifteenth century, participation in funerals represented the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of life and the sign of the benevolence and cohesion operant inside their association.37 For the Grocers (Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli) of Florence, it was the tangible manifestation of the love, affection, and charity which should reign among the artifices;38 while for the Goldsmiths (Orafi) of Pisa, it was above all an act of mercy and the testimonial to essential principles that must be preserved.39 Solidarity and mercy, in any case, were not always practised to the same extent. The natural subjects of the guild regulations were almost exclusively the magistri (masters), and only in some cases did the rules apply to their family members (wives, parents, children) and their co-workers and employees, normally with varying degrees of obligation and engagement requested from the entire membership, which reflected the hierarchies and system of values in force in the corporative world. Thus, in the early fourteenth century, the Locksmiths of Siena established that at the burial of a master locksmith or one of his family members, all his colleagues had to be present, while at the funerals of apprentices or journeymen, only one master per workshop had to attend.40 A rather unusual position in the range of guilds in Tuscany was the strongly ‘egalitarian’ stance taken by the Goldsmiths of Pisa: dictated that at least eighteen people had to be present: ‘Statuto dell’arte dei medici, speziali e merciai del 1349’, ed. by Ciasca (r. 35, ‘D’andare alla sepoltura del morto’, p. 143). 37  ‘Parché per utilità dell’anime nostre, che vedendo alcuno morto consideriamo al nostro fine et impariamo l’esser nostro, parché per l’onore dell’Arte et per segno della benevolenza et unione nostra’: Prunai, ‘Notizie sull’ordinamento interno delle arti senesi’ (doc. 7, p. 414). 38  ‘Quod homines dicte artis habeant et et habere videantur inter se amorem, dilectionem et karitatem’: ‘Statuto dei Pizzicagnoli e Oliandoli (1345)’, ed. by Morandini (r. 101, ‘De honorandi hominibus huius Artis et exequia’, p. 181). 39  ‘Perché una dellopere della misericordia è sepellire i morti et damore e di carita excellente […] et perché noi dicte virtù volendo mantenere’: Corsi, ‘Lo statuto degli orafi di Pisa’ (r. 8, ‘Che ongni orafo debba esser a fare honore a defuncti apartanenti a detta arte’, p. 166). 40  ‘Statuto dell’Arte de’ Chiavari di Siena 1323–1402’, ed. by Banchi and Polidori (chap. 28, ‘Che tutti e’ maestri debbano andare al morto co’ rectori’, p. 256). This rule, dated 1323, was supplemented in 1330 by chap. 1 of the ‘Additions’ for that year (‘De andare alla sipoltura del discepoli’, p. 263).

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if by chance some master or journeymen or relative or mother or wife or sister of a goldsmith should happen to die […], the captains or consuls are required to call together all the goldsmiths and to go honour the deceased and accompany him to his burial themselves, and this must be done for the small and the great, whatever family they belong to.41

Looking beyond the countless variants, in good measure dependent on the different degree of detail in the statutory legislation, the structure of the ritual appeared to hinge on a few essential phases. The first was the partial or total suspension of work, in the entire city or in the area where the dead’s workshop was located, at the news of the funeral of a guildsman, which was normally announced by the guild’s messengers. The Florentine Grocers, who were among the most categorical in this regard, established in 1318 that on the day of a master’s burial, all the members of the arte had to keep their shops closed the same as on Sundays.42 A similar measure was adopted by the Armourers (Corazzai).43 The Used-Cloth and Linen Merchants, meanwhile, felt that the suspended business could resume after the deceased had been buried, but only ad sportellum, that is to say without displaying or offering their merchandise to the public.44 The second phase was the gathering of the artifices, with their rectors in the lead, at the home of the deceased, where the funeral procession would start out. ‘When they have reached the place where the deceased is’, the Bakers (Fornai) of Siena instruct, 41 

‘Se per caso fusse che alchuno maestro o lavorante o parente o madre o donna o sorella di nissuno orafo passasse di questa vita […] che i detti Capitani o Consoli siano tenuti et debbano fare raunare tucti li orafi et vadino a fare honore al dicto defuncto et ordinino fra loro di fare portare decto difunto alla sipoltura et così a parvuli come a grandi per qualunche parentado apartanente’: Corsi, ‘Lo statuto degli orafi di Pisa’, r. 8, ‘Che ongni orafo debba esser a fare honore a defuncti apartanenti a detta arte’, p. 166. 42  ‘E anche siano tenuti tutti e ciascuno artefice de la detta arte e compagnia quello dì, che morisse alcuno de la detta arte e compagnia, tenere le boteghe serate sicome tenghono il die de la domenica’: ‘Statuto degli Oliandoli e dei Pizzicagnoli (1318)’, ed. by Morandini (r. 49, ‘D’andare a’ morti di questa arte’, p. 57). 43  ‘Die qua aliquis ex magistris huius artis moriretur omnes et singuli dicte artis celebrare et custodire debeant toto die apothecas clausas et non laborare’: ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei Corazzai (1321)’, ed. by Camerani Marri (‘De honorandis defuntis hominibus huius artis’, p. 25). 44  ‘Die sepulture alicuius defunti dicte artis nullus debeat reddere vel demostrare aliquos pannos, nec ire per civitatem videndo pannos pro emendo vel vendendo; et hoc intelligatur solum quantum dictus defuntus distulerit sepeliri: post sepulturam talis defunti possit vendere et emere ad sportellum ei ire per civitatem’: ‘Statuto dei Rigattieri (1318)’, ed. by Sartini (r. 32, ‘De festivitatibus celebrandis’, p. 62).

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we want them, one after the other, to arrange themselves seated or standing, and when the dead man is carried out of the house, they should all stand. We do not want them, anywhere, to form little groups and chat, but they must […] remain silent and, if they really want to say something, they should speak in a low voice; and above all no one should laugh or do unseemly things because, otherwise, the others present may make fun of us and laugh at us.45

Their clothes, too, had to be suited to the circumstance, therefore the participants in the ceremony were asked to go to it ‘completely covered, that is to say, wearing stockings and a cloak or cape, and these should be black if they have them, and if not they should wear their least cheerful ones’.46 The concern that is reflected in these deliberations was not to regulate excessive shows of grief or curb the luxuriousness of funerals, specific aims of the sumptuary laws in a great many cities in Tuscany and elsewhere,47 but to propose a model of measured, respectful behaviour towards the deceased which was at the same time irreprehensible in the eyes of those who participated more or less actively in the rite. The third action coincided with the transport of the corpse to the church or cemetery, where there was sometimes a space reserved for the members of the arte. In the regulations of the Innkeepers of Florence, for example, the ‘men of the Guild’ accompanied the coffin, carrying a lighted candle (the consuls and notary carried two) which they then gave to the priest of the church where the burial took place.48 The Sienese Locksmiths, for their part, instructed their members to 45 

‘Quando saranno giunti al luogo dove è il Morto, voliamo che l’uno doppo l’altro s’asset­ tino o a sedere o ritti et, quando si cava il Morto fuor di casa, tutti stiano ritti. Non voliamo che in nessun luogo faccino capannelli et ciarlino, ma debbono […] stare quieti e, se pur vogliono ragionare, parlino basso et soprattutto non si rida, né si facci atti disonesti perché, facendo altrimenti, gli altri circostanti ci sbeffano et ridano di noi’: Prunai, ‘Notizie sull’ordinamento interno delle arti senesi’, doc. 7, p. 415. 46  ‘et in prima vadino tutti coperti, cioè con calze et mantello o cappa et queste sieno negre se l’hanno, se non l’hanno, portino le meno allegre’: Prunai, ‘Notizie sull’ordinamento interno delle arti senesi’, doc. 7, p. 415. 47  For a recent summary of this aspect, see Esposito, ‘La società urbana e la morte’. 48  ‘Ordinato e stabilito è che gli uomini dell’arte sieno tenuti d’andare all’exequie di ciascuno morto dell’arte, se li rectori il comanderanno, o se ’l sapranno o udiranno il banditore, sotto pena di soldi V fiorini piccoli per ciascuno; e che ’l camerlingo dell’arte de’ danari dell’arte comperi per ogni morto dell’arte quattro libre di candele, se tante ne bisogneranno, delle quali ciascuno dell’arte che sarà al morto n’abbia e tenga una accesa in mano presso alla bara, e ciascuno consolo due, e ’l notaio due, e poi l’offerino al prete della Chiesa dove si sotterrasse’: ‘Statuto degli albergatori volgarizzato (1338)’, ed. by Sartini (r. 29, ‘Di dare torchi e candele alla sepoltura degli uomini dell’Arte’, p. 290).

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remain in the church until the Office of the Dead was over and the body buried.49 The statutes of the Compagnia delle Sette Arti in Lucca went beyond the rule requiring participation, stipulating that the association always have ready ‘a coffin and cover or drape and four torches’ to be lent free of charge to anyone who requested them in the event of a member’s death. The company guaranteed payment of burial expenses for those who died in poverty,50 including the rather high cost of lighting,51 a liturgical element and support to devotion that had become indispensable due to its manifold symbolical meanings.52 The artifices’ last obligation was to accompany the family members back to the home of the deceased,53 where the final farewell took place, a task that could however be limited just to the consuls: ‘the officers present’, as formulated by the Masons (Maestri di Pietra) of Siena in 1441, ‘must accompany the relatives back to their home’.54 Sometimes the corporative legislation directly reflect a concern that was being felt more and more in late medieval society: the spiritual well-being of the dead. The biblical injunction to pray for each for the salvation of all was given an original interpretation by the members of the Armourers’ Guild of Florence, at least within the panorama of corporative devotion: within eight days after the burial of the deceased, the guild had a solemn mass said in the church of San Cristoforo, their habitual meeting place, which all the masters and labourers were expected to attend, each one offering a candle for the dead man’s soul; eleven other masses 49  ‘Statuto dell’Arte de’ Chiavari di Siena 1323–1402’, ed. by Banchi and Polidori (chap. 28, ‘Che tutti e’ maestri debbano andare al morto co’ rectori’, p. 256). 50  ‘Anco ordiniamo e vogliamo che questa nostra fraternita abbia sempre una cassa da morti e una coltra, o vero drappo, e quattro doppioni, che se morisse nessuno di quelli delle predicte arte, o di loro famiglia, che quelli doppioni e cassa e coltra o drappo li sia prestato a voluntà di colui lo domandasse per quello defuncto e lo nostro Camarlingo sia tenuto di così prestare […]; e se avenisse che quello defuncto delle nostre arte fusse sì povera persona che non si potesse fare sotterrare, si sotterri alle spese della nostra fraternita più onestamente che si può’: Mazzarosa, Capitoli riformati nel 1361, r. 18, p. 204. 51  See Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, p. 157. 52  Vincent, ‘Fiat lux’, pp. 481–90. 53  The Blacksmiths of Pisa, for instance, in their late fourteenth-century statutes, instruct members to ‘accompagnare l’eredi del dicto defuncto insino alla predicta casa come l’usanza’: ‘Breve artis fabrorum pisane civitatis’ (r. 11, ‘Del modo dello honorare i defuncti delle decte arti’, p. 39). 54  ‘et che gli ufficiali che vi saranno debbano accompagnare i parenti in fino a la casa al tornare’: ‘Breve dell’Arte de’ Maestri di pietra senesi dell’anno mccccxli’, ed. by Milanesi (r. 22, ‘Come si vadi al morto’, p. 115).

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were then organized in eleven other churches. In March of each year, furthermore, a similar cycle of twelve masses was held ‘for the souls of all the dead masters registered in the rolls of the Arte’.55 Once again in Florence, oblations for the souls of their dead companions were offered also by the Woodworkers (Legnaioli) on Saint Stephen’s Day in the church of Santo Stefano near the Ponte Vecchio,56 while the Painters (Pittori), according to a rule adopted in 1395, met together on the feast day of Saint Mary Magdalene ‘to pray devoutly and in silence for all the Christian faithful who have passed on from this life, especially the members of the association who may be in Purgatory’.57

Honouring the Saints The symbolic and ritual values of feasts in late medieval and Renaissance urban society have been studied extensively; in various ways, beginning with methodology, this work can offer useful cues for trying to understand the meaning and mechanisms of these collective representations in the specific context of the world of the guilds.58 In the first place, we have to consider the growing strength of the ideological image of society, and in particular of urban society, as the unity — under the banner of peace, charity, and brotherhood — of all its members in the body of Christ, a unity of which the guild structure viewed itself as one of the most tangible manifestations. Secondly, there was a consciousness on the part of each of the crafts organized in associations — above and beyond its actual weight in terms of political-economic strength and prestige — of playing an autonomous material role and possessing a spiritual value.59 This enhancement of work, expressed 55 

‘pro animabus omnium magistrorum scriptorum in matricula dicte Artis defuntorum’: ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei Corazzai (1321)’, ed. by Camerani Marri, ‘De honorandis defuntis hominibus huius Artis’, pp. 25–26 (p. 26). 56  ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei Legnaioli (1301)’, ed. by Morandini, r. 71, ‘De salarii more ecclesie Sancti Stefani et oblatione’, pp. 49–50. 57  ‘e che tucti quegli che al detto rinouale se ritrouaranno stieno diuotamente con silenzio a pregare Idio per tutti i morti fedeli cristiani passati di questa vita e massimamente per quegli di questa compagnia i quali fussono in Purgatorio, che Idio gli conduca a beni di vita eterna. Amen’: ‘Ordinamenti dell’Arte dei Pittori della città di Firenze (1386)’, ed. by Manzoni, p. 120. 58  For an overview of the problems and a preliminary approach to the bibliography, see at least Les Fêtes urbaines en Italie, ed. by Decroisette and Plaisance; Cardini, ‘Le feste in Toscana’; Casini, ‘Introduzione’; Ventrone, ‘Feste e rituali civici’. 59  See Le Goff, ‘Mestieri leciti e mestieri illeciti’, p. 66.

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within the guilds in their activities of charity and mutual assistance to members, with special attention to funerals, was enacted in a paradigmatic way in the framework of public celebration. As has been rightly pointed out, the custom of suspending work on feast days cannot be explained solely by the precept of keeping a religious event holy, but also by the secular, corporative need to celebrate the sacred value of productive and civic life.60 The statutes, as everyone who is even marginally familiar with this source knows, echoed these concerns specifically by including one or more provisions regulating the observance of the annual holidays month by month, with different arrangements according to their importance. Thus we find in an early fourteenthcentury collection of laws in Siena the distinction between ‘holidays when business has to stop at vespers’, ‘holidays on which no work can be done after one o’clock’, and ‘holidays on which no work can be done at all’.61 Special rules were in force for certain public service activities; for example, according to the statutes of 1386, even during the major holidays the Apothecaries (Speziali) of Arezzo could remain open for part of the day, but without displaying their wares.62 The entire matter, in any case, was subject to frequent modification, due mainly to variations in the calendar and the importance of the saints being honoured. It is precisely when we look at the relations with heavenly protectors that we touch on a central and highly complex question, on which very little has been written, at least as far as the guilds are concerned;63 this is not due to a lack of documentation, but on the contrary to the difficulty of working through material this rich and abundant. In effect, the preambles and invocations at the beginning of the statutes and the lists of holidays or rubrics devoted to the individual protectors produce catalogues that are often quite substantial and have to be 60 

Fiaschini, ‘I paratici in festa’, p. 68. But on this point, see also the observations by Paoli, ‘Il purgatorio degli artigiani’, pp. 193–94 and 197–98. 61  These phrases are the titles of the rubrics numbered 19, 21, and 22 in the ‘Statuto dell’Arte de’ Chiavari di Siena 1323–1402’, ed. by Banchi and Polidori, pp. 250–53. 62  ‘I dì de le Pasque, domeneche Sancte Marie e ongni altra festa a comandamento dei rectori se tenga aperto la mattina in fine a tramezo l’uscio, senza ponere fore cosa niuna, e da terza a vespro se tenga chiuso, potendo vendere a chi vole comperare e può reserrare e a hora di vespro tenere aperto come la mattina, salvo che feste che sono presso a ongni santi sia provisione dei rectori’: Arezzo, Bibl. Città di Arezzo, MS 73, fols 1r–3r (fol. 2v). On this collection, as yet unpublished, see Verani, ‘Gli statuti aretini dell’arte degli speziali’, pp. 1–4. 63  A happy exception is Benvenuti, ‘Tra i Santi delle corporazioni’; Benvenuti, ‘Il sovramondo delle arti fiorentine’. Also worthy of note is the work of Patrizia Castelli on Gubbio: Castelli, ‘I “protettori nostri”’.

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decoded taking various factors into account: the relationship between the patron saints of the guilds and those of the city, the dialectic between local and general cults, the influences of models in the close geographical vicinity, reasons of political opportunity, and demands for prestige, all this in a perspective attentive to changes in situational context. Certainly, it is not wrong to say that one of the motives governing the choice of a heavenly advocate would have been the existence of a sympathetic connection between the traits traditionally attributed to the saint and the guild’s professional profile. This is the case, for instance, of the blacksmith-goldsmith Giles (Eligio) or Aloysius (Alò) for metalworkers, the ecclesiastical judge Ives for judges or notaries, the physicians Cosmas and Damian for apothecaries, the apprentice cobbler Crispin for shoemakers, the Four Crowned Saints, builders of the Temple of Jerusalem, for construction workers, and so on. These patron saints were sometimes shown with the characteristic attributes of the profession they protected — hammer and anvil for Giles, gouge and skiving knife for Crispin — in elegant miniatures inserted into the statute books.64 But this was only one of the options in a multifaceted and changing picture. For Florence, Anna Benvenuti, while taking note of ‘a logic in the choices of intercessors that in large part escapes us’,65 has suggested various keys to interpretation: a guild’s liturgical familiarity with a particular church or chapel whose eponymous saint it then adopted as its own; the desire on the part of the artifices to approach the highest realms of Christian sacredness by appealing directly to Christ, the Virgin Mary, or the apostles (Saint Peter for the Butchers, Saint Matthew for the Bankers, Saint James for the Furriers, Saint Mark for the Used-Cloth and Linen Merchants); the will of the guilds to have their own pantheon match the city’s, in which the traditional devotions were often surpassed or flanked by new cults which arose sometimes out of political or military contingencies. This is the case of Saint Barnabas, whose fortune was linked mainly to the fact that the Florentine victory in the battle of Campaldino was reported on his feast day (11 June 1289); or Saint Anne, for this same reason the patron saint of Florentine communal libertas after the expulsion of the duke of Athens on 26 July 1343. Saint Anne was also the presiding saint over the church of Orsanmichele, the ancient grain market which the commune had just recently turned into the sanctuary of the twenty-one arti of the city. Here every guild had its own pillar on which it had the image of its heavenly protector painted and to whom it paid tribute with offerings on the saint’s feast 64  65 

Castelli, ‘I “protettori nostri”’, pp. 238–41. Benvenuti, ‘Il sovramondo delle arti fiorentine’, p. 115.

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day; but after the church’s dedication to Saint Anne everyone had to celebrate her 26 July feast day by sending their official guild pennant to hang on the pillar all day long.66 These dynamics were common, as far as I have been able to ascertain, also to other towns in Tuscany. In Cortona, for instance, in the arte of Masons and Carpenters, whose statutes were drawn up in 1414, the honour paid to Saint Mark conformed to the attitude of the entire community, which celebrated on the evangelist’s feast day their liberation from occupation by Arezzo, which occurred on 25 April 1261.67 In Siena the Apothecaries chose as their patron saint Peter of Alexandria whose devotion emerged in the wake of the public celebrations linked to the fact that on his feast day (26 November 1403) the government of the Twelve Priors, dominated by the Visconti, was overthrown.68 Analysis of a specific case, that of the guilds of Masons and Carpenters (1387) and of Apothecaries of Arezzo (1386 and 1455), 69 whose earliest legislation, which survived to our day, was drawn up immediately after the city came under Florentine domination (1384), presents the interwoven web of motives I just mentioned. The statutes of the Masons and Carpenters provided for, in order of importance, the solemnities of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, Evangelists, and Roman martyrs. To this core, at that time common to the liturgical books of all of Europe, was added the celebration of certain local saints: the protectors of Arezzo Donatus (7 August) and Laurentinus and Pergentinus (3 June), the martyrs Flora and Lucilla (29 July), the presumed martyr Justin (1 June), and Pope Gregory X (10 January),70 who died in Arezzo in 1276 and was buried in the cathedral there.71 It should also be noted that in the preamble to the statutes of the Masons and Carpenters the invocation of Christ and the Virgin Mary was followed by that of the city’s protectors; and yet, even before Saint Donatus, ‘honour and reverence’ were due to the prince of the patron saints of Florence: the 66 

Benvenuti, ‘Il sovramondo delle arti fiorentine’, pp. 112–18. Brunacci, ‘Tre questioni corporative medioevali’, p. 35 n. 1. 68  Cecchini and Prunai, ‘Introduzione’, p. xlv. 69  For the Masons and Carpenters, see Del Vita, Gli statuti medioevali aretini; for the Apothecaries: Arezzo, Bibl. Città di Arezzo, MS 73, fols 32r–40v. 70  Del Vita, Gli statuti medioevali aretini, r. 31, pp. 23–26. On the origins and characteristics of the veneration of these saints, see Licciardello, Agiografia aretina altomedievale. 71  On the veneration of Gregory X in Arezzo (as well as the life of the pope and the monument dedicated to him), see Scarabicchi, ‘Il monumento di papa Gregorio X’, pp. 3–6, a summary of a more extensive study yet to be published. 67 

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same Saint John whose presence was the mark of the city’s political subjection, in force also in the sphere of the sacred.72 The feast days of Saint John the Baptist once again, Saint Donatus (on which the highest punishment was levied against transgressors to the obligation to close shops), the apostles, solemnities of Christ (Christmas, Easter including Good Friday, the Ascension) and of the Virgin Mary (Annunciation, Assumption, Birth), represented the salient moments of the calendar that can be deduced from the statutes of the Apothecaries, especially the 1455 version, which devotes greater attention to these aspects. A common trait of the guild legislation examined for this study is the increasing weight of devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary. This was an element that characterized the religious feeling of the entire community of Arezzo73 (besides the general evolution of late medieval religiosity),74 and at the same time is evidence of the papacy’s desire for centralization, which reduced the space for local saints, reflecting awareness of the degree to which these represented particularistic interests and identities.

Feast Day, Procession, Offering Before concluding, I would like to return briefly to the ritual value of the feast in the world of the guilds. As Antonio Ivan Pini has written, it can be said that there is no guild statute which does not decree participation in some solemn procession, with the accessory dispositions concerning the wax candles to be brought and offered, the banners to be unfurled, and the more or less substantial fines to be levied on anyone who refused to take part in the ceremonies.75

The statutes of the Florentine Used-Cloth Merchants of 1296 specify that on the eve of the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the rectors had to gather together all their members, make sure that each one had a wax candle costing at least 12 denari, and have them march to the Baptistery carrying the banner of the arte unfurled, as was the custom also with the other guilds.76 In that same period, the 72 

Del Vita, Gli statuti medioevali aretini, p. 8. See Licciardello, ‘Culto dei santi e vita cittadina ad Arezzo’, pp. 450–51; Mater Christi, ed. by Maetzke. 74  The phenomenon is well known; in any case, see Koehler, ‘Marie (Sainte Vierge)’, cols 450–59; Cattaneo, Il culto cristiano in Occidente, pp. 265–70; Marie, ed. by Iogna-Prat, Palazzo, and Russo. 75  Ivan Pini, ‘Le arti in processione’, p. 264. 76  ‘Statutum et ordinatum est, ad honorem Dei et beati Iohannis Baptiste, patronis et defensoris comunis Florentie, quod annuatim de mense iunii, in vigilia ipsius beati Iohannis, rectores 73 

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Cloth Retailers (Ritagliatori) of Pistoia exhorted its members on the Feast of the Assumption to give a wax candle to the priest of the church of Santa Maria, who had to use it exclusively, as long as it lasted, to illuminate the Body of Christ in the most solemn moment of the Mass, the Elevation of the Host,77 while the tribute to be paid to the patron saint of the guild, the same Saint James who was also protector of the city, was a banner (palio).78 Other arti, such as the Grocers’ Guild and the Wine-Sellers’ Guild (Vinattieri), offered oil for votive lamps.79 The Masons of Siena, rewriting their statutes in 1441, established that on the eve of the feast of their patron — in this case the Four Crowned Saints — the rectors had to send the messenger to advise all the members to be present the next morning in front of the Mercanzia building ‘holding their candles’; the procession would then set out from there and end at the Cathedral with Mass and their offering.80 The ceremony, following a tradition that dated from the preceding century and is testified in a document of 1368, called for the gift of a ‘flowery’ candle worth one hundred soldi to the guild’s chapel, the heart of the association’s sacred life, still under construction at the time: huius artis […] omnes homines qui iuraverint ad hanc artem faciant adunari; quibus coadunatis, teneantur ipsi rectores et homines […] ire et offerre ad ecclesiam ipsius beati Iohannis, vexillo huius artis precedente extenso, prout moris est et prout faciunt et observant alie artes civitatis Florentie’: ‘Statuto dei Rigattieri (1296)’, ed. by Sartini, ‘De oblatione faciendo in vigilia beati Johannis Baptiste’, pp. 22–23. For a recent synthesis of the Florentine celebrations for the feast of Saint John the Baptist and the ways they have changed, see Ventrone, ‘La festa di San Giovanni’. 77  On the meaning of this offering, see Bacci, Investimenti per l’aldilà, p. 16. 78  ‘ordinamus et statuimus quod consules dicte Artis teneantur una cum hominibus dicte artis offerre vel offerri facere unum torchium de cera trium libbrarum in mane festivitatis beate Marie medij augusti in ecclesia sancte Marie presbyteri Anselmi ad altare. Qui presbiter teneatur continue donec duraverit alluminare cum ipso corpus Domini nostri Ihesus Christi qui elevabitur in dicta ecclesia. Et in vigilia beati sancti Iacobi apostuli ad altare suum in ecclesia majore Pistorii, unum palium soldorum xl denariorum’: Altieri, ‘Lo statuto dell’Arte del Ritaglio’, ‘De oblatione fienda de quodam torchio et de quodam palio in certis locis et alijs rubrica’, p. 132. On the feast of Saint James, see Gai, Le feste patronali di S. Jacopo e il palio a Pistoia; Chrétien, The Festival of San Giovanni, chap. 5, pp. 101–30. 79  ‘Statuto degli Oliandoli e dei Pizzicagnoli (1318)’, ed. by Morandini, r. 28, ‘Di dare l’olio a la chiesa di Santa Maria Ughi, o ad altro luogo’, p. 32; ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei vinattieri (1339)’, ed. by Morandini, r. 46, ‘Ch’e’ chonsoli della detta Arte possano spendere ogn’anno per Santo Martino soldi XV’, pp. 110–11. 80  ‘Breve dell’Arte de’ Maestri di pietra senesi dell’anno mccccxli’, ed. by Milanesi, r. 13, ‘Come si faccia la festa dei santi quattro Martiri’, pp. 110–11, quotation on p. 110. See also Balestracci, ‘Introduzione’, p. xx.

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this wax that is offered may and should reach the Opera di Santa Maria, into the hands of the Operaio (head) in office at that moment, and he should be held to utilize this offering in the construction of this chapel, until it is completely finished.81

Once again it is the Sienese documentation, and in particular the statutes of the Wool Guild (Arte della Lana) of 1366–67, that enable us to enter into the dynamics of the feast days with a depth of detail usually unknown in the statutory sources of Tuscan cities.82 The occasion is the celebration of the solemnity of Corpus Domini, which from the fourteenth century became increasingly important all over Europe83 and in Siena was held under the aegis of the Wool Guild, the most powerful in the city. The festivities, in which the Carmelites took active part, began with the Office of Vespers the evening before, in the square in front of the guild headquarters, Piazza San Pellegrino, which was embellished for the occasion with decorations made of cane and textiles produced by the Sienese wool merchants. The next day, after Mass and consecration of the Host in the church of San Niccolò al Carmine, ‘the tabernacle in which the Body of Christ is carried’, placed on a wooden stretcher and protected by a canopy, was borne ‘through the whole city’, accompanied, to the sound of trumpets, bagpipes, and shawms, by the consuls, notary, treasurer, and thirty of the senior members of the association, each one carrying a torch (doppiere) decorated with the guild symbol. The centre of the festivities then returned to Piazza San Pellegrino, where another Mass was celebrated in front of the church. A temporary altar was set up for the occasion, which the Wool Guild adorned with a borrowed altarpiece.84 In 1423, however, judging this practice to be not very decorous, the arte commissioned Stefano di Giovanni, known as Sassetta, to paint ‘a permanent and venerable ornament for the patron feast of the woolworkers’.85

81 

‘In prima che tutti i Maestri de la pietra, debbano venire la mattina de la detta festa, cioè de’ sancti Quattro, a offerire uno cero per uno a la detta cappella; e uno cero fiorito di valuta di cietto soldi: la quale cera offerta, pervengha e pervenir debba a l’opera sancte Marie, a le mani del detto operaio, che per li tempi sarà: la quale offerta sia tenuto, e debba spendare e convertire nell’acconcio de la detta cappella, infino che sia perfettamente compita’: ‘Documenti dell’arte senese’, ed. by Milanesi, doc. 68, p. 266. 82  The documentation has been transcribed and analysed in Israëls, ‘Sassetta’s Arte della Lana Altar-Piece’; and Israëls, ‘Altars on the Street’, pp. 180–200. 83  On this trend, common to all of Christendom, see Rubin, Corpus Christi. 84  Israëls, ‘Sassetta’s Arte della Lana Altar-Piece’, doc. 1, p. 542. 85  Israëls, ‘Altars on the Street’, p. 196.

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Naturally, the examples could go on, but even with just these few citations it is easy to understand how, in the world of the guilds, the feast tended preferably to take the form of the procession, that is to say ‘an especially powerful mechanism for bringing the sacred to the laity’.86 Moreover, it was invariably a procession bearing gifts, that is, a practice conceived both as a demonstration of social solidarity and as an expression of the value of the labour whose fruits made it possible. A symbolic, collective action, the procession was considered by the arti to be also the best way to gain social visibility and build up their image. By marching together, the artifices celebrated the unity of their group, established ‘a unique public identity for the organization’, and promoted the dignity of their association, contributing to strengthening its status within the community.87 But not even during this manifestation could the drives towards unity eliminate completely the potential elements of division: one line of demarcation passed right between the guild members allowed to take part in the rite and those who were excluded; another became evident when it was the entire guild community that paraded, as in the case of the ceremonies honouring the patron saints of the city. If it is true that the procession of the arti, distinct members who were nevertheless joined together in the body of Christian society, represented the perfect metaphor of a pacified collectivity,88 it is equally true that this very coexistence could generate feelings of competition and tension. Thus, in Florence the most powerful guilds, who could not bear the idea of the lesser associations marching alongside them with their rectors and their banners, obtained in 1306 a radical reform of the organization of the procession planned for the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.89 In Pisa, meanwhile, the ‘dispute and argument’ which arose among the city’s guilds in 1512 was sparked by the Blacksmiths, who did not want to accept the position assigned to them in the procession in honour of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.90 Above and beyond the cases in which the conflicts were openly manifested, the guild processions contained within themselves something intrinsically ‘divisive’, 86 

Muir, ‘The Eye of the Procession’, pp. 131–32. Here I have adapted to the Tuscan corporations Benjamin R. McRee’s observations on the religious guilds of English cities in: McRee, ‘Unity or Division?’, p. 192. 88  See the observations of Bernardi, ‘I paratici in processione’, pp. 54–55. 89  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 219. 90  Simonetti, L’arte dei fabbri in Pisa, p. 24; and p. 68, doc. 3: ‘Attento et considerato quod inter artes civitatis Pisarum de modo procedendi et maxime fuit et est lix et questio’. 87 

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since, as Benjamin McRee has written, ‘they emphasized not the wholeness of the community, but its division into separate, semiautonomous subgroups’.91 In this sense, they reflected fully the underlying nature of the arti, organisms whose strong identity was forged not only thanks to a series of ritual strategies of internal reinforcement, but also through affirmation of the specific traits that distinguished them from other social groups.92

91  92 

McRee, ‘Unity or Division?’, p. 195. This aspect has been well highlighted by Rosser, ‘Communities of Parish and Guild’, p. 35.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Arezzo, Biblioteca Città di Arezzo, MS 73

Primary Sources Altieri, Ezelinda, ‘Statuti delle arti dei sarti, della seta e degli orefici a Pistoia nel sec. xiv’, Bullettino storico pistoiese, 3rd ser., 73 (1971), 131–40 —— , ‘Lo statuto dell’Arte del Ritaglio a Pistoia (sec. xiv)’, Bullettino storico pistoiese, 3rd ser., 72 (1970), 121–36 ‘Breve artis fabrorum pisane civitatis’, in Giorgio Simonetti, L’arte dei fabbri in Pisa: statuto del secolo xiv (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1894), pp. 23–63 Breve degli speziali (1356–1542), ed. by Giovanni Cecchini and Giulio Prunai (Siena: Reale Accademia degli Intronati, 1942) ‘Breve dell’Arte de’ Maestri di pietra senesi dell’anno mccccxli’, in Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, ed. by Gaetano Milanesi, 3 vols (Siena: Porri, 1854–56), i: Secoli xiii e xiv (1854), pp. 105–35 ‘Breve dell’Arte dei pittori senesi dell’anno mccclv’, in Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, ed. by Gaetano Milanesi, 3 vols (Siena: Porri, 1854–56), i: Secoli xiii e xiv (1854), pp. 1–56 Corsi, Domenico, ‘Lo statuto degli orafi di Pisa del 1448’, Bollettino storico pisano, 3rd ser., 19 (1950), 148–67 Del Vita, Alessandro, Gli statuti medioevali aretini dell’Arte dei maestri di pietra e di legname (Arezzo: Vasari, 1930) ‘Documenti dell’arte senese’, in Documenti per la storia dell’arte senese, ed. by Gaetano Milanesi, 3 vols (Siena: Porri, 1854–56), i: Secoli xiii e xiv (1854), pp. 137–386 Mazzarosa, Antonio, Capitoli riformati nel 1361 della corporazione di S. Bartolomeo in Silice delle Sette Arti, in Antonio Mazzarosa, Opere, 5 vols (Lucca: Giusti, 1841–86), v, 197–206 ‘Ordinamenti dell’Arte dei Pittori della città di Firenze (1386)’, in Statuti e matricole dell’Arte dei pittori delle città di Firenze, Perugia, Siena nei testi originali del secolo xiv, ed. by Luigi Manzoni (Roma: Loescher, 1904), pp. 117–20 ‘Riforme (1321–1533)’, in Statuti dell’ Arte della Lana di Prato (secoli xiv–xviii), ed. by Renato Piattoli and Ruggero Nuti (Firenze: Giuntina, 1947), pp. 57–153 Simonetti, Giorgio, L’arte dei fabbri in Pisa: statuto del secolo xiv (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1894) ‘Statuta iudicum et notariorum lucensis civitatis 1483’, in Statuti e matricole del collegio dei Giudici e Notai della città di Lucca 1434, 1483, 1541, ed. by Antonio Romiti and Giorgio Tori (Roma: Centro di ricerca, 1978), pp. 57–94 ‘Statuti dell’Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai (1386)’, in Statuti delle Arti dei Correggiai, Tavolacciai e Scudai, dei Vaiai e Pellicciai di Firenze (1338–1386), ed. by Giulia Camerani Marri (Firenze: Olschki, 1960), pp. 65–120

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‘Statuto degli albergatori volgarizzato (1338)’, in Statuti dell’Arte degli albergatori della città e contado di Firenze (1324–1342), ed. by Ferdinando Sartini (Firenze: Olschki, 1953), pp. 257–322 ‘Statuto degli Oliandoli e dei Pizzicagnoli (1318)’, in Statuti delle Arti degli Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli e dei Beccai di Firenze (1318–1346), ed. by Francesca Morandini (Firenze: Olschki, 1961), pp. 1–78 ‘Statuto dei Pizzicagnoli e Oliandoli (1345)’, in Statuti delle Arti degli Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli e dei Beccai di Firenze (1318–1346), ed. by Francesca Morandini (Firenze: Olschki, 1961), pp. 79–191 ‘Statuto dei Rigattieri (1296)’, in Statuti dell’Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1296–1340), ed. by Ferdinando Sartini (Firenze: Monnier, 1940), pp. 1–38 ‘Statuto dei Rigattieri (1318)’, in Statuti dell’Arte dei Rigattieri e Linaioli di Firenze (1296–1340), ed. by Ferdinando Sartini (Firenze: Monnier, 1940), pp. 39–90 ‘Statuto dell’Arte de’ Chiavari di Siena 1323–1402’, in Statuti senesi scritti in volgare ne’ secoli xiii e xiv, ed. by Luciano Banchi and Filippo L. Polidori, 3 vols (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1863–77), ii (1871), 229–70 ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei Corazzai (1321)’, in Statuti delle Arti dei Corazzai, dei chiavaioli, ferraioli e calderai e dei fabbri di Firenze, 1321–1344, ed. by Giulia Camerani Marri (Firenze: Olschki, 1957), pp. 7–38 ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei Legnaioli (1301)’, in Statuti dell’Arte dei Legnaioli di Firenze (1301–1346), ed. by Francesca Morandini (Firenze: Olschki, 1958), pp. 1–60 ‘Statuto dell’arte dei medici, speziali e merciai del 1349’, in Statuti dell’arte dei medici e speziali, ed. by Raffaele Ciasca (Firenze: Olschki, 1922), pp. 85–201 Statuto dell’Arte dei muratori (1626), ed. by Duccio Balestracci (Siena: Arteditoria Periccioli, 1976) ‘Statuto dell’Arte dei vinattieri (1339)’, in Statuti delle Arti dei fornai e dei vinattieri di Firenze (1337–1339) con appendice di documenti relativi alle Arti dei farsettai e dei tintori (1378–79), ed. by Francesca Morandini (Firenze: Olschki, 1956), pp. 47–172 ‘Statuto dell’Università ed Arte dei Carnajuoli della città di Siena (1288–1361)’, in Statuti senesi scritti in volgare ne’ secoli xiii e xiv, ed. by Luciano Banchi and Filippo L. Polidori, 3 vols (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1863–77), i (1863), 67–125

Secondary Studies Bacci, Michele, Investimenti per l’aldilà: arte e raccomandazione dell’anima nel Medioevo (Roma: Laterza, 2003) Balestracci, Duccio, ‘Introduzione’, in Statuto dell’Arte dei muratori (1626), ed. by Duccio Balestracci (Siena: Arteditoria Periccioli, 1976), pp. v–xxx Benvenuti, Anna, ‘Il sovramondo delle arti fiorentine: tra i santi delle corporazioni’, in Arti fiorentine: la grande storia dell’Artigianato, ed. by Gloria Fossi and others, 6 vols (Firenze: Giunti, 1998–2003), i: Il Medioevo (1998), pp. 103–27 —— , ‘Tra i Santi delle corporazioni: San Pietro e i Beccai’, in Il restauro della statua di San Pietro patrono dell’Arte dei Beccai, ed. by Anna Maria Giusti, Luciano Bellosi, and Anna Benvenuti (Firenze: Accademia della Fiorentina, 1993), pp. 41–75

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Bernardi, Claudio, ‘I paratici in processione’, in Le corporazioni milanesi e Sant’Ambrogio nel Medioevo, ed. by Annamaria Ambrosioni (Milano: Silvana, 1997), pp. 53–56 Black, Antony, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (London: Methuen, 1984) Bossy, John, Christianity in the West (1400–1700) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) Brunacci, Gilberto, ‘Tre questioni corporative medioevali dagli statuti dei lapicidi di Cortona (1414) e di Arezzo (1387)’, Annuario dell’Accademia etrusca di Cortona, 1 (1934), 5–66 Cardini, Franco, ‘Le feste in Toscana tra medioevo ed età moderna’, in Franco Cardini, Le mura di Firenze inargentate: letture fiorentine (Palermo: Sellerio, 1993), pp. 295–308 Casini, Matteo, ‘Introduzione’, in Matteo Casini, I gesti del principe: la festa politica a Firenze e Venezia in età rinascimentale (Venezia: Marsilio, 1996), pp. 19–26 Castelli, Patrizia, ‘I “protettori nostri”: santi e università delle arti a Gubbio’, in Itinerarium: università, corporazioni e mutualismo ottocentesco, ed. by Enrico Menestò and Giancarlo Pellegrini (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), pp. 235–58 Cattaneo, Enrico, Il culto cristiano in Occidente: note storiche, 2nd edn (Roma: C. L. V. Edizioni liturgiche, 1992) Cecchini, Giovanni, and Giulio Prunai, ‘Introduzione’, in Breve degli speziali (1356–1542), ed. by Giovanni Cecchini and Giolio Prunai, Statuti volgari senesi, 1 (Siena: Reale Accademia degli Intronati, 1942), pp. v–liii Chrétien, Heidi L., The Festival of San Giovanni: Imagery and Politcal Power in Renaissance Florence (New York: Lang, 1994) Davidsohn, Robert, Storia di Firenze, trans. by Giovanni Battista Klein and Eugenio Dupré-Theseider, rev. by Roberto Palmarocchi, 8 vols (Firenze: Sansoni, 1956–68) Decroisette, François, and Michel Plaisance, eds, Les Fêtes urbaines en Italie à l’époque de la Renaissance: Vérone, Florence, Sienne, Naples (Paris: Klincksieck, 1993) Degrassi, Donata, L’economia artigiana nell’Italia medievale (Roma: Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1998) Doren, Alfred, Le arti fiorentine, trans. by Giovanni Battista Klein, 2 vols (Firenze: Monnier, 1940) Esposito, Anna, ‘La società urbana e la morte: le leggi suntuarie’, in La morte e i suoi riti in Italia fra Medioevo e prima età moderna, ed. by Francesco Salvestrini, Gian Maria Varanini, and Anna Zangarini (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2007), pp. 97–130 Fiaschini, Fabrizio, ‘I paratici in festa’, in Le corporazioni milanesi e Sant’Ambrogio nel Medioevo, ed. by Annamaria Ambrosioni (Milano: Silvana, 1997), pp. 57–92 Frigo, Daniela, ‘Continuità, innovazioni e riforme nelle corporazioni italiane tra Sei e Settecento’, in Corpi, ‘fraternità’, mestieri nella storia della società europea, ed. by Danilo Zardin (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), pp. 187–212 Gai, Lucia, Le feste patronali di S. Jacopo e il palio a Pistoia (Pistoia: Società pistoiese di storia patria, 1987) Goldthwaite, Richard A., The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)

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Greci, Roberto, ‘Economia, religiosità, politica: le solidarietà delle corporazioni medievali nell’Italia del Nord’, in Cofradías, gremios, solidaridades en la Europa Medieval: Estella, 20 a 24 de julio de 1992, ed. by Ángel Sesma Muñoz and others (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra-Departamento de Educación y Cultura, 1993), pp. 75–99 Guenzi, Alberto, and Paola Massa, ‘Introduzione’, in Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, ed. by Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli (Milano: Angeli, 1999), pp. 9–28 Guenzi, Alberti, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli,eds, Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna (Milano: Angeli, 1999) Henderson, John, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) Iogna-Prat, Dominique, Éric Palazzo, and Daniel Russo, eds, Marie: le culte de la Vierge dans la société médiévale (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996) Israëls, Machtelt, ‘Altars on the Street: The Wool Guild, the Carmelites and the Feast of Corpus Domini in Siena 1356–1456’, in Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena, ed. by Philippa Jackson and Fabrizio Nevola (= Renaissance Studies, 20 (2006)), pp. 180–200 —— , ‘Sassetta’s Arte della Lana Altar-Piece and the Cult of Corpus Domini in Siena’, Burlington Magazine, 1182 (2001), 532–43 Ivan Pini, Antonio, ‘Le arti in processione: professioni, prestigio e potere nelle città-stato dell’Italia padana medievale’, in Città, comuni e corporazioni nel medioevo italiano, ed. by Antonio Ivan Pini (Bologna: Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice Bologna, 1986), pp. 259–91 Koehler, Theodore, ‘Marie (Sainte Vierge): du Moyen Âge aux temps modernes’, in Dic­tionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique: doctrine et histoire, 17 vols (Paris: Beauchesne, 1937–95), x (1980), cols 440–59 Lazzareschi, Emilio, ‘Fonti d’archivio per lo studio delle corporazioni artigiane di Lucca’, Bollettino storico lucchese, 9 (1937), 65–81 Le Goff, Jacques, ‘Mestieri leciti e mestieri illeciti nell’Occidente medievale’, in Jacques Le Goff, Tempo della chiesa e tempo del mercante: e altri saggi sul lavoro e la cultura nel Medioevo, trans. by. Mariolina Romano (Torino: Einaudi, 1977), pp. 53–71 Licciardello, Pierluigi, Agiografia aretina altomedievale: testi agiografici e contesti socioculturali ad Arezzo tra vi e xi secolo (Firenze: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2005) —— , ‘Culto dei santi e vita cittadina ad Arezzo in età comunale’, Archivio storico italiano, 156 (2008), 425–51 Maetzke, Anna Maria, ed., Mater Christi: Altissime testimonianze del culto della Vergine nel territorio aretino (Milano: Silvana, 1996) Mascilli Migliorini, Luigi, ‘Confraternite e corporazioni a Napoli: devozione religiosa e tutela del mestiere’, in Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, ed. by Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli (Milano: Angeli, 1999), pp. 575–88 McRee, Benjamin R., ‘Unity or Division? The Social Meaning of Guild Ceremony in Urban Communities’, in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. by Barbara Hanawalt and Kathryn  L. Reyerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 189–207

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Muir, Edward, ‘The Eye of the Procession: Ritual Ways of Seeing in the Renaissance’, in Ceremonial Culture in Pre-Modern Europe, ed. by Nicholas Howe (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp. 129–53 —— , Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Oexle, Otto Gerhard, ‘Gilda’, in Dizionario dell’Occidente medievale: temi e percorsi, ed. by Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt, trans. by Giuseppe Sergi, 2 vols (Torino: Einaudi, 2003–04), i: Aldilà-lavoro (2003), pp. 463–76 —— , ‘Gilden als soziale Gruppen in der Karolingerzeit’, in Das Handwerk in vor-und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit: Bericht über die Kolloquien der Kommission für die Altertumskunde Mittel- und Nordeuropas in den Jahren 1977 bis 1980, ed. by Herbert Jankuhn, 2 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981–83), i (1981), 284–354 —— , ‘Die mittelalterlichen Gilden: ihre Selbstdeutung und ihr Beitrag zur Formung sozialer Strukturen’, in Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittelalters, ed. by Albert Zimmermann (Berlin: Gruyter, 1979), pp. 203–26 Paoli, Emore, ‘Il purgatorio degli artigiani: le corporazioni medievali di Todi tra economia, politica, religiosità e devozione’, in Itinerarium: università, corporazioni e mutualismo ottocentesco: fonti e percorsi storici, ed. by Enrico Menestò and Giancarlo Pellegrini (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), pp. 159–202 Paoli, Marco and Francesca Ulivieri, ‘La compagnia di S. Bartolomeo in Silice o delle sette arti: capitoli e costituzioni’, Actum luce, 71 (1978), 95–113 Prodi, Paolo, Il sacramento del potere: il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna: Mulino, 1992) Prunai, Giulio, ‘Notizie sull’ordinamento interno delle arti senesi’, Bullettino senese di storia patria, 41 (1934), 365–420 Raveggi, Leonardo, and Lorenzo Tanzini, eds, Bibliografia delle edizioni di statuti toscani (secoli xii–metà xvi) (Firenze: Olschki, 2001) Rosser, Gervase, ‘Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages’, in Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion, 1350–1750, ed. by Susan J. Wright (London: Hutchinson, 1988), pp. 30–55 —— , ‘Going to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social Relations in Late Medieval England’, Journal of British Studies, 33 (1994), 430–46 Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Scarabicchi, Susanna, ‘Il monumento di papa Gregorio X nella cattedrale di Arezzo’, Notizie di storia, 4 (2002), no. 7, pp. 3–6 Spicciani, Amleto, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza per gli artigiani nell’Italia medioevale’, in Artigiani e salariati: il mondo del lavoro nell’Italia dei secoli xii–xv (Pistoia: Centro italiano di studi di storia e d’arte, 1984), pp. 293–343 Strocchia, Sharon T., Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) Trexler, Richard C., Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980) Ventrone, Paola, ‘La festa di San Giovanni: costruzione di un’identità civica fra rituale e spettacolo (secoli xiv–xvi)’, Annali di storia di Firenze, 2 (2007), 49–76; available

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online [accessed 1 September 2012] —— , ‘Feste e rituali civici: città italiane a confronto’, in Aspetti e componenti dell’identità urbana in Italia e in Germania (secoli xiv–xvi), ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Peter Johanek (Bologna: Mulino, 2003), pp. 155–91 Verani, Cesare, ‘Gli statuti aretini dell’arte degli speziali’, Il farmacista, 5 (1951), no. 11, pp. 1–4 Vincent, Catherine, ‘Fiat lux’: lumière et luminaires dans la vie religieuse du xiiie au xvie siècle (Paris: Cerf, 2004)

The Rhetoric of Power in Renaissance Florence* Fabrizio Ricciardelli

I

n the century following the Black Death of 1348 the Republic of Florence added a number of independent Tuscan city-states to its territory. The creation of the Florentine territorial state was based on an efficacious and com-

*  Earlier versions of parts of this essay were read at Georgetown University, Washington

DC, the Georgetown University Department of History and the Medieval Studies Program, 2007, Fall Faculty Seminar Series Presentation (10 December 2007), at the annual conference of the Renaissance Society of America in Chicago (3 April 2008), and at the Institute of Historical Research in London (3 July 2008). I wish to thank Tommaso Astarita, Samuel Cohn Jr, and Sarah Elizabeth Cree, who were extremely generous in their efforts to sharpen both the article and my thinking on Renaissance political propaganda. Fabrizio Ricciardelli ([email protected]) earned his undergraduate degree in medieval history at the Università di Firenze and his PhD at the University of Warwick in England. Between 2004 and 2012, he was Professor of Renaissance history at Georgetown University at Villa Le Balze. Between 2010 and 2012 he was Academic Director of the Georgetown University program at Villa Le Balze, and in 2010 he became chair of the scientific committee, Villa Le Balze Studies. In 2012 he was appointed Director of the Kent State University program in Florence where he teaches Italian and European Renaissance history. His research focuses on Italian city-states, when they were strikingly unusual features of the social landscape of late medieval Europe, distinguished by the sophistication of their economic activities, by the forms of government they adopted, by the richness of their cultural life, and by their singular social structure. He has published several articles on late medieval and Renaissance history in such journals as Argomenti storici, Archivio storico italiano, Annali aretini, Reti medievali, and others. He is the author of The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Florence (Brepols: Turnhout, 2007), and has edited I luoghi del sacro: il sacro e la città tra Medioevo ed Età moderna (Firenze: Pagliai, 2008). Fabrizio Ricciardelli has now embarked upon the study of the relationship between emotions and passions as forms of political persuasion in communal Italy. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 93–117 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100769

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plex system of political propaganda. The strong civic identity of these formerly independent republics was crafted by the policies of persuasion developed by the Florentine republic: gestures, words, and rites imposed by the dominant city were now crucial features with which subject citizens could identify. The Florentine state subjected a greatly expanded territory (territorium) to Florentine laws and dominion, creating a much more complicated political system than the one existing before the Black Death. Each of the newly subjected city-communities had to pay taxes to the dominant city, to accept officials — vicars, podestàs, and captains — selected from Florence’s wealthiest families, to surrender their castles and properties in the contado to Florentine control, and to pledge to the Florentine state not to reinforce their own civic identity at the expense of identity and loyalty to the Florentine republic. This paper analyses the ritual forms of politics grouped around the so-called Florentina libertas, pax florentina, Florentina superioritas, and Florentina potentia, the dominant city’s four main slogans and myths that placed Florentine republicanism at the pinnacle of governmental systems, exalting popular sovereignty as a gift to newly subjugated cities and territories, shaping a political strategy that supposedly guaranteed every community newly absorbed into the Florentine state an ideology of freedom and liberty.1 This essay does not present Florentine republicanism as an outpost of liberty and proto-democracy. The idea of freedom propagated by Florence throughout the Renaissance was something reserved to the few; it was a slogan created on the one hand for all those who lived inside the city walls, and on the other for all those who lived outside its borders. It was an effective form of communication intended to obtain political consensus from within and without, from all those who lived in the city and all who lived in its territory. The Republic of Florence promoted the idea of its political freedom and social peace through reconsideration of the idea of civitas, according to which its community, as an earthly representation of the City of God, or the New Jerusalem, tested its moral fibre 1 

For the historiography on this topic, see Turner, The Ritual Process, especially chap. 3, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, pp. 94–130; Firth, Symbols: Public and Private; Schmitt, ‘Riti’. On the relationship between political propaganda and political power, see Le forme della propaganda politica, ed. by Cammarosano; Simbolo e realtà della vita urbana, ed. by Miglio and Lombardi; Riti e rituali nelle società medievali, ed. by Chiffoleau, Martines, and Paravicini Bagliani; and Ricciardelli, ‘Propaganda politica e rituali urbani’. On public ceremonies as forms of political propaganda, see Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence; on the relation between power and spectacles (and their effects on urban communities), see Zorzi, Il teatro e la città; Ventrone, ‘Le forme dello spettacolo toscano’; and Cardini, Il libro delle feste. For a European comparison on the same theme, see Bryant, ‘Configurations of the Community in Late Medieval Spectacles’.

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and learned to subordinate selfishness and pride to the so-called common good (bonum commune), earning heavenly salvation as a reward. The power of the city and its state was not vested in a political system which guaranteed equality and participation. Government was conducted by a restricted oligarchy — ‘a sovereign secular state led by an aristocracy of virtue’, as has recently been written 2 — reinforced by proclaiming itself the defender of republican freedom, that is to say by creating slogans aimed at securing internal political consensus and the subjugation of neighbours.3 The policies which led to the conquest of the Florentine territory in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were never based on parameters of violence. Through a skilled use of rhetoric, the Florentine republic started to build its model as a dominant city (dominatrix) by referring to itself as a powerful government able to control the surrounding territory, even while respecting local identities and the rules written in their statutes.4 Before its role of territorial political power was commonly accepted by the majority of Tuscan cities, the Florentine republic had developed a language defining it as a dominant city of a territory; in the Florentine statutes it is written that the most important Florentine magistracies were nominated both for the city and the territory. The Captain of the People, that is to say the head of the commune led by the popolo, was in fact elected as a ‘peacemaker for the city and the territory’;5 the podestà, the professional administrator brought into the city-state from another urban community for a limited term of office, was appointed as the defender of the ‘people of the city and the territory’.6

2 

Hankins, ‘Introduction’, p. 12. According to Philippe Buc, the acts of submission or commendation are considerable among ‘the practices that historians have labelled ritual’: Buc, The Dangers of Ritual, p. 5. On rituals and institutions, see Les Tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge, ed. by Schmitt and Oexle, pp. 231–81. On visual symbols of republican power and the quest for ‘heavenly salvation’ for the citizens of the commune, see Edgerton, ‘Icons of Justice’, pp. 24–25. On the creation of the Florentine state between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, see Florentine Tuscany, ed. by Connell and Zorzi, followed by the Italian edition Lo stato territoriale fiorentino, ed. by Zorzi and Connell; on the creation of Florentine hegemony over the Tuscan territory, see Pirillo, Creare comunità, pp. 163–79. 4  Ricciardelli, ‘La città comunale italiana’. 5  ‘conservator pacis civitatis et districtus’: ‘Statuto del capitano del popolo 1322–25’, ed. by Caggese, p. 7. 6  ‘homines et personas civitatis et districtus’: ‘Statuto del Podestà 1325’, ed. by Caggese, p. 8. 3 

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The Florentine statutes reveal that in the first half of the fourteenth century the viewpoints of Florentine political power were projected not just onto the city, but on both the city and its surrounding area. In the second half of that century, the idea of controlling both the city and its territory continued to persist, as revealed by the parliament of 1 September 1378, in which it is emphasized that the city councils have ‘all the authority, power, will, and political influence of the Florentine people and of the Florentine community’.7 The slogan of Florentine Liberty (Florentina libertas) — the most emblematic images of liberty were the heraldic lion or the Marzocco, Hercules, David, and Judith8 — associated Florentine republicanism with a perfect government based on popular sovereignty which could not be won by any external political power. This slogan proclaimed independence and freedom from external domination, political independence from an overlord, as is shown by the marble statue of David carved by Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello (1386–1466), which was moved in 1416 from the cathedral to the Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of Florence’s victory over Ladislas of Naples (1377–1414).9 The Republic of Florence guaranteed liberty to every subject community, imposing its predominance while communicating the idea that its government was good and peaceful.10 The political model developed by Florence starting in the thirteenth century, which has been rightly compared by Alison Brown to that developed by Augustus during the Roman Empire,11 guaranteed the coexistence of a multiplicity of political institutions in the same political space.12 The 7 

‘tota et universalis auctoritas, potestas, arbitrium, et imperium populi et comunis Florentie’: Trexler, ‘Il parlamento fiorentino’, p. 459. 8  The Marzocco was represented on banners and as a figure (Donatello’s freestanding statue in front of the communal palace); Hercules was used on the seal of the commune and as a painted image in the Palazzo Vecchio; David was the protector and defender of the homeland: Brown, ‘De-Masking Renaissance Republicanism’, pp. 184–89. On this topic, see also Butterfield, ‘New Evidence for the Iconography of David’. 9  On Donatello’s David and on the forms of political propaganda promoted by Cosimo de’ Medici, see Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello, pp. 3–12; Schneider, ‘Donatello’s Bronze David’. More recent works on the subject are Donato, ‘Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio’; Sperling, ‘Donatello’s Bronze “David” and the Demands of Medici Politics’; McHam, ‘Donatello’s Bronze David’; Caglioti, Donatello e i Medici; and Randolph, Engaging Symbols, pp. 139–92. 10  Rubinstein, ‘Florentina Libertas’. On this matter, see also Rubinstein, ‘Le origini medievali del pensiero repubblicano del secolo xv’. 11  Brown, ‘Il linguaggio dell’impero’, p. 256. 12  On the rituality of the election of the Florentine Signori, see Taddei, ‘Du secret à la place publique’.

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humanist Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444)13 sent a letter on 20 February 1409 to Niccolò Niccoli (1365–1437)14 stressing the relationship between Florence and its territory as an ‘association of people obeying the same laws’,15 a congregation of souls, continued Bruni, who lived in the shadow of the law of 27 July 1329, in other words who considered the city of Florence to be guarantor of the so-called Celestial Liberty (libertas celeste), an effective slogan according to which Florence guaranteed political freedom to ‘the city, the contado, and the distretto’.16 During the fifteenth century the Florentine state did not cover a territory comparable to the modern region of Tuscany, not having acquired Lucca and Siena. In any case, the Florentine statute of 1409 reveals the Florentines’ own consciousness of leading a region made up not only of simple villages, castles, or borghi,17 but also of cities bound to a deep and ancient communal tradition, forcing Florence to grapple with the exceptionality of the moment and the unpredictability of the political situation.18 It was from the 1250s that the city of Florence, led by a Guelf regime, became engaged in warfare with its Ghibelline neighbours; from 1251 to 1254, in fact, its object was hegemony over all of Tuscany, as is shown by the foundation-epigraph of the Palazzo del Podestà, better known as the Bargello, in which Florence propagandized its good government by calling itself the leader of the world (caput mundi). This inscription, presumably written by Brunetto Latini (c. 1220–94), chancellor, ambassador, and statesman of the Florentine commune during the period of the so-called primo popolo (1250–60), draws attention to the importance of Florence as a centre of a territory in which the main enemy was the seaport of Pisa, at that time strengthened by its political alliance with Siena and Pistoia.19 13 

On Leonardo Bruni, see Martines, The Social World of Florentine Humanists, pp. 117–23, and Leonardo Bruni cancelliere della Repubblica di Firenze, ed. by Viti. 14  On Niccolò Niccoli, one of the chief figures in the company of learned men who gathered around Cosimo de’ Medici, see Martines, The Social World of Florentine Humanists, pp. 112–17. 15  ‘congregatio hominum iure sociatorum et eisdem legibus viventium’: Bruni, Epistolarum libri viii, ed. by Mehus, p. 78. On this letter, see Fubini, ‘La rivendicazione di Firenze della sovranità statale’. 16  ‘civitas, comitatus et districtus’: Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Provvisioni, Registri 25, fol. 56r, 27 July 1329. On this law, see Rubinstein, ‘Florentina Libertas’, p. 276. 17  Tanzini, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze, pp. 103–98. 18  See Chittolini, ‘La formazione dello stato regionale’, p. 20. 19  ‘que mare, que terram, que totum possidet orbem; per quam regnantem fit felix Tuscia tota’: MacCracken, The Dedication Inscription of the Palazzo del Podestà, p. 5 and p. 8 n. 15.

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The progressive increase of Florentine power in its territory was achieved by planned political propaganda based on rhetoric. This form of political communication was boosted by the organization of public ceremonies for the entire community. To the use of words was added the use of visually powerful public spectacle, able to fix in people’s minds the concepts first elaborated using language.20 When Walter VI of Brienne, the duke of Athens, took power in Florence (1342–43), the Florentine authorities introduced into every public representation the systematic recognition of Florentine political power by every surrounding community now part of the Florentine state. When Walter entered the city of Florence, as Giovanni Villani (c. 1277–1348) stresses in his Nuova cronica, not only were the Florentine people involved in the celebrations performed in honour of the new lord, but some of the most important subject city-communities were requested to participate in the ‘grand celebration with their most eminent citizens and their soldiers in their best finery’,21 as well as in the ‘jousts in Piazza Santa Croce’.22 During the celebration of the feast day of Saint John the Baptist in 1343, Giovanni Villani writes that Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, San Gimignano, and Colle Val d’Elsa bestowed upon Walter of Brienne, new lord of Florence, ‘beagles, hawks, and falcons in homage’,23 that is gifts which had their own tradition in the feudal world. According to this method of government, in fact, gratitude was nothing other than the evidence of the legal hierarchy of titles, conventionally sealed by the oath of homage and the oath of fealty between the sovereign lord and his followers.24 The Florentine statute of 1325 stated that the offering to the patron saint should come from ‘those who lived in the city and the most important subject cities’,25 and that in the solemn procession those representing small or large villages, castles, and city communities, whether religious or laymen, should follow 20 

On the places of the city in which ceremonies were performed, see Carandini, ‘Teatro e spettacolo nel Medioevo’, especially pp. 44–48. On this theme, see also Cardini, ‘La piazza, la chiesa, la corte, il teatro, il giardino’. 21  ‘gran festa a’ cittadini e suoi baroni conostaboli e soldati con grandi corredi’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, chap. 8 (iii, 315). 22  ‘giostre nella piazza di Santa Croce per più dì’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, chap. 8 (iii, 315). On the development of arms and armour as an instrument of political patronage, see Barber and Barker, Tournaments. 23  ‘bracchetti, sparvieri e astori per omaggio’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, chap. 8 (iii, 316). 24  Pastori, ‘Le feste patronali fra mito delle origini’. 25  ‘homines civitatis, burgi et suburgi maiores’: ‘Statuto del Podestà 1325’, ed. by Caggese, p. 275.

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the Florentine magistracies.26 As has been pointed out above, the quality of gifts given to Walter of Brienne in 1343 by the subject communities reveals the strength of the bond between Florence and its satellite cities, a yoke which definitively projected the power of Florence into a regional perspective.27 In the years following the overthrow of the duke of Athens, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) writes in his Florentine Histories (Istorie fiorentine) that the Florentines had to improve their system of political propaganda because ‘all the subject towns [regained] their political freedom’.28 After the tenure of the foreign tyrant, the government of Florence stressed its propaganda strategy by broadcasting slogans defending the idea of Florentine liberty and presenting itself as guarantor of political freedom for every community subjected to its power. In 1351, for instance, Prato was annexed to the Florentine domain29 and, as Matteo Villani (d. 1363) writes in his Cronica, the Florentine republic granted its new inhabitants the ‘benefits of Florentine citizenship and of every other privilege reserved to Florentine citizens’.30 Following this event, Marchionne di Coppo Stefani (1336–1385/6) writes that the Florentine people, as his Florentine Chronicle (Cronaca fiorentina) testifies, celebrated this acquisition with great ‘gladness’,31 and when in the same year Pistoia was conquered for the first time, they justified the loss of Florentine soldiers because gathered in Pistoia were ‘all those who had been forced into exile from the commune of Florence and sometimes harmed the Florentine territory’.32 The policy of intervention by the Florentine authorities in the newly subjected cities theoretically took into account both the interests of the dominant and of the subject cities. The dominant city was presented as liberal, virtuous and impartial, as the emblem of liberty (libertas), a value progressively built up 26 

Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 256–62. Cardini, ‘Simboli e rituali a Firenze’, p. 84. On the dictatorship of the duke of Athens in Florence, see Becker, ‘Some Aspects of Oligarchical, Dictatorial and Popular Signorie in Florence’, especially pp. 434–38. 28  ‘tutte le terre sottoposte ai Fiorentini [tornarono] nella loro libertà’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, ed. by Martelli, bk ii, chap. 38, p. 687. 29  Pampaloni, ‘L’autonamia pratese sotto Firenze’, pp. 739–41. 30  ‘beneficii della cittadinanza e delli altri brivilegii ch’hanno i contadini di Firenze’: Matteo Villani, Cronica, ed. by Porta, bk i, chap. 75, (i, 143). 31  ‘allegrezza’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 235, r. 642: according to Stefani’s chronicle, Prato was acquired by the Florentines for 17,000 gold florins. 32  ‘tutti gli sbanditi del Comune di Firenze tiravano là, ed alcune volte faceano danno in sul Fiorentino’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 236, r. 644. The political dynamics of the submission of Pistoia are in Neri, ‘Società ed istituzioni’. 27 

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using parameters of political propaganda and not of truth. One of the many possible examples is the discrepancy between ‘ideal’ and ‘real’ offered by the case of Bonaccorso Pitti (1354–1432),33 the Captain of the People of Pistoia as well as an eminent figure in Florence in the second half of the fourteenth century. Bonaccorso was a Florentine citizen forced into exile in the years following the Ciompi uprising (1378), because he was politically bound to oligarchic ideas and to the Guelf Party.34 After having been readmitted by the Florentine government in 1382, Bonaccorso was named Captain of the city of Pistoia. Pistoia was under Florentine hegemony from the 1330s and progressively lost its political independence; in 1399 it lost its right to elect the podestà autonomously and in December 1401 it was formally subjected to Florence.35 The decision to give Bonaccorso an office in one of the most important cites of the Florentine territory reveals his importance to the Florentine authorities.36 During his tenure as Captain of the People Bonaccorso found himself in opposition to his homeland, which kept him from judging a case of serious crime: in his Memoirs (Ricordi) he wrote that he imprisoned a thief who, according to the Florentine priors, had to be put on trial in Florence and not in Pistoia, that is to say without ‘guaranteeing to the people of Pistoia their own political rights’.37 The case of Bonaccorso is one of the many possible examples which reveal the discrepancy and ambiguity of Florentine Liberty, a concept discussed among intellectuals in the fifteenth century.38 There are many records of possible punishments for the magistrates who tried to oppose the interests of the Florentine republic, such as exclusion from their homeland, deprivation of political rights, and confiscation of property. In this regard, Bonaccorso Pitti declares that the Florentine authorities ‘wrote me back, saying that if I did not give the thief back to them after the second letter 33  On Bonaccorso Pitti, see Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence, pp. 262–65; Branca, ‘Introduzione’; Pandimiglio, ‘“Pigliate esempro di questo caso”’. 34  On this, see Ricciardelli, ‘L’esclusione politica a Firenze e Lapo da Castiglionchio’, especially pp. 55–58, which analyse the fate of Pitti after the Ciompi uprising of 1378; in the same volume see also Tanzini, ‘Lapo da Castiglionchio dal regime della parte guelfa al tumulto dei Ciompi’. 35  Herlihy, Pistoia nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento, pp. 256–57. 36  On the political autonomy of the Captain of the People and the podestà, see Guidi, Il governo della città-repubblica di Firenze, iii: Il contado e distretto, pp. 190–91. 37  ‘osservare a’ Pistolesi le loro franchigie’: Pitti, ‘Ricordi’, p. 414. 38  On the idea of Florentine liberty among humanists, see the section on Coluccio Salutati in Witt, Sulle tracce degli antichi, trans. by De Rosa, pp. 299–346, and Rubinstein, ‘Florentina Libertas’, p. 285.

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they sent me, they would do something to me that would serve as a perpetual example to all who did not obey them’;39 in fact, those who did not respect the decisions of the Florentine executive could be banished for twenty years.40 The word liberty (libertas) did not refer only to the propaganda that the Florentine republic adopted for its territory; it was also one of the main slogans used in the campaign against the imperialism of the Visconti of Milan. During the War of the Eight Saints, the word libertas was utilized by the Florentine government against the Papal State by sending to all the cities rebelling against the Pontiff ‘a red flag with letters across it, like the flags in Rome; but this flag said freedom’.41 The main themes of Florentine political propaganda were introduced in the fourteenth and fifteenth century from classical antiquity; more precisely they came to the Florentine Renaissance from the period of Augustus. Like that promoted by Augustus, the Florentine peace (pax florentina) was bound to the idea of a republican system which could be combined with a policy of détente in favour of the subject cities always threatened by internal conflicts, as a system which could bring peace to every member of its territory. Historians can now read the annexation of San Gimignano in 1353 to the Florentine state in this light, an occasion on which those who lived in that city ‘were considered Florentines, [and] in the records of the commune were noted all the guarantees for the subjected city’.42 In these guarantees Florentine people described themselves as negotiators of internal conflicts and peacemakers of local social tension.43 In the same sense, when Volterra was formally acquired by Florence in 1361, the Florentine government promoted a programme of political propaganda to persuade the citizens of the subject city that after annexation to Florence they had acquired improved political stability.44 39 

‘riscrissonmi, che s’io per la loro siconda lettera io non davo il detto ladro, che mi farebbono cosa che sarebbe perpetuo esempro a chi non volesse ubbidire la loro signoria’: Pitti, ‘Ricordi’, p. 414. 40  Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion, p. 187. On the experience of Bonaccorso Pitti, see Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, p. 164; Zorzi, ‘Ordine pubblico e amministrazione della giustizia’, pp. 465–66; Connell, Republican Territorial Government, p. 85; and Neri, ‘Società ed istituzioni’, p. 12. 41  ‘una ban/diera, la quale era tutta rossa con lettere a traverso, come quelle di Roma; ma questa bandiera dicea “Libertà”’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, pp. 293–94, r. 753. 42  ‘furono fatti cittadini di Firenze [e] nei registri del Comune furono notate le cautele e.lle somessioni dette’: Matteo Villani, Cronica, ed. by Porta, bk iii, chap. 73 (i, 413). 43  Salvestrini, ‘San Miniato al Tedesco’, p. 540. 44  On the conquest of Volterra, see Fabbri, ‘Il patriziato fiorentino e il dominio su Volterra’, and Fabbri, ‘Autonomismo comunale ed egemonia fiorentina’.

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The idea of so-called Florentine superiority (Florentina superioritas) is indissolubly bound to the idea of their being peacemakers, as is revealed by the assumption and hopes of a Florentine politician who, in a council of 1401, referred to the citizens of Pistoia as ‘those who wanted to know our superiority’.45 Florentine superiority was a slogan based on recognition by the subject cities of the fact that Florence was not only the promoter of peaceful political stability, but also the supporter of enlightened good government. This concept was perfectly synthesized in the prologue to the Florentine statute of 1409, which cites Florentine strength (Florentina potentia), a power which had to be projected onto the territory and its subject cities.46 The Florentine republic could impose itself on the territory because its government was able to resolve internal party divisions so that it could assume the role of defender of harmony and concord, of paladin against any sort of tyranny which might arise from one of the wealthy families participating in the factional struggle. On the occasion of the conquest of Volterra, Matteo Villani paradoxically defined all the inhabitants of that city as ‘friends of the Florentine commune’.47 Beyond political rhetoric as an instrument of political propaganda, Florence encouraged public representation in its subject cities as opportunities for community aggregation and a propagandistic tool for creating a nonexistent territorial civic identity.48 The Florentine municipal identity was progressively reinforced, and, in fact, on the celebration of the feast day of the patron saint, John the Baptist, the Florentine government checked off the dominion’s subjects whose tributes appeared in the piazza and the church, and then specifically warned those who had not appeared to do so immediately; when Florentine citizens were not assiduous enough in attending to their gonfalon’s, the commune ordered them to do so too.49 These were the fundamental elements underlying the Florentine collective identity; the main goal was the creation of a shared awareness on the part of all inhabitants of belonging to the same urban reality as well as to the same territorial dimension, in which mutual ties and interests had to bind the citizens and the territorial inhabitants together, for better or worse. And if for the 45 

‘velint agnoscere nostram superioritatem’: Le ‘consulte’ e ‘pratiche’ della repubblica fiorentina, ed. by Conti and Ninci, i: 1401, Cancellierato di Coluccio Salutati, ed. by Conti (1981), p. 236. 46  Tanzini, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze, p. 55. 47  ‘li amici del Comune di Firenze’: Matteo Villani, Cronica, ed. by Porta, bk x, chap. 67 (ii, 541). 48  Ricciardelli, ‘Propaganda politica e rituali urbani’, pp. 233–35. 49  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 268.

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development of this awareness chroniclers played an important role through the construction of narratives which stressed the relationship between the new civitas and the memory of the past, the unity of the territory was in fact achieved by the capillary diffusion of the myth of Florentine freedom (Florentina libertas).50 The celebrations organized by the Florentine people following the acquisition of Arezzo in 138451 should be examined in this sense. This occasion permitted Florentine people to proclaim the event to the sound of a ‘big bell’,52 used to summon the Florentine people to the Piazza dei Signori around ‘many fires and bonfires’.53 The sound of the bell announced the time of the festivities aimed at celebrating the greatness and superiority of Florence over Arezzo,54 a superiority which had to be imposed on every newly conquered city present at the event: ‘many brigades that performed knightly jousts on the Piazza, running into the Saracen […] in the name of God and of the Sacred Court of Paradise’.55 The fact that the Florentine government organized a knightly joust for the occasion clearly reveals the intention of the dominant city to show its supremacy mainly through a spectacle responding to propagandistic aims.56 Knightly jousts consisted in part of a parade of the brigade and its retinue boasting every sort of opulence (magnificent dress and fancy caparisons) and showing the participants’ mettle with arms and horses, and also included a short race in which all participants were required to break a fixed target with arrows (as shown by the knightly jousts organized on the occasion of the conquest of Arezzo in 1384) or, more simply, to hit a wall.57 Therefore, it was not real fighting but a choreographic, visually rich spectacle used to influence the collective imagination and perceived as a tribute to the community by those present at the event. It was to this audience that the 50 

Brown, ‘The Language of Empire’. On the acquisition of Arezzo by the Florentines, see Gadaleta, L’acquisto di Arezzo fatto da’ Fiorentini, pp. 34–64; on the effects that the Florentine domination had on Arezzo after 1384, see Antoniella, ‘Affermazione e forme isituzionali’. On the same theme in the fifteenth century, see Black, ‘Arezzo, i Medici e il ceto dominante fiorentino’. 52  ‘grossa campana’: Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, p. 456; all citations of this text refer to this edition. 53  ‘molti fuochi e falò’: Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, p. 456. 54  Le Goff, ‘Nel Medioevo’. 55  ‘molte brigate d’armeggiatori sulla Piazza, armeggiando e rompendo addosso al Saracino […] a onore di Dio e della Santa Corte di Paradiso’: Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, p. 456. 56  Cardini, ‘Il torneo nelle feste cerimoniali di corte’, pp. 117–18. 57  Ricciardi, Col senno, col tesoro e colla lancia, pp. 108–10. 51 

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organizers — that is the government — offered something unforgettable, a show in which (as written in the so-called Panciatichiano about the Florentine conquest of Arezzo) the protagonists were wearing ‘all iridescent yellow clothes with a golden sun on the chest and the back, all well mounted on trained horses, all covered with caparisons and bells, with their servants’ nags carrying their spare jousting poles’.58 It is interesting to note how these ritual forms became codified over the years. Thanks to public spectacles, the Florentine republic increased its political predominance over the inhabitants of both the city and the territory; its greatest credibility was obtained when as a dominant city it respected the cultural and political tradition of its satellite cities. In the days following the annexation of Arezzo, the relics of Saint Donatus, the city’s patron saint, were stolen and sold by the thief to the signore of Forlì, Sinibaldo degli Ordelaffi. Sources report that after a few days the Florentine government decided to return the relics to the Aretines. This was a real act of supremacy which augmented the myth of Florence. The relics of a saint represented for every community — not just for Arezzo — the public and political dimension and synthesized the consciousness of a civic identity. In time of war as well as in time of peace, the patron saint embodied for every society the defender of the city (defensor civitatis); communities honoured their saint in both civic and liturgical ways, and subject cities were called to honour it by offering gifts and wax. The patron saint was the figure that came after God and the Virgin Mary who was head of the celestial court of angels and saints, the protector normally invoked in public documents, the ‘icon’ painted in the main halls of public palaces, the figure appearing on seals, coins, and flags. The patron saint represented for every community the synthesis and polarization of the religious and sacred spheres. This means that when the signore of Forlì bought the relics from the thief he decided first of all to inflict on him an exemplary punishment; as a Florentine chronicler writes, the thief was hanged there and then, and the relics were given back to their owners. When Donato da Padova was named Bishop of Florence on 28 January 1385 ‘in the name of God’,59 he arranged for the relics of the saint to return to Arezzo, considering it illegal and unethical that the Florentines host in their city ‘the head of Saint Donatus of Arezzo’.60 58 

‘tutti i vestiti di drappo giallo changiante cho uno sole nel petto e nelle reni messo ad oro, tutti bene a chavallo e cho.molti chavagli adestrati, tutti choverti di drappo e di sonagli, e molti ronçini chon famigli con incariche d’aste da giostrare’: Alle bocche della piazza, ed. by Molho and Sznura, p. 55. 59  ‘nel nome di Dio’: Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, p. 463. 60  ‘la testa di San Donato d’Arezzo’: Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, p. 463.

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By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the strategies adopted in foreign policy by the Florentine republic were clear. In the years when the Florentine regime was led by the Albizzi political coalition (1382–1434), the number of public spectacles increased in reaction to the territorial expansionism in Tuscany of the Milanese Visconti family. Spectacles and public events were forms of political communication used as instruments of political propaganda to reinforce the Florentine territory as a defence against the expansion of Milanese tyranny. Every celebration served as a means of integrating the formerly independent local elites into the structures of Florentine rule. In this same period Florence absorbed the identity of its subject communities through a variety of written slogans whose themes were intended to stress the state’s central position in the region in opposition to the Visconti family, the tyrannical usurper. This language lasted until the years of the duchy in the so-called ‘rhetoric of liberty’, and from 1532 the Medici jurists followed this political strategy, affirming the role of Florence as guarantor of social stability for the entire regional state.61 The Florentine people were meant to be considered the respectful guarantors of their subject communities, in which political and judicial independence was apparently preserved but substantially controlled by the dominant city. When Pisa was conquered in 1406, the Florentine army returned from the siege to the welcome of a large crowd. The spectacular celebrations for this annexation were accompanied by symbolic gestures and by forms of propagandistic rituality designed to dismantle the identity of the subject city and to reinforce the image of the city that conquered it. The Florentines acquired the civic identity of the newly subjected city bringing with them the so-called Pandette, which were the manuscript records that Pisan people safeguarded closely as testimonials of their independence from German emperors, an independence denied by the Florentine conquest, an independence denied, as Giovanni Cavalcanti (1381–1451) wrote, by the confiscation of the laws that ‘enlightened human intellects’.62 This was an effective act of political submission, considering that just a few decades later, in 1494, the Pisans led their rebellion against their dominant city in the name of ‘liberty’, toppling and destroying the Marzocco, no longer the symbol of Florentine freedom, but the symbol of Florentine imperialism.63

61 

On this, see Mannori, Il sovrano tutore, and Fantoni, ‘The Grand Duchy of Tuscany’. On the political role of public spectacles, see Cardini, ‘Le feste in Toscana’. 62  ‘alluminano gli intelletti degli uomini’: Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, ed. by di Pino, p. 219. 63  Brown, ‘De-Masking Renaissance Republicanism’, p. 186.

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The celebrations organized after the conquest of Pisa reveal yet again how the Florentine government tried to emphasize its superiority over the subject city. The festivities for this occasion were meant to recall, as the famous traveller and ambassador Benedetto Dei (1417–92) points out, that Pisa was ‘conquered by the Florentine lords’.64 On this occasion the wine merchant and chronicler Bartolomeo di Michele del Corazza (1381–1449) writes that that Florentines organized ‘the best procession ever seen’.65 When Florence was led by the Albizzi regime, as Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) wrote in his Dialogue on the Government of Florence (Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze), it exalted itself by attacking the ‘powerful enemies who tried at that time to conquer us’.66 This Florentine historian and politician, who wrote his treatise in the 1520s, was convinced that the Florentine government achieved this aim by simply planning a set of chivalric ritual events to put on display the greatness of the Florentine regime and celebrate ‘the dominion and the reputation of the city’.67 Furthermore, the chronicler Bartolomeo del Corazza refers to a famous ‘knightly joust’68 organized in the days of the celebration with the participation of more than ‘sixty Florentine youths’,69 all of them dressed in ‘velvet cloth […] except for two or three in wool’.70 The cities subjected to Florence were forced to participate in the event; the Bishop of Pistoia, for instance, came to Florence in tribute to the winners ‘with maybe forty knights and citizens wearing a garland of olive leaves on their heads, jousting, on Sunday, with dignity and ability in the Piazza della Signoria’.71 64 

‘presa pe lli siniori fiorentini’: Dei, La Cronica, ed. by Barducci, p. 41; all citations of this text refer to this edition. 65  ‘la più bella processione ch’io vedessi mai’: Corazza, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Gentile, p. 21; all citations of this text refer to this edition. 66  ‘inimici potentissimi che cercorono in quel tempo di opprimerci’: Guicciardini, Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, ed. by Anselmi and Varotti, pp. 44–45; all citations of this text refer to this edition. 67  ‘el dominio e la riputazione della città’: Guicciardini, Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, ed. by Anselmi and Varotti, p. 45. In his Dialogo Francesco Guicciardini argues for the priority of state interest over private morality and religion: a) rejecting classical republican arguments in the name of the new political realism; b) acknowledging the important role of patronage and graft in contemporary politics and the illegitimacy of nearly all forms of political power: see Brown, ‘Introduction’. 68  ‘nobile armeggiata’: Corazza, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Gentile, p. 21. 69  ‘sessanta giovani di Firenze’: Corazza, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Gentile, p. 21. 70  ‘panni di velluto […] eccetto due o tre che erano panni di lana’: Corazza, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Gentile, p. 21. 71  ‘con cavalieri e cittadini, forsi quaranta, con grillande di ulivo in capo e armeggiando,

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During the four days of celebration, the Florentine superiority (superioritas) over the subject communities was underlined by the members of the Guelf Party, a private institution which restored political power to a small group of citizens and became the supreme court of the city and a locus of political and financial power. This private association, which became rich by confiscating Ghibellines’ property and granting loans to the commune as a credit institution, had the money to fund this initiative: the members of the Guelf Party gave orders to shred publicly the clothes worn by the jousting knights so that they had to finish their spectacle in their doublets: this was meant as a sign that those who paid for their clothes were so rich that they could destroy them as a form of political communication aimed at obtaining respect from the public.72 When Livorno was annexed to the Florentine territory in 1421, the dominant city organized ‘feasts, bonfires and dancing all over the city’.73 As was pointed out by Benedetto Dei, the conquest of Livorno meant for Florence an opening to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and in fact, as the chronicler writes, ‘Pisa without Livorno is worthless, and while it is true that the Florentines had Pisa in 1406 they never took to the sea until the year 1422’.74 The ceremonies organized for the annexation of Livorno were rites by which the entire community was to be celebrated; these reveal a particular attention to celebrating the Republic of Florence as a whole, not a family, a political party or a private association as would be the case la domenica, in sulla piazza de’ Signori orrevolmente e bene’: Corazza, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Gentile, p. 21. During the celebration for the conquest of Pisa (1406) all the Florentine brotherhoods were shown in procession in the city streets: Vasoli, ‘Movimenti e crisi politche’. On power relationships between all the groups who participated in religious processions, see Pini, ‘Le arti in processione’ and Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence, pp. 163–235. 72  Balestracci, La festa in armi, pp. 64–69. On the Guelf Party, see Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion, pp. 86–87. This private association became the point of reference for the Florentine oligarchy, that is to say, for those who were considered magnates, a new social class which had at once aristocratic and popular origins. It slowly came to be involved in communal legislation as well as in communal finances, whether inside the city walls or outside them. Alongside this powerful organization were the popolani grassi, that is those protagonists who had acquired public office between 1250 and 1260. Within a few years, the Guelf Party came to dominate the citystate, even though the real balance of political power was held by the popolo. Appearing on the political scene as a reconciling element between Guelfs and Ghibellines, the popolo performed one invaluable service for the city: they prevented the imposition of restrictions on commercial activities (Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion, pp. 162–69). 73  ‘feste e ffuochi e bbali per tutta la città’: Dei, La Cronica, ed. by Barducci, p. 46. 74  ‘Pisa sanza Livorno non val nulla e che si è ‘l vero e Fiorentini ebbono la città di Pisa l’anno 1406 e mai non aveano mai navichato infino all’anno 1422’: Dei, La Cronica, ed. by Barducci, p. 46.

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a few years later, that is to say after the return to Florence of Cosimo de’ Medici from exile in 1434.75 Cosimo de’ Medici (r. 1434–64) first cast his family in the role of defenders of liberty, using visual images as well as verbal rhetoric with equal intensity. The Medici appropriated republican images for themselves and their palace. Cosimo cast himself in the role of defender of liberty by using both visual images and verbal rhetoric with equal dexterity; the commission of a bronze version of the marble David that Donatello had carved for the government is evidence of this.76 The appropriation of the republican tradition had its crucial event a little later, when in 1459 the Medici regime changed the ‘priorate of the guilds’ to the ‘priorate of liberty’.77 As Alison Brown reminds us, this was an event aimed at concealing forever the popular origins of Florence, revealing the widespread patrician prejudice against the ‘vile mechanical trades’; from this moment onwards the guild ideology of peace, common good, fraternity, and justice, gave way to the effective slogan of ‘liberty’.78 This process started in 1434; starting then, every public event was planned and organized by the Medici family to reinforce their personal power, not the Florentine republic. From the moment of Cosimo the Elder’s return from exile in 1434, the epicentre of public ceremonies in Florence was the Medici family. In the following decades its members would dedicate much of their energy to eliminating every possible obstacle to their supremacy within the Republic of Florence and over every community in its territory. Cosimo the Elder’s return was transformed into a personal triumph heralding a season in which his family would have progressively increasing dominance over Florentine political, ecclesiastic, cultural, and artistic life. In 1464 the Medici commissioned a bronze Judith Slaying Holofernes bearing the inscription ‘Public Safety’ (salus publica); a few years later Piero de’ Medici (r. 1464–69), Cosimo’s son, dedicated this statue to liberty and fortitude, so that the citizens might be inspired always to defend the republic. With great ability, in the second half of the quattrocento the Medici used all the instruments introduced by the Florentine republic throughout its republican period in order to promote its members by transforming every public 75 

On the world of the ‘friend of friends’ and the clientelism promoted by the Medici family in the fifteenth century, see Molho, ‘Cosimo de’ Medici’, and the more recent book by Dale Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance. 76  In the inscription of the David is written: ‘En puer grandem domuit tiramnum’, that is ‘Behold! A boy overcame the mighty tyrant’: Sperling, ‘Donatello’s Bronze “David” and the Demands of Medici Politics’, pp. 219–20. 77  Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Balìe, 29, fols 118v–119r (30 January 1359). 78  Brown, ‘Il Rinascimento repubblicano’, p. 176.

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event into a private one.79 One example is evidently the marriage of Nannina di Piero di Cosimo dei Medici to Bernardo Rucellai. Many delegates of both the city and the territory took part in this event, celebrated in 1466 in Palazzo Medici.80 Another is surely the marriage between Lorenzo dei Medici and Clarice Orsini in 1469; on this occasion, the most eminent delegates of the most important subject communities (such as Pisa and Arezzo) bestowed on the couple public and private gifts: this means that Lorenzo the Magnificent received gifts from both the community and the most eminent families of the subject cities.81 Public events were progressively transformed into propitious moments by which the Medici implemented their personal and private political strategies, as is shown by the visit of Emperor Frederick III in 1451.82 During his tenure (1469–92), Lorenzo the Magnificent personally participated in all public Florentine spectacles, writing the lyrics which were sung on floats during the carnival period. He also introduced to the celebrations of the feast day of Saint John the Baptist the so-called Laurentian carts, used just as they had been in ancient Rome (as shown by the famous triumph of Lucius Aemilius Paulus, in which the general celebrated his glorious return from Greece by putting on the carts treasure which would ensure ‘long life and well-being’ for the Roman people).83 In the quattrocento the Medici fused their name to that of Florence, now transformed into a mythological city for both those living inside and outside of it.84 It is interesting to note the effects of this political strategy in the story of Gostanza from Libbiano, a simple woman who was put on trial by the Inquisition 79 

On this matter, see the considerations of Trexler, ‘The Commission and the Execution of the Libro’. On the strategies for obtaining political consensus in the period of Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464), whose tenure was from 1434 to 1464, of Piero de’ Medici (1416–69), whose tenure was from 1464 to 1469, and of Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–92), whose tenure was from 1469 to 1492, see. Mantini, Lo spazio sacro della Firenze medicea, especially pp. 67–169, and Ventrone, Gli araldi della commedia, pp. 68–75; more generally, see Hay and Law, L’Italia del Rinascimento, trans. by Pierpaoli and Baiocchi, pp. 328–39. 80  Zorzi, ‘Lo spettacolo nel segno dei Medici’, p. 201. On the use of public ceremonies and public spectacles in the Laurentian period, see Ventrone, ‘Feste e spettacoli nella Firenze di Lorenzo il Magnifico’. 81  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 433. 82  Brown, ‘Il linguaggio dell’impero’, p.  258. On the same theme, see also Connell, ‘Changing Patterns of Medicean Patronage’. 83  Molinari, Spettacoli fiorentini del Quattrocento, p. 29. On the political use of space by the Medici, see Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio, pp. 215–34. 84  Trexler, ‘Il rituale della celebrazione’, pp.  109–16; see also Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 260.

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in 1594 as a presumed witch, accused of having caused the death of some children, illegally practising medicine, and taking part in the witches’ sabbath.85 For Gostanza and for her simple imagination, Florence was the caput mundi, the place of abundance, the place of happiness.86 Forced by the judge to make a confession of her sins, the presumed witch confessed to having met the devil in Florence, a place where she had surely never been in her life, a city, as she says under torture, where ‘everything [was] of gold and where there were beautiful buildings and beautiful things of every kind’.87 Gostanza’s testimony is evidence of the political programme initiated by the Medici in 1434: the allegorical carts, processions, and public feasts organized by the Medici in the quattrocento88 transformed the city into a mythical place (Machiavelli reports that in that period, the Magnificent Lorenzo kept ‘his native land continuously in festivities; where were continuously seen jousts and representations of ancient triumphs’).89 These public displays, because of their formal qualities, became an expression of the new regional culture, a system in which Florence — even for all those, like Gostanza, who had never seen it — became the city in which those ‘who went there once would always have to come back’.90

85 

Mantini, ‘“Et chi vi andava una volta vi sarebbe tornata sempre”’, p. 5. Lombardi, ‘Immagini dell’altro mondo’, pp. 102–03. 87  ‘ogni cosa [era] messa a oro et quivi era palazzi belli et bello ogni cosa a un modo, et bellissimi’: Lombardi, ‘Il processo del 1594’, p. 164. 88  Carew-Reid, ‘Feste e politica a Firenze’. See also Orvieto, ‘Carnevale e feste fiorentine’; Ventrone, Gli araldi della commedia, pp. 19–22; Ventrone, ‘Il carnevale laurenziano’. 89  ‘sempre la patria sua in festa; dove spesso giostre e rappresentazioni di fatti e trionfi antichi si vedevano’: Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, ed. by Martelli, bk viii, chap. 36, p. 843. 90  ‘chi vi andava una volta vi sarebbe tornata sempre’: Lombardi, ‘Il processo del 1594’, p. 164. 86 

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Firenze, Archivio di Stato, Balìe, 29 —— , Provvisioni, Registri 25

Primary Sources Alle bocche della piazza: diario di anonimo fiorentino (1382–1401), ed. by Anthony Molho and Franek Sznura (Firenze: Olschki, 1986) Bruni, Leonardo, Epistolarum libri viii, ed. by Lorenzo Mehus (Firenze: Paperini, 1741) Cavalcanti, Giovanni, Istorie fiorentine, ed. by Guido di Pino (Milano: Martello, 1944) Le ‘consulte’ e ‘pratiche’ della repubblica fiorentina nel Quattrocento, ed. by Elio Conti and Renzo Ninci, 2 vols (Pisa: Giardini, 1981–91) Corazza, Bartolomeo del, Diario fiorentino (1405–1439), ed. by Roberta Gentile (Anzio: De Rubeis, 1991) Dei, Benedetto, La Cronica dall’anno 1400 all’anno 1500, ed. by Roberto Barducci (Firenze: Papafava, 1984) Diario d’Anonimo fiorentino dall’anno 1358 al 1389, in Cronache dei secoli xiii e xiv, ed. by Alessandro Gherardi (Firenze: Cellini, 1876), pp. 293–481 Guicciardini, Francesco, Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, ed. by Gian Mario Anselmi and Carlo Varotti (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1994) Pitti, Bonaccorso, ‘Ricordi’, in Mercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. by Vittore Branca (Milano: Rusconi, 1986), pp. 341–503 Machiavelli, Niccolò, Istorie fiorentine, in Tutte le opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, ed. by Mario Martelli (Firenze: Sansoni, 1971), pp. 629–844 Mercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. by Vittore Branca (Milano: Rusconi, 1986) Statuti della Repubblica fiorentina, ed. by Romolo Caggese, new edn by Giuliano Pinto, Francesco Salvestrini, and Andrea Zorzi, 2 vols (Firenze: Olschki, 1999) ‘Statuto del capitano del popolo degli anni 1322–25’, in Statuti della Repubblica fiorentina, ed. by Romolo Caggese, new edn by Giuliano Pinto, Francesco Salvestrini, and Andrea Zorzi, 2 vols (Firenze: Olschki, 1999), i, 1–305 ‘Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 1325’, in Statuti della Repubblica fiorentina, ed. by Romolo Caggese, new edn by Giuliano Pinto, Francesco Salvestrini, and Andrea Zorzi, 2 vols (Firenze, Olschki, 1999), ii, 1–403 Stefani, Marchionne di Coppo, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Niccolò Rodolico (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1903) Tanzini, Lorenzo, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: lo statuto cittadino del 1409 (Firenze: Olschki, 2004) Villani, Giovanni, Nuova cronica, ed. by Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols (Parma: Guanda, 1990–91) Villani, Matteo, Cronica: con la continuazione di Filippo Villani, ed. by Giuseppe Porta, 2 vols (Parma: Guanda, 1995)

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Secondary Studies Antoniella, Augusto, ‘Affermazione e forme istituzionali della dominazione fiorentina sul territorio di Arezzo (secc. xiv–xvi)’, Annali Aretini, 1 (1993), 173–206 Balestracci, Duccio, La festa in armi: giostre, tornei, e giochi del Medioevo (Roma: Laterza, 2001) Barber, Richard, and Juliet Barker, Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989) Becker, Marvin B., ‘Some Aspects of Oligarchical, Dictatorial and Popular Signorie in Florence, 1282–1382’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2 (1960) 421–39 Black, Robert, ‘Arezzo, i Medici e il ceto dominante fiorentino’, in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli xiv–xv): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. by Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa: Pacini, 2001), pp. 329–57 Branca, Vittore, ‘Introduzione’, in Mercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. by Vittore Branca (Milano: Rusconi, 1986), pp. lv–lxxi Brown, Alison, ‘De-Masking Renaissance Republicanism’, in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. by James Hankins, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 179–99 —— , ‘Introduction’, in Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence, ed. by Alison Brown (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. vii–xxviii —— , ‘The Language of Empire’, in Florentine Tuscany: Structure and Practices of Power, ed. by William J. Connell and Andrew Zorzi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 32–47 —— , ‘Il linguaggio dell’impero’, in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli xiv–xv): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. by Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa, Pacini, 2001), pp. 255–70 —— , ‘Il Rinascimento repubblicano’, in Il Rinascimento italiano e l’Europa, ed. by Giovanni Luigi Fontana and Luca Mola, 6 vols to date (Treviso: Colla, 2005–), i: Storia e storiografia, ed. by Marcello Fantoni (2005), pp. 169–83 Brucker, Gene Adam, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977) Bryant, Lawrence M., ‘Configurations of the Community in Late Medieval Spectacles: Paris and London during the Dual Monarchy’, in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. by Barbara  A. Hanawalt and Kathryn  L. Reyerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 3–55 Buc, Philippe, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) Butterfield, Andrew, ‘New Evidence for the Iconography of David in Quattrocento Florence’, I Tatti Studies, 6 (1995), 115–33 Caglioti, Francesco, Donatello e i Medici: storia del David e della Giuditta (Firenze: Olschki, 2001) Cammarosano, Paolo, ed., Le forme della propaganda politica nel Due e nel Trecento (Roma: École française de Rome, 1994)

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Carandini, Silvia, ‘Teatro e spettacolo nel Medioevo’, in Letteratura italiana vi: Teatro, musica, tradizioni dei classici, ed. by Alberto Asor Rosa (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 15–67 Cardini, Franco, ‘Le feste in Toscana tra Medioevo ed età moderna’, in Franco Cardini, Le mura di Firenze inargentate: letture fiorentine (Palermo: Sellerio, 1993), pp. 295–308 —— , Il libro delle feste: Risacralizzazione del tempo (Imola: Philobiblion, 2003) —— , ‘La piazza, la chiesa, la corte, il teatro, il giardino’, in Franco Cardini, ‘De Finibus Tuscie’: il Medioevo in Toscana (Firenze: Arnaud, 1989), pp. 129–37 —— , ‘Simboli e rituali a Firenze’, Quaderni medievali, 27 (1989), 78–92 —— , ‘Il torneo nelle feste cerimoniali di corte’, in Franco Cardini, L’acciar de’ cavalieri: studi sulla cavalleria nel mondo toscano e italico (secc. xii–xv) (Firenze: Lettere, 1997), pp. 111–22 Carew-Reid, Nicole, ‘Feste e politica a Firenze sotto Lorenzo il Magnifico’, Quaderni medievali, 24 (1987), 25–55 Chiffoleau, Jacques, Lauro Martines, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, eds, Riti e rituali nelle società medievali (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994) Chittolini, Giorgio, ‘La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado: ricerche sull’ordinamento territoriale del dominio fiorentino agli inizi del secolo xv’, in Egemonia fiorentina ed autonomie locali nella Toscana nord-occidentale del primo Rina­scimento: vita, arte, cultura, ed. by Centro italiano di studi di storia e d’arte (Pistoia: Centro italiano di studi di storia e d’arte, 1979), pp. 17–70 Connell, William J., ‘Changing Patterns of Medicean Patronage: The Florentine Dominion during the Fifteenth Century’, in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo, ed. by Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Firenze: Olschki, 1994), pp. 87–107 —— , Republican Territorial Government: Florence and Pistoia, Fifteenth and Early Six­ teenth Centuries (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995) —— , and Andrea Zorzi, eds, Florentine Tuscany: Structure and Practices of Power (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Donato, Maria Monica, ‘Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 54 (1991), 83–98 Edgerton, Samuel Youngs, Jr, ‘Icons of Justice’, Past and Present, 89 (1980), 23–38 Fabbri, Lorenzo, ‘Autonomismo comunale ed egemonia fiorentina a Volterra tra ’300 e ’400’, in Dagli albori del comune medievale alla rivolta antifrancese del 1799 (= Rassegna volterrana, 70 (1994)), pp. 97–110 —— , ‘Il patriziato fiorentino e il dominio su Volterra: tra fazioni di governo e pratiche clientelari’, in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli xiv–xv): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. by Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa: Pacini, 2001), pp. 385–404 Fantoni, Marcello, ‘The Grand Duchy of Tuscany: The Courts of the Medici, 1532–1737’, in The Princely Courts of Europe, 1500–1750, ed. by John Adamson (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1999), pp. 255–74 —— , Il potere dello spazio: principi e città nell’Italia dei secoli xv–xvii (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002)

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Neri, Francesco, ‘Società ed istituzioni: dalla perdita dell’autonomia comunale a Cosimo I’, in Storia di Pistoia, ed. by Natale Rauty and others, 4 vols (Firenze: Monnier, 1988–2000), iii: Dentro lo stato fiorentino: dalla metà del xiv alla fine del xvii secolo, ed. by Giuliano Pinto (1999), pp. 1–80 Orvieto, Paolo, ‘Carnevale e feste fiorentine del tempo di Lorenzo de’ Medici’, in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo, ed. by Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Firenze: Olschki, 1994), pp. 103–24 Pampaloni, Guido, ‘L’autonomia pratese sotto Firenze (1351–1500)’, in Prato: storia di una città, ed. by Fernand Braudel, 2 vols (Firenze: Monnier, 1986–97), i: Ascesa e declino del centro medievale (dal Mille al 1494), ed. by Giovanni Cherubini (1991), pp. 735–60 Pandimiglio, Leonida, ‘“Pigliate esempro di questo caso”: l’inizio della scrittura di Bonaccorso Pitti’, Lettere italiane, 39 (1988), 161–75 Pastori, Paolo, ‘Le feste patronali fra mito delle origini, sviluppo storico e adattamento ludico-spettacolari’, in La festa di San Giovanni nella storia di Firenze: rito, istituzioni e spettacolo, ed. by Paolo Pastori (Firenze: Olschki, 1997), pp. 11–54 Pini, Antonio Ivan, ‘Le arti in processione: professioni, prestigio e potere nella città-stato dell’Italia padana medievale’, in Antonio Ivan Pini, Città, comuni e corporazioni nel medioevo italiano (Bologna: Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice Bologna, 1986), pp. 259–91 Pirillo, Paolo, Creare comunità: Firenze e i centri di nuova fondazione della Toscana medievale (Roma: Viella, 2007) Randolph, Adrian W. B., Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in FifteenthCentury Florence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) Ricciardelli, Fabrizio, ‘La città comunale italiana: forme, demografia, organizzazione politica’, Annali Aretini, 8–9 (2000–2001), 323–48 —— , ‘L’esclusione politica a Firenze e Lapo da Castiglionchio’, in Antica possessione con belli costumi: due giornate di studio su Lapo dal Castiglionchio il Vecchio, ed. by Franek Sznura (Firenze: Aska, 2005), pp. 46–61 —— , The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Florence, Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007) —— , ‘Propaganda politica e rituali urbani nella Arezzo del tardo Medioevo’, Archivio storico italiano, 162 (2004), 233–58 Ricciardi, Lucia, Col senno, col tesoro e colla lancia: riti e giochi cavallereschi nella Firenze del Magnifico Lorenzo (Firenze: Lettere, 1992) Rubinstein, Nicolai, ‘Florentina Libertas’, in Studies in Italian History in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. by Nicolai Rubinstein and Giovanni Ciappelli, 2 vols (Roma: Storia e letteratura, 2004–11), i: Political Thought and the Language of Politics: Art and Politics, ed. by Nicolai Rubinstein (2004), pp. 273–94 —— , ‘Le origini medievali del pensiero repubblicano del secolo xv’, in Politica e cultura nelle repubbliche italiane dal Medioevo all’età moderna: Firenze, Genova, Lucca, Siena, Venezia, ed. by Simonetta Adorni Braccesi and Mario Ascheri (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per l’Età moderna e contemporanea, 2001), pp. 1–20

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Salvestrini, Francesco, ‘San Miniato al Tedesco: L’evoluzione del ceto dirigente e i rapporti col potere fiorentino negli anni della conquista (1370–ca. 1430)’, in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli xiv–xv): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. by Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa: Pacini, 2001), pp. 527–50 Schmitt, Jean-Claude, ‘Riti’, in Dizionario dell’Occidente medievale: temi e percorsi, ed. by Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt, trans. by Giuseppe Sergi, 2 vols (Torino: Einaudi, 2003–2004), ii: Letteratura/e–Violenza, pp. 964–79 —— , and Otto Gerhard Oexle, eds, Les Tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne (Paris: Sorbonne, 2003), pp. 231–81 Schneider, Laurie, ‘Donatello’s Bronze David’, Art Bulletin, 55 (1973), 213–16 Sperling, Christine M., ‘Donatello’s Bronze “David” and the Demands of Medici Politics’, Burlington Magazine, 1069 (1992), 218–24 Taddei, Ilaria, ‘Du secret à la place publique: l’élection de la seigneurie à Florence (xive– xve siècle)’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-FranceAllemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 117–41 Tanzini, Lorenzo, ‘Lapo da Castiglionchio dal regime della parte guelfa al tumulto dei Ciompi’, in Antica possessione con belli costumi: due giornate di studio su Lapo dal Castiglionchio il Vecchio, ed. by Franek Sznura (Firenze: Aska, 2005), pp. 62–79 —— , Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: lo Statuto cittadino del 1409 (Firenze: Olschki, 2004) Trexler, Richard C., ‘The Commission and the Execution of the Libro’, in Richard C. Trexler, The Libro cerimoniale of the Florentine Republic by Francesco Filarete and Angelo Manfidi (Genève: Droz, 1978), pp. 53–56 —— , ‘Il parlamento fiorentino del 1o settembre 1378’, Archivio storico italiano, 143 (1985), 437–75 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 2nd edn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) —— , ‘Il rituale della celebrazione: le forme cavalleresche e la Festa di San Giovanni’, in Teatro e culture della rappresentazione: lo spettacolo in Italia nel Quattrocento, ed. by Raimondo Guarino (Bologna: Mulino, 1988), pp. 71–119 Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, 2nd edn (New York: Gruyter, 1995) Vasoli, Cesare, ‘Movimenti e crisi politiche dalla Signoria al Principato’, in Idee, istituzioni, scienze ed arti nella Firenze dei Medici, ed. by Cesare Vasoli (Firenze: Giunti, 1980), pp. 47–82 Ventrone, Paola, ‘Il carnevale laurenziano’, in La Toscana al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico: politica, economia, cultura, arte, 3 vols (Pisa: Pacini, 1996), ii, 413–35 —— , ‘Feste e spettacoli nella Firenze di Lorenzo il Magnifico’, in Le temps revient/‘L tempo si rinuova: feste e spettacoli nella Firenze di Lorenzo il Magnifico, ed. by Paola Ventrone (Milano: Silvana, 1992), pp. 21–53 —— , ‘Le forme dello spettacolo toscano nel Trecento: tra rituale civico e cerimoniale festivo’, in La Toscana nel secolo xiv: caratteri di una civiltà regionale, ed. by Sergio Gensini (Pisa: Pacini, 1988), pp. 497–517

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—— , Gli araldi della commedia: teatro a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Pisa: Pacini, 1993) Viti, Paolo, ed, Leonardo Bruni cancelliere della Repubblica di Firenze (Firenze: Olschki, 1990) Weissman, Ronald F. E., Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1982) Witt, Ronald G., Sulle tracce degli antichi: Padova, Firenze e le origini dell’umanesimo, trans. by Daniela De Rosa (Roma: Donzelli, 2005) Zorzi, Andrea, ‘Ordine pubblico e amministrazione della giustizia nelle formazioni politiche toscane tra Tre e Quattrocento’, in Italia 1350–1450: tra crisi, trasformazione e sviluppo (Pistoia: Centro italiano di Studi di Storia e d’Arte, 1993), pp. 419–74 —— , and William J. Connell, eds, Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli xiv–xv): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti (Pisa: Pacini, 2001) Zorzi, Elvira Garbero, ‘Lo spettacolo nel segno dei Medici’, in Il Palazzo Medici Riccardi di Firenze, ed. by Giovanni Cherubini and Giuseppe Fanelli (Firenze: Giunti, 1990), pp. 200–13 Zorzi, Ludovico, Il teatro e la città: Saggi sulla scena italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1977)

Peace and Revolt: Oath-Taking Rituals in Early Sixteenth-Century Italy Carlo Taviani* Sed in iure iurando non qui metus sed quae vis sit, debet intellegi; est enim iusiurandum affirmatio religiosa (Cicero, De officiis, iii. 29. 10).1

I

Pax igitur, que hominis ad hominem est, id est que inter homines habetur et colitur, et ipsa quoque in tres species propagatur. Una enim pax Egipti, alia Babilonie, tertia Ierusalem. Pax Egipti est malorum in unam pravitatem conspiratio (Rufinus of Sorrento, De bono pacis, Incipit liber ii).2

n recent years, the theme of peace within communities has been studied by numerous historians of the Middle Ages and the early modern era from a variety of perspectives. The varied character of peace practices and rituals

*  An abridged version of this article was presented at the Sixteenth Century Studies Con­

ference, held on 28 May 2009 in Geneva. I am deeply thankful to Marc Schachter for the revision of the English text. 1  ‘But in taking an oath it is our duty to consider not what one may have to fear in case of violation but wherein its obligation lies: an oath is an assurance backed by religious sanctity’: Cicero, De officiis, trans. by Miller, p. 383. 2  ‘The peace of men with men, to wit, what is had and held close by men, divides into three kinds. One is the peace of Egypt, another of Babylon, the third of Jerusalem. The peace of Egypt is the conspiracy of the wicked with a view to wickedness’: the translation is mine. Carlo Taviani ([email protected]) graduated from the Università di Roma—La Sapienza in 2001 and took his PhD at the Università di Perugia in 2004. He has been fellow of the Istituto italiano per gli studi storici in Naples (2005–06), the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome (2006), Villa I Tatti, Harvard University, in Florence (2009–10), and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC (2012). He has worked at the Vatican Archive (2006–07) and at the Università di Teramo (2007–09), and is currently fellow of the Istituto storico italogermanico (ISIG-FBK). He is the author of Superba discordia: guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento (Roma: Viella, 2008) and editor of Libertà e dominio: il sistema politico genovese; le relazioni esterne e il controllo del territorio (Roma: Viella, 2011). Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 119–136 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100770

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has been examined in general works3 and by more specific studies.4 Some scholars have focused on private peace by studying statutes and notarial sources that cover a rather extended period of time (from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries).5 Other authors have analysed the role of preachers in peacemaking within cities and in some cases have highlighted their close connections with the politics of local oligarchies.6 It has also been suggested that peace agreements among private parties, and involving only a few families who met at a notary’s chambers to draft a charta pacis, should be distinguished from broader peace settlements, in which religious preachers and, in general the Church, played a more fundamental role.7 Although the large body of studies today available means that we could benefit from a systematic classification of the types of peace by their region and 3  Some studies have addressed the theme of peace in general terms, without distinguishing between peace among states (peace as the end of a war) and peace as the elimination of tensions within a community. See, for instance, Träger und Instrumentarien des Friedens, ed. by Fried. 4  Among miscellaneous works which have adopted the perspective of peace within society, see Prêcher la paix et discipliner la société, ed. by Dessì and Stringere la pace, ed. by Broggio and Paoli. See also Rossi, ‘Polisemia di un concetto’. Among monographic studies see Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation; Niccoli, Perdonare: idee, pratiche e rituali; Schuster, Der gelobte Frieden; Petkov, The Kiss of Peace; Bruni, La città divisa; Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy. Given that, together with the role of the Church, that of notaries was of great importance in the achievement of peace, some authors have emphasized the complexity of such practices, arguing that they should not be reduced simply to those of the Christian tradition. Ottavia Niccoli has criticized Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation, which, mainly in regard to Italy, refers to a Christian ‘moral tradition’ as the basis of peacemaking. According to Niccoli, the expression ‘moral tradition’ is too vague because it does not cover the role of the notaries. A very similar opposition between the roles performed by the Church and the notaries is drawn in the essay by Katerine L. Jansen, ‘Peacemaking in the Oltrarno’. Among works which have focused on the political perspective, see Oexle, ‘Friede durch Verschwörung’, and Carroll, ‘The Peace in the Feud’. On peacemaking in the Middle Ages see Klapisch-Zuber, Retour à la cite, pp. 111–17, and Ricciardelli, The Politics of Exclusion, pp. 130–35. Recently it has been suggested that Machiavelli maintained a positive view on political conflicts, in opposition to the traditional quattrocento view on the concordia; see Pedullà, Machiavelli in tumulto. On the concordia, see Borghesi, ‘For the Good of All’. 5  There is also a large body of literature on this sector of peacemaking. See Padoa Schioppa, ‘Delitto e pace private nel pensiero dei legisti bolognesi’; Vallerani, ‘Pace e processo nel sistema giudiziario’; Bellabarba, ‘Pace pubblica e pace privata’; Bellabarba, La giustizia nell’Italia moderna, pp. 100–15. 6  See Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy; Bruni, La città divisa; Sensi, ‘Le paci private’; Dessì, ‘Predicare e governare nelle città dello Stato della Chiesa’. 7  Sensi, ‘Le paci private’.

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chronology, we should avoid the temptation to oversimplify, for three main reasons. Firstly, because the ties of an important family might have been so pervasive that a simple private peace agreement could conceal the history of a longstanding feud involving a section of the community. Secondly, because within the small communities of a rural area, even a peace arrangement among a few families might have been the expression of a ‘public interest’. Thirdly, because a peace settlement involving many oath-takers might also be concluded by means of notarial instruments, and it is not always possible to document the role of the Church.8 If we shift our attention from the types of peace agreements to their effects, it is apparent, as various scholars have pointed out, that the pacification was often very short-lived and ineffectual. For example, Christine Shaw has found a large number of peacemaking rituals in Siena during the 1480s. Notwithstanding the frequency of the phenomenon, the resulting civic peace was often very fragile, owing to continual outbreaks of mutual enmities.9 My concern in this essay is with two main questions: first, who were the mediators of peace, and second, how effective or robust were these reconciliations? Analysing both these questions requires reflection on a fundamental component of peacemaking rituals: the oath.10 In Italy during the late Middle Ages and the early modern age, an oath was a sacred act which could be sanctioned both by notaries, who were guarantors of the public fides, and by a religious authority. As regards the question concerning effectiveness, one of the various factors that contributed to the success of a peace settlement was adherence to the oath. Peace could be breached for reasons of convenience that arose after the act had been signed. Another important factor is the moment of oath-taking itself. The coercive force exerted by the oath when it was taken is obviously not an easy aspect to investigate, because it involves the intimate and personal motivations of the oath-taker. Several observations may however be made in this regard, especially in relationship to peacemaking which included a large part of the community, as this essay seeks to show. I shall not analyse peacemaking among only a few individuals, for this has already been studied, and above all from the perspective of negotiated justice and in relation to the criminal code. Instead, I shall examine peacemaking oaths used 8 

Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics, pp. 136–78. Shaw, ‘Peace-Making Rituals’. 10  The literature on this topic is substantial. On political oaths see, for instance, Prodi, Il sacramento del potere. For the Middle Ages, Kolmer, Die promissorische Eide im Mittelalter and Scheyhing, Eide, Amtsgewalt und Bannleihe. 9 

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as a means to achieve unity and weaken factions. These were often oaths sworn against the Guelphs and Ghibellines, but as we shall see, in each city or community they might be sworn against local factions. They were peace agreements among numerous individuals, and they had a clear political significance. The reference period selected is the early years of the sixteenth century and the context chosen is that of the Italian wars. The intention is not to undertake a detailed reconstruction of all the different contexts in which oaths of peace were taken, but rather to shed light on certain similarities and differences. For this reason, comparison will be made between cases geographically remote from each other: certain areas in the Papal State and the Commune of Genoa. Between 1504 and 1506, Pope Julius II embarked on a campaign to pacify the urban factions, his aim being to establish control over numerous cities in the Papal State. The campaign concluded in 1506 with the capture of Bologna.11 In the months prior to that event, the Pope had visited Viterbo, Civita Castellana, Orvieto, Perugia, Imola, Cesena, and Urbino. I shall concentrate on the cases of Viterbo and Perugia in conducting specific analyses of peacemaking methods. Importantly, the pacification of local factions was accompanied by a strategy aimed at subjugation of the local communities. As has been rightly pointed out, the diary of the pope’s master of ceremonies, Paride Grassi, besides recording the ceremonies and rituals of peace, demonstrates that the pope’s entry into the cities of the Papal States also assumed the form of a rite of subjugation with the solemn trappings of the Corpus Domini.12 The governors of the city went forward to greet the pope and kissed his foot; the pope entered the cities robed in full canonical vestments and beneath the papal canopy.13 It emerges from study of the ritualism of Julius II’s peace mission that interfactional accords were only one of its objectives; much more important was reaffirmation of the pope’s temporal dominion over the cities of his state. In June of 1504 Julius II dispatched Cardinal Federico di San Severino to Viterbo with the task of reconciling the Maganzesi and the Gatteschi. In December of that year, four mediators from Viterbo were appointed to initiate negotiations 11 

De Benedictis, Una guerra d’Italia. ‘L’ingresso del papa nei centri abitati dello stato ecclesiastico nell’estate-autunno del 1506 deve essere un rito di sottomissione che nei centri maggiori assume le forme cerimoniali della solennità del Corpus Domini’ (The pope’s entry into the towns of the Papal States in the summer-autumn of 1506 was to be a rite of subjugation that in the largest towns assumed the solemn ceremonial forms of the Corpus Domini: the translation is mine). See Visceglia, ‘Guerra e riti di pacificazione’, p. 92. 13  Visceglia, ‘Guerra e riti di pacificazione’, p. 92. 12 

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between the factions. Towards the end of the month seventy citizens of Viterbo, assembled in the church of Santa Maria di Bagnaia and in the presence of a notary, swore an oath of peace, concord, and unity; a pledge which concluded with the sending of three representatives to the pope.14 In January 1505, Julius II issued a proclamation stating that the peace would be formally declared in his presence.15 The text of the proclamation ordered the banishment of a number of citizens and the laying down of all weapons of offence or defence. According to the formula of mutual forgiveness, all inhabitants of Viterbo pledged to pardon any offence committed against them by their fellow citizens, just as the pope undertook to pardon the entire city. The proclamation expressly stipulated that this was the pope’s peace.16 Whosoever failed to comply with it would be excommunicated, with absolution being only possible at point of death. Notwithstanding these dreadful threats, the factions continued to maintain their power. In September 1505, Julius II travelled to Viterbo to pacify the city, but on this occasion he wielded his own authority;17 and he did so in the following year as well, again in September. In the church of San Francesco, the pope celebrated Mass and then issued another proclamation.18 We do not know whether a notarial act was also drafted on this occasion. The pope appointed his cousin, Leonardo Grosso Della Rovere, to take the place of the papal legate, who had been unable to bring peace to the city. This time more forceful measures were adopted to ensure the maintenance of peace: the pope arranged marriages between several members of the rival factions and, upon his departure, took with him the members of certain families who, despite their banishment, had continued to reside in the city. It was the pope himself who took them into exile.19 14  Viterbo, Archivio di Stato, MS 57, Notaio Spinello Altobello, fols 138v–141v. The study by Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv (1913), 405 contains numerous inaccuracies on this period and this peace. The latter was not, as Pinzi maintains, a peace for the Gatteschi alone, but between the Maganzesi and Gatteschi (see Viterbo, Archivio di Stato, MS 57, Notaio Spinello Altobello, fol. 140r). Moreover, the peace was sworn on 28 December 1504, not 1505. 15  Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv, 405. 16  ‘La pace e concordia da noi stabilita’: Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv, 407. 17  Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv, 409. 18  Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv, 419–21. See also Visceglia, ‘Guerra e riti di pacificazione’, p. 93. 19  Faustina, daughter of messer Domenico Bussi with Marsilio degli Spiriti; Camilla, daughter of Matteo di ser Rosato with the nobleman Domenico Cordelli: Pinzi, Storia della città di Viterbo, iv, 420.

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One of the most important stages on the pope’s journey was Perugia, a city which had suffered from long-standing enmity between the Oddi and the Baglioni families, many of whose members were in exile. In 1488, the Oddi had abandoned the city and gone into exile. Nevertheless, continuing conflict, which culminated with the slaughter of several members of the Baglioni family in the summer of 1500, would mark the years and decades thereafter.20 Once again, the pope was able to bring about peace only with great difficulty and by threatening severe punishment. Julius II made his entry into Perugia on 13 September 1506, unaccompanied by his troops; and Giampaolo Baglioni, ruler of the city, allowed him to enter and received him. There ensued a pacification ritual that was to last for several days, culminating in a Mass on Sunday, 20 September. Niccolò Machiavelli, who was present at the time, was astonished: by not eliminating the pope, Baglioni had missed an opportunity to accomplish a horrific but at the same time grandiose deed.21 However, the government of Giampaolo Baglioni was closely dependent on pontifical power, and the process of pacification was also concluded by virtue of personal bonds between the house of Baglioni and Pope Della Rovere.22 On 19 September, an edict was proclaimed which ordered the restitution of confiscated property to those who had been previously exiled and who were willing to make peace.23 Although the enmities concerned several of the city’s most important families and their members, the text of the edict declared that peace had been restored to the entire city. The peace was confirmed the next day by a Mass celebrated in the church of San Francesco, and at a point exactly midway between the chapels of the Oddi and the Baglioni, which were situated on either side of the main altar.24 The choreography of the ritual again demonstrated that this was a peace that the pope himself had wanted. During the ceremony, two hosts were consecrated: one was covered

20 

See Black, ‘The Baglioni as Tyrants of Perugia’. Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, i, 27. 22  Gentile Baglioni had first been coadjutor to the bishop of Orvieto, Giorgio Della Rovere, and then, after the latter’s death, was appointed bishop. On the dependence of Giampaolo Baglioni’s regime on Julius II see Black, ‘The Baglioni as Tyrants of Perugia’, p. 270. 23  Perugia, Archivio di Stato, MS 4, Privilegi, bolle, lettere, fols 177 v–178r, 19 September 1506. Although the conflict had mainly involved certain families, it was described as a popular uprising, that is, widespread social turmoil; hence peace had been accomplished for the city as a whole. 24  Cooper, ‘Raphael’s Altarpieces in San Francesco al Prato’. 21 

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up and kept until the end of the Mass.25 When Julius II pronounced the words ite missa est, exponents of the two factions exchanged kisses and approached the papal notary, who drew up the peace document. The member of the two factions, in pairs, then went to the altar, where the pope was waiting, touched the host that had been covered, swore the oath of peace, and kissed the pope’s feet. The use of a church as a place for peacemaking was not a practice restricted to the territories under papal dominion.26 A church could serve as a symbolic space of reconciliation: traversing a church represented expiation of sins before arriving at the main altar, where the body of Christ bestowed peace.27 Besides the version of events provided by the diary of the pope’s master of ceremonies, we also know about the peace from the notarial instrument, which is conserved in Perugia.28 This consists of two deeds: the first regulated the peace between the Della Corgna and the Oddi, the second that between the Baglioni (together with their allies, the Armanni) and the Oddi. It would thus appear that the second peace was more important. Machiavelli relates that it was very difficult to find guarantors for the enemies of the Baglioni. The exiles from here, such as Carlo Baglioni and those concerned with the last murder, have come here, and resolution of this matter of theirs with Gianpaulo is still awaited. There are difficulties for those furnishing guarantees for each of them. Giampaulo says that he will serve as guarantor for himself and for his house, but that he cannot act as guarantor for anyone else, nor for all the land: and this is not enough for the exiles. On the other hand, these exiles cannot find guarantors, because nobody wishes to expose themselves to Gianpaulo.29

It is possible that Machiavelli is referring to two problems here. Whoever signed the peace did so on behalf of other members of his family, but he would not be 25 

The host was covered because touching it might constitute a blasphemy. For example a similar ritual had also been performed in 1554 in Carnia in the extreme north of Italy. See Marcarelli, ‘Pratiche di giustizia in età moderna’. 27  Marcarelli, ‘Pratiche di giustizia in età moderna’, p. 266. 28  This document is not yet catalogued. It is conserved in the Fondo Pozzo of the Archivio di Stato di Perugia. I am indebted to Alberto Sartore, with his profound knowledge of the archive, for having made it possible for me to consult this document. 29  ‘e’ fuoriusciti di qui, da Carlo Baglioni in fuora e quelli dell’ultimo omicidio, vennono qui, e si è atteso continuamente ad comporre questa cosa loro con Gianpaulo. Sonci diffucultà di chi sodi per ciascun di loro. Giampaulo dice che li soderà per sé e per la casa sua, ma che non li può sicurare per uno strano, né per tutta la terra: e questo non basta a’ fuoriusciti. Dall’altra parte detti fuoriusciti non trovano chi sodi per loro, perché nessuno si vuole scoprire contro ad Gianpaulo’: Machiavelli, Legazioni e commissarie, ed. by Vivanti, p. 1022. 26 

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held accountable for too distant relatives. Moreover, guarantors had to be found for Giampaolo Baglioni’s enemies (the Oddi and the other exiles). Yet no one wanted their name to appear in the peace document as Giampaolo’s enemy. The document lists, as Giampaolo Baglioni’s guarantors, the families of the Cavaceppi, Ramazzano, Graziani, and Pellini.30 According to Machiavelli, Giampaolo had resorted to a stratagem: he did not choose his own friends to be his guarantors, as was customary, but the friends of his enemies.31 Thus, the ties binding the parties who had made the peace would become even tighter: if the Oddi faction, the enemies of the Baglioni, resumed the feud, not only would the leading members of that family be penalized but so would all of their followers. The Carlo Baglioni mentioned by Machiavelli did not conclude any accord with Giampaolo: the weight of the conspiracy and the massacre of 1500 was still too burdensome. The notarial instrument describes the ceremony in the church in Perugia and confirms that the oaths were sworn before Julius II. The text mentions the usual pacification rituals: the embrace and the kiss, and declaration by the parties that they had not previously established another peace.32 In Perugia, as in Viterbo, peace was accomplished by means of a complicated ritual in the presence of the pope. However, in Perugia too, the ritual was accompanied by the use of powerful pressures and political strategies: the pope exploited his ties with the Baglioni family and the threat of a heavy fine amounting to five thousand ducats.33 I shall now analyse another case of pacification from the same period, again in the autumn of 1506. This case differs from those just considered, not only because it occurred far from the papal territories, in Genoa, but also because the dynamics of the oath-swearing were different. Genoa was under the French rule of Louis XII, and in that year the populus had revolted against the nobles, driving 30 

On hostilities between the Graziani and the Baglioni in the mid-sixteenth century see Black, ‘The Baglioni as Tyrants of Perugia’, p. 256. 31  ‘Gianpaulo ha usata una astuzia in questo caso: che lui ha richiesto tutti li amici dei fuoriusciti che sodino per lui, acciocché, promettendoli, e’ non possino sodare, né essere forzati che sodino per li altri’: Machiavelli, Legazioni e commissarie, ed. by Vivanti, p. 1022. 32  ‘In fato et in signum verae et perpetuae pacis et concordiae se ad in vice amplexi et osculati fuerunt […] nec non promisit una pars alteri et altera alteri quibus supra nominibus idonee cavere et fideiussores dare per termini et declarandi et de predictis et infrascriptis nullum fuerit inter dictas partes celebratum instrumentum’: Perugia, Archivio di Stato, Misc. di atti giudiziari, busta non numerata (Fondo Pozzo), quoted document, fol. 1v. 33  If the peace settlement were breached the fine of 5000 ducats would also be levied on the guarantors.

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them out of the city. A few months later, Louis XII marched on the city and violently crushed the rebellion. The factions — the Adorno and the Fregoso — whose conflicts had characterized political life in Genoa throughout the fifteenth century, had been exiled by the French for a number of years. During the 1506 rebellion, they attempted to regain power by mobilizing their followers who enjoyed wide support among the populus. In many cases, the commissioners of the popular government discovered these attempts at mobilization and countered them with monetary and physical punishment. The rebellion also enjoyed the support of Pope Julius II, who was hoping thus to damage French interests. In the autumn of 1506, the populares, who had now resumed control of the city, celebrated a series of pacification rituals against the Adorno and Fregoso factions. Most of those who took the oath were artisans, who were more interested than the merchants in continuing the revolt. Attempts by the Adorno and the Fregoso to regain control of the city were seen as a danger by those who wanted to continue the uprising. In November, a more formidable oath was sworn: 1,641 persons pledged to abolish the factions and reform the system of distributing municipal offices. The text of the oath is preserved in a manuscript, the Libro di pace e concordia, where it forms an incipit followed by the signatures of the oath-takers. The text describes the factions as the principal problem of Genoese political life: There is no one among the persons mentioned here who, considering how much ruin, how many misfortunes, fires, death, and other innumerable losses the city of Genoa has suffered almost from the beginning of its foundation until the present day, does not tremble and feel afraid and marvel at the fact that their ancestors did not find any remedy to such calamity and misery. And carefully considering all the circumstances of the times, they are sure that the principal cause of such ruin, as long experience shows, has been the discord, division, and abominable partisanships that have reigned in the city of Genoa and found a strong foundation in it. And firstly the division between Guelphs and Ghibellines […]. And, this division not being finished, but having increased and grown still further, has caused another between the Gualchi and the Montaldi and recently between the Adorno and the Fregoso.34 34 

The Libro di pace e concordia is conserved at Genova, Bibl. Civica Berio, MS mr. I.4.9. On this see Pacini, I presupposti politici del secolo dei genovesi. I have analysed these matters in Taviani, Superba discordia. ‘Considerando specialmente le persone infrascripte quante ruine, quante iacture incendii, morte et altri innumerevoli dani ha patito questa commiseranda cità de Genoa quasi dal principio de la soa fondazione fine al dì presente, non è nessuno de quelli che tuto non trema et si spaventi et grandemente si maravigli che li loro antecessori a tanta calamità

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The solution to the city’s woes would be found by putting an end to factional struggles through peace: In order that this afflicted Genoese people, under the name of our lord the Very Christian King of France might be restored, [the citizens] have reached the concord, peace, and sacred union that is contained below, that is, that now each of them for themselves and for their heirs and successors renounce, refuse, divest themselves of and send away completely any name and effect of Guelph and Ghibelline, Adorno and Fregoso, and of any other faction, sect, partisanship and division under whatever name it may be called and denoted without excluding any of them.35

The text was perhaps written by a chancellor of the commune; then hundreds of artisans’ signatures were affixed by a notary. There was no lack of religious references, and they were the classic ones that had appeared repeatedly in the sermons of San Bernardino. There is an ambiguous aspect to this peace: although the revolt was against the nobles, and the sovereign was preparing to defend them, the popolari sought in every way to make it appear that the sovereign placed his trust in them. They maintained that peace had been made out of respect for the king’s authority. Only in subsequent months would the rebels hesitate no longer and rise up against the sovereign as well. As in the past, when friars had travelled northern and central Italy preaching against the factions, thereby bringing about reform in the statutes, so in Genoa the oath taken by the populus led to a change in electoral procedures. The pope’s intervention in Genoa was certainly less incisive, given that this was an area outside his temporal dominion. From Rome he exhorted the populares to remain united, while preventing several exponents of the Fregoso from leaving Rome to rally their supporters in Liguria. The pope’s urgings for peace et miserie non habiano trovato alcuno salutifero rimedio. Et rivolgendo diligentemente tute le conditione de li tempi, sono certi che la principal causa di tanta ruina, como mostra la longa experientia, sia stata la discordia, divisione et parzialità abominanda che sono regnate in la cità de Genoa, et in quella hano facto forti fondamenti. Et primo la division de guelfi et de ghibellini […]. Et non essendo epsa divisione estinta, ma più presto augumentata et cresciuta, ne suscita un’altra de Goalchi et Montali, et ultimamente de Adurni et Fregosi’: Genova, Bibl. Civica Berio, MS mr. I.4.9, fol. 1r (the translation is mine). 35  ‘acioché questo aflicto populo genoese, sotto el nome del christianissimo re de Francia nostro signore, si possi restaurare [i cittadini] sono devenuti a la concordia, pace e sancta unione como di sotto se contiene, cioè che fino a ora ogniuno di loro per loro e soi eredi et successori renunciano, refudando, si spogliano et da loro al tuto discaciano ogni nome et effecto de guelfo e gebellino, Adurno e Fregoso, et di qualuncha altra faccione, seta parzialità et divisione sotto qual nome si voglia, che si potesse apellare e nominare non excludendoni nisuna’: Genova, Bibl. Civica Berio, MS mr. I.4.9, fol. 1r.

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appear consistent with his support for the revolt of the populus as part of his anti-French manoeuvering. However, there are other episodes of pacification by a pope in Liguria which precede Julius II’s intervention by some decades. In 1471 the Savonese Pope Sixtus IV had imposed a series of pacifications on his fellow citizens who had come to Rome from Savona to celebrate his election. The pope hated factional strife to such an extent — declared the ambassadors — that the Savonesi must necessarily find a solution.36 In 1472 the city changed its electoral rules: names were extracted by lot considering the divisions among the estates (nobles, merchants, and artisans), and factional distinctions were excluded.37 Sixtus IV was a Franciscan, and therefore from an order with a strong tradition of preaching against the factions.38 Only some years previously, in 1465, a Franciscan monk, Battista Tagliacarne, had preached against the factions, first on the Ponente Riviera, at Albenga close to Savona, and then in the city of Genoa itself.39 Julius II’s action can certainly be explained by the specific context of the Italian wars and by his anti-French policy. But evidence of the papacy’s interest in peacemaking for the purpose of weakening the factions suggests that the phenomenon can be framed in a broader chronological perspective. It may be possible, that is to say, to identify a long-period papal tradition of peacemaking. Events in Genoa also provide an opportunity to analyse and to compare other cases of peace similar to that of 1506 and in which the populus performed an important role. In 1462 the struggles between Paolo and Ludovico Fregoso in Genoa for the dogeship had precipitated a crisis. For some days only, a government of artisans was elected in order to establish peace between the two Fregoso. After nominating four Captains of the People, the artisans elected a commission of twelve artisans which negotiated the terms of an accord between Ludovico and Paolo.40 The two exchanged the kiss of the peace in a public ceremony and swore to comply with the agreement. After the brief government of the artisans, Ludovico was re-elected doge.41 Similar in type seems an episode recorded by a 36 

Musso, ‘“Viva el Duca et lo Sancto Padre”’, p. 105 n. 169: the pope hated the factions ‘usque ad coelum’. 37  Hitherto, six bussoli (boxes) had been used, and for each estate (nobles, merchants, and artisans) there were two piazze, the groups representing the factions of Savona. After 1472, only three bussoli were used, without distinction by piazze: Musso, ‘“Viva el Duca et lo Sancto Padre”’, p. 106. 38  See Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy. 39  Musso, ‘“Viva el Duca et lo Sancto Padre”’, p. 104 ; Braccia, Diritto della città, p. 49. 40  Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy, pp. 164–65. 41  Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy, p. 165.

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1478 notarial deed. In this case, the inhabitants of Borgo di S. Stefano in Genoa swore in church to abolish the divisions between ‘whites’ and ‘blacks’ (in substance between Guelphs and Ghibellines) and to abdicate from offices allocated in consequence of that division.42 In this case, too, the oath-swearers were of predominantly popular origin, in that they were mainly artisans. These cases demonstrate that between the mid-fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries some peaces influenced not only the power of the factions but also the system of distributing city offices through the devising of new electoral rules. The 1506 peace is certainly the most important from the point of view of political changes. Before comparing the 1506 peace in Genoa with an episode in the Papal States from the same year, let me summarize what the salient differences between Genoa on the one hand and Viterbo and Perugia on the other. It can be argued that the peace settlements arranged by Julius II at Viterbo and Perugia were between the factions, while those of Genoa were against the factions. The Genoese oaths were taken by the popolari against the families of the Adorno and the Fregoso, while the factions of Viterbo (the Maganzesi and Gatteschi) and Perugia (Oddi and Baglioni) swore together to reach an agreement. At Genoa, however, not many of the popolari who took part in the revolt had been supporters of the Adorni and the Fregosi in previous years, but during the revolt there were some who tried to support the factions.43 The main difference is that in Genoa there was no authority to mediate the peace, nor a system of penalties if the oath was broken. Furthermore, at Viterbo and at Perugia, the oaths were taken under threat while that at Genoa was entered into freely. Lying between the two extremes of peace from below and peace from above were highly diversified types of peace that were not imposed but mediated by an authority or by a charismatic figure. As discussed above, this is the case of the religious preaching by monks, of which there are numerous examples in fifteenth-century Italy. In Genoa, peace was desired mainly by the artisans; and in the weeks that followed the settlement they acquired more power than the merchants. Until the arrival of the king’s army, the oaths were sufficient to keep the factions out of the city: the peace proved efficacious, therefore. There is a close connection between sworn unions and revolts. This connection has been studied mainly by historians interested in the formation of communes, the coniurationes, in a period that precedes the one considered here by several centuries.44 42 

Genova, Archivio di Stato, Notai antichi 1169, Giovanni de Benedetti, no. 511, quoted by Casarino, ‘Il popolo come laboratorio’, pp. 205–06 n. 100. 43  See Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese. 44  There is a quite extensive bibliography on this topic: see, for instance, Dilcher,

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One of the most recent studies of oaths in the modern age is by Paolo Prodi, who has highlighted how, from the late Middle Ages onwards, this bond grew progressively weaker.45 Evidence of this weakening is provided by the use of the term coniuratio which, although it had had a negative connotation throughout the Middle Ages, was increasingly used from the fifteenth century onwards to denote a conspiracy, losing its reference to a sworn union. Hence, the frequency of sworn alliances had diminished by the early years of the sixteenth century. Yet they did not entirely disappear, and we can attempt to analyse their effectiveness. In the case of the Genoese revolt of 1506 it seems that the oath of union was more robust than those sworn in Perugia and Viterbo. One possible explanation for this is that the persons involved were not controlled or threatened by an authority. The oath in this case was taken at its real value: a sacred formula with binding promissory effect. Let us return to the papal territories and the city of Rome. A few years after the capture of Bologna, in 1511 Julius II was seriously ill and the populus of Rome were in revolt. In those same days, the barons, several members of the local oligarchy, together with the conservatori and a section of the populus romanus, swore peace against the factions. The oath was sworn on the Capitoline Hill, and then the parties signed the notarial deed: this was the famous pax romana of 1511. The judgement passed by early historians has been almost entirely reversed by those of today.46 This was not a peace in favour of the pope, reached with the purpose of preventing a popular uprising. Quite the contrary: peace and disorder were part of a single political phenomenon whereby peace was made in order to form a union against the pope. This political operation was organized by members of the city elite, such as the famous jurist Mario Salamonio of the Alberteschi,47 Giacomo Frangipane and Marco Antonio Altieri, together with the barons Orsini and Colonna and the conservatori. Marco Antonio Altieri is among the most interesting of the men who enlivened Rome’s political life in this period. Besides occupying public posts, Altieri also authored such texts as Li nuptiali and the Baccanali, which followed and exalted the Roman tradition. In 1511 he wrote a political Die Entstehung der lombardischen Stadtkommune, and Kolmer, Die promissorische Eide im Mittelalter, pp. 207–15. 45  Prodi, Il sacramento del potere. 46  Claudia Gennaro was the first to interpret this document in a different way. See Gennaro, ‘“La pax romana” del 1511’. See also the more recent article of Serio, ‘Pompeo Colonna tra papato e “grandi monarchie”’. 47  Mario Salamonio was capitano del popolo in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century and wrote the political treatise De principatu. See D’Addio, L’idea del contratto sociale.

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discourse on the reconciliation among the Roman barons. Examination of this text reveals no sign of an attempted anti-papal conspiracy. The text dwells on the strife among the barons and its harmful effects, and argues that pacification is necessary.48 But comparison between the text and the deed of peace drawn up by the notary shows that the attitude of the oath-swears was different. In this deed, reference is made to the ‘tyranny’ against which the Romans had fought. And this suggests that an anti-papal rebellion had been attempted.49 From this perspective, the barons, the city oligarchy, and the riotous Roman populus had united against the pontiff in an attempt to reaffirm the autonomy of powers which the pope had sought to suppress. The disorders began, but as long as the pope remained alive the barons and the Roman families preferred to ‘hedge their bets’. The text of the oath thus both referred to respect for the pope’s authority and sought to defend the rights of the oath-swearers. The situation was marked by a pronounced ambiguity: not that of the Roman populus, which began looting as soon as the first signs of the pope’s illness became apparent, but that of the Roman nobility, which feigned loyal to the pope while preparing a revolt. This peace settlement, too, concealed a rebellion and, like that of Genoa, was ambiguous in its content.50 In Rome in 1511 the peace was not mediated from above. The parties acted in concert to defend their own interests. The peace which the Pope had used a few years before, in his campaign to subdue the local power of families in the cities of the Papal States, was now being used to defend the republican values of the city. As these episodes demonstrate, peace had a high rhetorical value which, as the occasion required, could be deployed to serve different purposes, indeed even opposite ones. It is certainly not possible to compare the social composition 48 

The conflicts between Orsini and Colonna were considered barbarous, and indeed as extraneous to Roman culture: ‘Ben però mi persuado, anzi lo tengo per certo, che di tutte le nostre calamità è origine e fonte lo disordine civile; et ardisco con aperta fronte replicarlo, che per ciò ne sia occorso la grave e vile contumacia, e siamoci redotti da grandi a piccoli ed in tanto miserabile conditione. Crudelissima, efferata e crudele, donde questa si causi e proceda, e se questo è il cuor guelfo e l’animo ghibellino: nomi barbari et asperi di pronuntia, et assai più barbari et efferati d’invelenato sogetto. E voi li miei signori baroni sete il fomento di queste intossicate passioni. Orsini sono per parlarne più apertamente, e non manco Colonnesi, e tutti lor seguaci aderenti’: Altieri, Li nuptiali, p. xvii. 49  ‘Noi […] juramo […] difendere la Repubblica Romana, reietti et aboliti li pernitiosj nomi dei Guelfi e Gibellini […] in caso di violentia, oppressione, injuria, ò ver tirannia publice, vel privatim’: Gennaro, ‘“La pax romana” del 1511’, p. 40. 50  On the subjectivity of the sources in defining the types of union and peace, see Kolmer, Die promissorische Eide im Mittelalter, p. 188.

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and the political representation of the city of Rome with that of a city in northern Italy, and above all with a commune like that of Genoa. Not only are these entirely different contexts, but the presence of the papacy makes any comparison very difficult. Moreover, the populus in Genoa, which had a long tradition of political representation, was certainly not the populus of Rome, which was perhaps more symbolic than material in nature. It is possible, however, to compare the connection between peace and revolt in both Rome and Genoa. In Rome, as in Genoa, disorders and peace can be viewed as part of a single process. As Otto Gerhard Oexle puts it, this was a pax achieved through a coniuratio.51 The cohesion of the unions constituted by voluntary agreement without coercion may not necessarily correlate with the stability and robustness of a peace. The model of the peace settlement in Genoa cannot be considered more valid than that of the peace of Viterbo or Perugia, because the consensus on which peace was founded could be obtained both through voluntary adherence (Genoa, Rome) and through threats and the use of violence (Viterbo, Perugia). If, however, we focus our attention on the circumstances of the oath-taking itself, we can make certain distinctions. It is conceivable that oaths entered into without coercion may have constrained those making the oaths differently than those made because of coercion. The fides pledged on the occasion of some oaths during revolts may have contributed to the success of some peace settlements.

51 

Oexle, ‘Friede durch Verschwörung’.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Genova, Archivio di Stato, MS 1169 (Notai antichi) Genova, Biblioteca Civica Berio, MS mr. i.4.9 (Libro di Pace e Concordia) Perugia, Archivio di Stato, Miscellanea di atti giudiziari, busta non numerata (Fondo Pozzo) —— , MS 4 (Privilegi, bolle, lettere) Viterbo, Archivio di Stato, MS 57 (Notaio Spinello Altobello)

Primary Sources Altieri, Marco Antonio, Li nuptiali (Roma: Bartoli, 1873) Cicero, De officiis, trans. by Walter Miller, Loeb Classical Library, 30 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913) Machiavelli, Niccolò, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Roma: Salerno, 2001) —— , Legazioni e commissarie, ed. by Corrado Vivanti (Torino: Einaudi, 1999)

Secondary Studies Bellabarba, Marco, La giustizia nell’Italia moderna (Roma: Laterza, 2008) —— , ‘Pace pubblica e pace privata: linguaggi e istituzioni processuali nell’Italia moderna’, in Criminalità e giustizia in Germania e in Italia: pratiche giudiziarie e linguaggi giuridici tra tardo medioevo e prima età moderna, ed. by Marco Bellabarba, Gerd Schwerhoff, and Andrea Zorzi (Bologna: Mulino, 2001), pp. 189–213 Black, Christopher R., ‘The Baglioni as Tyrants of Perugia, 1488–1540’, English Historical Review, 85 (1970), 245–81 Borghesi, Francesco, ‘For the Good of All: Notes on the Idea of concordia during the Late Middle Ages’, Italian Poetry Review, 5 (2012 for 2010), 215–38 Bossy, John, Peace in the Post-Reformation, The Birkbeck Lectures, 1995 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Braccia, Roberta, Diritto della città: diritto del contado. Autonomie politiche e autonomie normative di un distretto cittadino (Milano: Giuffrè, 2004) Broggio, Paolo, and Paoli, Maria Pia, eds, Stringere la pace: teorie e pratiche della conciliazione nell’Europa moderna (secoli xv–xviii) (Roma: Viella, 2011) Bruni, Francesco, La città divisa: le parti e il bene commune da Dante a Guicciardini (Bologna: Mulino, 2003) Carroll, Stuart, ‘The Peace in the Feud in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France’, Past and Present, 178 (2003), 74–115 Casarino, Giacomo, ‘Il popolo come laboratorio: dal conflitto alla sfera pubblica (Genova, xiii–xvii secolo)’, in Essere popolo: prerogative e rituali d’appartenenza nelle citta’ italiane d’antico regime, ed. by Gérard Delille and Aurora Savelli (Firenze: Polistampa, 2003), pp. 187–220

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Cooper, Donal, ‘Raphael’s Altarpieces in San Francesco al Prato, Perugia: Patronage, Setting and Function’, Burlington Magazine, 143 (2001), 554–61 D’Addio, Mario, L’idea del contratto sociale dai sofisti alla riforma e il de principatu di Mario Salamonio (Milano: Giuffrè, 1954) De Benedictis, Angela, Una guerra d’Italia, una resistenza di popolo: Bologna 1506 (Bologna: Mulino, 2004) Dessì, Rosa Maria, ed., Prêcher la paix et discipliner la société: Italie, France, Angleterre (xiiie–xve siècles), Collection d’études médiévales de Nice, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) —— , ‘Predicare e governare nelle città dello Stato della Chiesa alla fine del Medioevo: Giacomo della Marca a Fermo’, in Studi in memoria di Girolamo Arnaldi (Roma: Viella, 2001), pp. 125–59 Dilcher, Gerhard, Die Entstehung der lombardischen Stadtkommune: Eine rechtsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Aalen: Scientia, 1967) Fried, Johannes, ed., Träger und Instrumentarien des Friedens im Hohen und Späten Mittelalter, Vorträge und Forschungen, 43 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1996) Gennaro, Claudia, ‘“La pax romana” del 1511’, Archivio della società romana di storia patria, 90 (1967), 17–60 Jackson, Philippa, and Fabrizio Nevola, ‘Beyond the Palio: Urbanism and Ritual in Renaissance Siena’, Renaissance Studies, 20 (2006), 137–46 Jansen, Katherine L., ‘Peacemaking in the Oltrarno, 1287–1297’, in Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton, ed. by Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger, and Constance M. Rousseau (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 327–44 Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Retour à la cité: les magnats de Florence (1340–1440) (Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2006) Kolmer, Lothar, Die promissorische Eide im Mittelalter (Lassleben: Kallmünz, 1989) Marcarelli, Michelangelo, ‘Pratiche di giustizia in età moderna: riti di pacificazione e mediazione nella terraferma veneta’, in L’amministrazione della giustizia penale nella Repubblica di Venezia (secoli xvi–xviii), ed. by Giovanni Chiodi and Claudio Povolo, 2 vols (Verona: Cierre, 2004), ii: Retoriche, stereotipi, prassi, pp. 259–310 Musso, Riccardo, ‘“Viva el Duca et lo Sancto Padre”: Savona al tempo degli Sforza e di Sisto IV (1464–1478)’, Atti e memorie della Società Savonese di Storia Patria, 37 (2000), 59–153 Niccoli, Ottavia, Perdonare: idee, pratiche e rituali in Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Laterza, 2007) Oexle, Otto Gerhard, ‘Friede durch Verschwörung’, in Träger und Instrumentarien des Friedens im Hohen und späten Mittelalter, ed. by Johannes Fried, Vorträge und For­ schungen, 43 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1996), 115–150 Pacini, Arturo, I presupposti politici del secolo dei genovesi: la riforma del 1528 (Genova: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 1990) Padoa Schioppa, Antonio, ‘Delitto e pace privata nel pensiero dei legisti bolognesi: brevi note’, Studia gratiana, 20 (1976), 269–87 Pandiani, Emilio, Un anno di storia genovese (giugno 1506–1507): con diario e documenti inediti (Genova: Sambolino, 1905)

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Pedullà, Gabriele, Machiavelli in tumulto: conquista, cittadinanza e conflitto nei ‘Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio’ (Roma: Bulzoni 2012) Petkov, Kirill, The Kiss of Peace: Ritual, Self and Society in the High and Late Medieval West (Leiden: Brill, 2003) Pinzi, Cesare, Storia della città di Viterbo, 4 vols (Roma: Camera dei deputati, 1887–1913) Polecritti, Cynthia L., Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy: Bernardino of Siena and His Audience (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000) Prodi, Paolo, Il sacramento del potere: il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna: Mulino, 1992) Ricciardelli, Fabrizio, The Politics of Exclusion in Early Renaissance Florence, Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007) Rossi, Mariaclara, ‘Polisemia di un concetto: la pace nel basso medioevo. Note di lettura’, in La pace tra realtà e utopia, Quaderni di storia religiosa, 12 (Verona: Cierre, 2005), pp. 9–46 Scheyhing, Robert, Eide, Amtsgewalt und Bannleihe: Eine Untersuchung zur Bannleihe im hohen und späten Mittelalter (Köln und Graz: Böhlau, 1960) Schuster, Peter, Der gelobte Frieden: Täter, Opfer und Herrschaft im spätmittelalterlichen Konstanz (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1995) Sensi, Mario, ‘Le paci private nella predicazione, nelle immagini di propaganda e nella prassi fra Tre e Quattrocento’, in La pace tra realtà e utopia, Quaderni di storia religiosa, 12 (Verona: Cierre, 2005), pp. 159–200 Serio, Alessandro, ‘Pompeo Colonna tra papato e “grandi monarchie”, la pax romana del 1511 e i comportamenti politici dei baroni romani’, in La nobiltà romana in età moderna: profili istituzionali e pratiche sociali, ed. by Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Roma: Carocci, 2001), pp. 63–87 Shaw, Christine, ‘Peace-Making Rituals in Fifteenth-Century Siena’, Renaissance Studies, 20 (2006), 225–39 —— , Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2006) Taviani, Carlo, Superba discordia: guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento (Roma: Viella, 2008) Thompson, Augustine, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) Vallerani, Massimo, ‘Pace e processo nel sistema giudiziario del comune di Perugia’, Quaderni storici, 100 (1999), 315–53 Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, ‘Guerra e riti di pacificazione: le spedizioni di Giulio II a Bologna nelle pagine del cerimoniere del papa (1506–1512)’, in Città in guerra: esperienze e riflessioni nel primo ’500. Bologna nelle ‘Guerre d’Italia’, ed. by Gian Mario Anselmi and Angela De Benedictis (Bologna: Minerva, 2008), pp. 85–118

Part II Family and Gender

Family Rituals in Northern Italy (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries) Guido Alfani

O

ver the last decades, the main rituals involving the family in the late medieval and early modern period (baptism, marriage) have been the object of considerable interest on the part of historians, one of the main reasons being the abundant sources available on the topic. Today, these same sources (parish books of baptisms and marriages; libri di famiglia or family records; synodal statutes) are being used with new perspectives and are moving back to the centre of attention. In particular, network analysis has focused on these sources as they allow systematic study of social interaction between individuals within the same community. In doing so, network analysis also sheds light on the presence at family rituals of actors different from those having (as is com-

Guido Alfani ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of Economic History at the Università Bocconi, Milan. He is also fellow of the Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and of IGIER, and is a honorary research fellow of the University of Glasgow. Since 2009 he has been chief editor of the journal Popolazione e storia and is a member of the editorial board of Genus. His research focuses on godparenthood and systems of social alliance in medieval and early modern Europe, on Italian economic trends during the same period, on economic inequality, and on historical demography (especially the history of plague and history of famines). He has published Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy: The Grand Tour of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013, Fathers and Godfathers: Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern Italy (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), and, with Alessia Melegaro, Pandemie d’Italia: dalla peste nera all’influenza suina; l’impatto sulla società (Milano: Egea, 2010). He has co-edited Baptiser: pratique sacramentelle, pratique sociale (SaintEtienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 2009) with Phlippe Castagnetti and Vincent Gourdon; Ricchezza, valore, proprietà in Età preindustriale, 1400–1850 (Venezia: Marsilio, 2009) with Michela Barbot; and La gestione delle risorse collettive: Italia settentrionale, secoli xii–xviii (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2011) with Riccardo Rao. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 139–160 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100771

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monly hypothesized) a privileged relationship: at baptism, not only child and parents but also godparents; at marriage, witnesses as well as grooms and brides. In these new perspectives which embrace a wider array of actors, the ‘ritual’ character of events such as baptism and marriage has not been explored in detail. If, for example, baptism had relational effectiveness thanks to the ties of spiritual kinship it established, it should not be forgotten that the ceremony of baptism also had a public character, and together with the feasts that followed played a key role in making everybody aware that the relationships among the main actors had been reconfigured. My aim here is to bridge the gap between the new views suggested by the ‘relational’ approach (of which network analysis is just one of the possible manifestations)1 and the historical and anthropological research on rituals. The analysis will take into account the important transformations undergone by family rituals due to the Council of Trent and to the forces employed to apply it at the end of sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Council tried to outlaw the profane contents of rituals, considering that they had to be fully part of the sphere of the sacred (especially in the case of baptism), or modified and even ‘standardized’ rituals that earlier were regulated by a variety of local customs (both in the case of baptism and marriage). In doing so, the Council played a key role in shaping modern Catholic social institutions: innovations both in how rituals were performed and who could participate in them deeply influenced relational systems and societies at large. In organizing the materials, I found convenient to follow Arnold Van Gennep’s classic distinction between ‘rites of passage’ related to different phases of the life cycle,2 thus beginning with birth rituals for later analysing marriage. While the involvement of family and kin in the rituals will be stressed, it will be also shown that these ‘family rituals’ saw the active participation of people not tied by blood or affinity to the main characters.

Birth, Baptism, and Godparenthood For the Catholic Church as well as for most other Christian traditions, baptism is a rite by which the baptized is cleansed of original sin, with which he or she is 1  About the many facets of network studies applied to historical data, see for example Histoire de la famille et analyse de réseaux, ed. by Gourdon, Grange, and Lemercier, monographic number of the Annales de démographie historique, 109 (2005). 2  Van Gennep, Les Rites de passage.

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stained from birth. With this sacrament, divine grace descends on the baptized and allows rebirth to a spiritual life, at the same time opening the path to eternal salvation. Natural birth, then, is contrasted with spiritual birth; the flesh is contrasted with the spirit. At the end of the Middle Ages, the child was brought to the Church by a procession led by the godparents. Before entering sacred ground, the child was exorcized by the attending priest, with original sin being treated as a kind of spell under which the newborn was placed.3 Only after the exorcism was the child brought to the baptismal font, where he was immersed in water (or simply aspersed with it) by the priest. Later the child was given back to the godparents who gave him a name.4 In this way, the child at the same time found a place within a lineage or kinship group and also within society as a whole: baptism in fact realized not only the spiritual birth of the new Christian, but also his social birth. Godparents5 attended while the rituals were performed, representing the Church in the sense of the gathered community of Christians who presented an incomplete and imperfect being, and through grace, received in exchange a new member of the community. In the light of this spiritual birth, in the course of time the existence of spiritual kinship gradually came to be recognized, with its related marriage bans between those who had taken part in the rite of baptism (including both parents of the baptized even if the mother, and often the father,

3 

The words of the exorcism had generated a widespread belief that the condition of original sin was something similar to possession. Death of the newborn did not liberate his or her body — hence rites of expulsion of evil were celebrated even after death: Bossy, Christianity in the West. 4  The sequence exorcism / aspersion with water / acceptance of the baptized by the godparents corresponds to the three phases that, according to Van Gennep, Les Rites de passage, compose a rite of passage: separation (to allow the individual to leave his previous condition) / transition (halfway between the old and new status, the individual makes the experience of the sacred) / aggregation (to incorporate the individual, who has been changed by the ritual, into his new community). About this, see also Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe. 5  Godparents began to attend baptismal ceremonies from the fifth and sixth centuries. Direct descendants of the fideiussores or sponsores, who in the first centuries of the Christian era accompanied and presented as guarantors the candidate wishing to enter the path of cathecumante (to be followed by baptism only after a period of trial), after infant baptism became general godparents who satisfied an important ritual need: to answer to the priest’s questions and to refuse Satan on behalf of the baptized. They also acquired a (theoretical) duty to tutor the Christian upbringing of the child. About this, see Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, and more recently Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers.

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were absent), and later including their families.6 Medieval theological tradition actually developed the concept of a real ‘spiritual family’ similar but superior, as the spirit is always superior to the flesh, to the ‘natural family’.7 Therefore, baptism generated kinship relationships and automatically also formed a network of relations similar to, but not exactly overlapping, the network based on natural kinship. The main reason for such difference was the almost complete absence of kinsmen from the group of godparents. In the city of Ivrea (Piedmont) at the end of the sixteenth century only about 5 to 6 per cent of all godparents were chosen among kin; in the rural town of Nonantola (Emilia) during the same period they were between 7 to 8 per cent; in both places the choice of kinsmen to act as godparents started to increase only in the eighteenth century, not becoming dominant until the nineteenth or even the twentieth century.8 This recent data confirms Christiane Klapisch-Zuber’s early hypothesis according to which at the end of the Middle Ages. In Italy as well as the rest of Western Europe, the tendency was to make use of godparenthood to ‘extend’ existing networks by establishing new formal ties of (spiritual) kinship, and not to ‘intensify’ existing networks by duplicating or cumulating ties of blood or affinity.9 Only recently did godparenthood and comparatico (the specific relationship established between a parent and a godparent of one of his or her children) begin to attract a wide interest among historians, who were mainly led to these institutions by anthropological research.10 Sociologists and economic historians have 6 

At the beginning of the sixteenth century canon law stated the existence of spiritual kinship between godfathers, godmothers, and their spouses on one side, and godchildren and their parents on the other. Furthermore, there was spiritual kinship between godchildren and the children of their godparents, and between the baptized child and the person who baptized him (usually a priest, save for emergency baptisms performed by midwives or others). In any case, relationships between the child, his parents, and his godfathers and godmothers (i.e. the actors of baptism) had a prominent position among the other relationships of spiritual kinship. About spiritual kinship, see Spiritual Kinship in Europe, ed. by Alfani and Gourdon. 7  Guerreau-Jalabert, ‘Spiritus et caritas’; Guerreau-Jalabert, ‘Parenté’. 8  In both cases, the existence of kinship ties has been hypothesized in the case of coincidence of surnames of parents and godparents: the only method possible for such early periods and such a long time span. While this method is obviously imprecise at the level of individuals, at a macro-level (whole parishes, or whole communities) it allows us to obtain very satisfying results, especially in reconstructing long-term trends. See for a detailed discussion of such enquiries, Alfani, ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Others’; Alfani, ‘I padrini: patroni o parenti?’; Alfani, ‘Parrains, “partecipanti” et parenté’. 9  Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Parrains et filleuls’; Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Compérage et clientèlisme’. 10  For a reconstruction, see Lynch, Godparents and Kinship, and Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers.

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shown interest even more recently, themselves led to godparenthood by the sociological theory of the networks and by the discovery that ‘weak ties’ can prove more effective than ‘strong’ ones in reaching certain goals.11 In our perspective, we must underline the fact that focusing on godparents has helped to make it clear that the number of people taking active part in a family ritual such as baptism could be large (even huge if we consider the processions and feasts that preceded and followed), and that many among them were not ‘family’ at all — in the sense that they had no kinship ties with baptized and parents. First of all, at the end of the Middle Ages the number of godparents themselves could be quite relevant. In Northern Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century, we find on average 2.6 godfathers and 1.3 godmothers per baptism in Ivrea and 2.4 and 0.4 respectively in Turin (Piedmont); 2.86 and 2.35 in Bellano and 2.18 and 0 (no godmothers)12 in Voghera (Lombardy); 1.6 and and 1.5 in Finale (Liguria); 1.4 and 1.4 in Gambellara (Veneto), and so on.13 According to some accounts in certain places, such as Venice, godparents could number in the hundreds;14 while this is probably an exaggeration,15 it is true that the above averages hide a much more complex and varied situation, with the most striking case I found in the sources being that of a certain Maria who on 20 March 1502 was baptized in Ivrea in the presence of seventeen godfathers and ten godmothers. Such a large number of godparents accounts for a vast reconfiguration of the parents’ (and subordinately, the child’s) network of formal ties of kinship. It was vital, then, that the freshly established ties became known to the community at large, given that only if they became public they could gain effectiveness between the parties (social sanctions being added to the divine wrath falling upon those who misbehaved violating the ‘holy comparatico’)16 and could be claimed in front 11  Granovetter, ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’; for an attempt to apply the methods of formal network analysis to godparenthood, Munno, ‘Prestige, intégration, parentèle’; Alfani and Munno, ‘Godparenthood and Social Networks’. 12  In Voghera, godmothers were introduced only after the Council of Trent to compensate for the reduction in number of godfathers. 13  See Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers, pp. 28–35 for more data and detailed information about each case. 14  Corblet, Histoire du sacrement de baptême. 15  In this regard, see Jean-François Chauvard’s recent research on some Venetian parishes: Chauvard, ‘Parrainage et liens sociaux à Venise’. 16  Comparatico implied a duty of respect and of friendship, that necessitated doing something (addressing the compare with special formulae, providing support in cases of disputes, helping him with his own business activities, etc.), or not doing something (desisting from or

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of others: the latter case being especially important when a tie of godparenthood linked individuals who had very unequal social positions, both reinforcing and making visible what in essence was a tie of clientele. This task was accomplished in a number of ways. First of all, the simple fact that the ceremony took place in a church (or, rarely outside big cities, in an annexed baptistery) meant that a larger community participated. The importance to the Florentines of the right to have their children baptized in the baptistery of St John, next to the Duomo, is well known; the ceremony also ensured that the child would get full citizenship. Where baptisms were not centralized in a specific sacred building, such as in Ivrea where all of the urban parishes had their own baptismal font, the public attending the ceremony was composed of fellow parishioners and neighbours, integrated with friends, kin, and allies coming from other parishes or other communities. People gathering into the church for receiving the newborn as a Christian, a full member of the community and as part of a specific lineage or kinship group, had previously gathered at the child’s home. Often, the priests charged with performing the ceremony lamented that they had to wait for hours while the procession assembled. The organization was probably delayed by parties being thrown even before the baptism. Also inducing those in the baptismal procession to get into the church could represent a problem — they preferred staying outside and continuing the festivities. After the ceremony, the celebrations reached their peak: with the wealthy and the comfortable organizing a feast or banquet at home, and the lowly choosing the tavern to continue the merriment.17 Scandals easily erupted: because baptismal celebrations became occasion for licence (such as the indecent dancing involving in 1460 Rodrigo Borgia, future Pope Alexander VI, and a number of Sienese gentlewomen whose husbands were forbidden to join the party),18 or because parents and godparents got drunk and entirely forgot about the unfortunate child who, especially in wintertime, risked death because of the cold and lack of care. These baptismal celebrations could become quite expensive. According to local customs, godparents contributed to paying for food and refreshments, or even took the full costs upon themselves. These expenses were only a part of complex systems of gift-giving in which varying groups of donors and recipients not initiating feuds with the compare and his relatives, not stealing from him, etc.). See Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers; for a later period and a different area, see Hammel, Alternative Social Structures and Ritual Relations in the Balkans. 17  Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Fêtes du baptême’. 18  As it was murmured at the time, ‘if all those being born a year since [the party] had to be like their fathers, they would all be priests and cardinals’: Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, pp. 28–29.

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exchanged food, small sums, or items such as the white vest offered by godparents to godchildren, but often the circulating gifts were much more precious.19 It is significant that town authorities, in Italy as in the rest of Europe, had tried since the Middle Ages to moderate the expenses incurred by parents and godparents in organizing banquets and feasts and through offering gifts. The efforts of the sumptuary legislation to moderate luxury at birth rituals was renewed in the early modern period: for example in Milan in 1565 a sumptuary law stated that, ‘At baptism no refreshment is to be offered, no sums of money or gifts are to be offered by godfathers and godmothers, women in puerperium are not to be visited often’.20 These kinds of rules, which we have reason to think were ineffective in preventing the condemned behaviours,21 had long been a topos throughout Europe and would have been part of sumptuary laws both among the Catholics and the Reformed until the end of the eighteenth century; in France for example, between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries more than 30 per cent of all local sumptuary laws included norms about birth or baptismal feasts.22 The Council of Trent (1545–63) deeply reformed Catholic baptism. While some of these reforms were more successful than others, some aspects of the birth rituals changed dramatically: this is surely the case of the involvement of godparents. Having to face criticism from the Reformation (Luther had stated that the very notion of spiritual kinship was the fruit of human superstition),23 the Catholic Church meant to bring godparenthood under a more effective control. First of all, it reduced the extent of spiritual kinship, stating that it only involved the baptized, parents and godparents. Secondly, it reduced the number of godparents, admitting two as a maximum: one godfather and one godmother. In this way, the Council played a key role in establishing that ‘couple model’ which is still, by far, the most widespread among Catholics; I believe that, as a result, the Council also unwittingly changed the symbolism of the baptismal rite (the child now being accepted by an alternative parental couple and not by representatives 19 

Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Il ruolo economico del padrinato’. Verga, ‘Le leggi suntuarie e la decadenza dell’industria’. 21  The reissuing of sumptuary laws over time is not, by itself, proof of the fact that they were not applied. Often their application, which implied a fine for those who misbehaved, became a kind of tax imposed on those who could afford to pay the fine and preferred to ignore the sumptuary prescriptions. See Disciplinare il lusso, ed. by Muzzarelli and Campanini. 22  Bulst, ‘La legislazione suntuaria in Francia’. For more information about medieval and early modern sumptuary laws regulating baptism throughout Europe, see Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Fêtes du baptême’. 23  Alfani, ‘Geistige Allianzen’. 20 

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of the community as a whole).24 Thirdly, it tried to control more closely who was chosen as godparent, intending to accept only those suitable to act as tutors of their godchildren in a Christian education. While the Catholic Church was very successful in making recalcitrant communities accept the reduction in number of godparents, although it took some decades, and in forcing priests to thoroughly check for impediments to marriage due to spiritual kinship (parish books of baptism and marriage being established also to this end), inducing those same priests to really check the suitability of would-be godparents proved to be as impossible as inducing the godparents to take care of the education of godchildren: notwithstanding the considerable efforts to this end by key protagonists of the Catholic Reformation, such as Milan’s Archbishop Carlo Borromeo.25 However, the reduction of the maximum number of godparents was by itself capable of causing a deep crisis of those traditional systems of social relation that in many parts of Italy were grounded in the vast number of active participants to the baptismal rite. The way in which a baptism, through the new formal ties of kinship and friendship it established, was able to reconfigure individuals’ social networks changed deeply. The final result was a kind of ‘verticalization’ of godparenthood, the only surviving godfather usually being the man of highest social rank that a father could induce to take part in the ceremony. More and more, godparenthood became an instrument for establishing ties of clientele and patronage. This development, which seemingly characterized Catholic godparenthood during the seventeenth century, was to be challenged only by the rise of kinship-orientated choices of godparents in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.26 The reduction in number of godparents also was meant to establish a better control upon how the baptismal rite was performed: excluding all manifestations of a kind of enlarged, or even ‘public’, participation which seemed incoherent with the sacred character of the ceremony. While the Council of Trent was debating how to reform baptism, one of the points brought to the attention of the assembly was how to prevent the public disturbing the ceremony with talk and laughter. The godparents were among the main culprits: interrupting the rite 24  This would be consistent with the development from the community to individuals that, according to Bossy, ‘The Counter-Reformation’, the Catholic Church actively pursued after Trent. 25  For a more detailed analysis both of the reform of baptism and godparenthood planned by the Council of Trent and of Borromeo’s work to apply the decrees of the Council, see Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers. 26  Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers; Alfani, ‘I padrini: patroni o parenti?’.

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with jokes and vulgarities (verba iocosa et inhonesta) and not paying any attention to the rituals that the priest was struggling to complete. But were the godparents really disturbing the rite, or were they adding to Catholic baptismal rituals other ritual elements originating from more ancient birth rites? Whatever the case, the Church decided to try to entirely expel such profane elements from sacred ceremonies. It was equally unfavourable to all other ‘profane rituals’ happening outside the church or the baptistery: at the Council, it was proposed to forbid all parties, feasts, and banquets; somebody even suggested that profane convivia (banquets) could be transformed into pious events by substituting mundane songs and chorals with sacred singing, benedictions, and prayers. In the end, no formal decision was taken in this regard, probably based on the realization that it would have been juridically questionable and also very difficult in practice to control what happened within mainly private walls.27 The Church, though, was active in trying to hinder the great meetings of kinsmen, allies, and friends at the time of baptism, by decreeing that the ceremony had to be celebrated within three days from birth: thus making it difficult to spread the word far and wide or to wait for guests living in other communities to arrive. 28 Like its Reformed counterparts, the Catholic Church also placed pressures on civic authorities to moderate individuals’ behaviour. Thus for example, in Rimini in 1573 a sumptuary law decreed that at baptism no grouping of people is to be accepted, neither at home nor outside, save for the godfather with the godmother and her servants and the other mentioned women [that is the mother, mother-in-law, sisters, cousins, and sisters-inlaw] with their servants.

It also regulated how the newborn had to be dressed for the ceremony and forbade any visit to the women in puerperium save for their closest kin.29 Baptismal parties and banquets though survived any attempt to eliminate them and continued to be, for the wealthy and powerful, an occasion to make their supremacy visible and demonstrate their alliances. For everybody, they represented a key moment in the establishment of new formal social ties by means of comparatico and spiritual kinship, which the ceremony and the related celebrations made public. Only the development of a bourgeois ideology of the family, especially during the nineteenth century, would make birth an intimate event, 27 

Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers. Bossy, ‘The Counter-Reformation’. 29  La legislazione suntuaria, ed. by Muzzarelli, p. 675. 28 

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brought godparenthood within the boundaries of kinship, and closed the doors of the baptismal banquet to all save for the family and the closest kin and friends.30 The focus on the actors of the birth rites brought me to concentrate on the main event (baptism) and on the other collective rituals to which a large number of people participated. Other ritual aspects, though, are worth mentioning even if it is not possible here to discuss them at length. First of all, namegiving, which, as already noted, helped the newborn in finding his place within the community and saw the active involvement of godparents. In France in the early modern period as well as in medieval England one of the godparents gave his or her name to the newborn31 but this was not the case in Italy and in other parts of Mediterranean Europe. In Florence for example family records show a circulation of names within the family, with ancestors being ‘remade’ by means of giving their name to the newborn.32 In northern Italy, godparents were also not giving their names to godchildren. Instead, godchildren received the names of their ancestors, of saints, and even names à la mode or that were deemed to bring good luck, generating a complex situation which is difficult for the historian to untangle.33 Whatever the name chosen and the rules followed to choose it, giving a name to the newborn was as essential in making him ‘full’ as the other rituals of acceptance that took place at baptism. Another important family ritual involved the mothers of the newborn. They were excluded from the baptismal ceremony, as well as from attending mass, during the period of the puerperio (puerperium), which had at its root the biblical tradition and lasted forty days. While there was no rigid church rule imposing to respect this period of ritual impurity, nevertheless it was a deeply established custom in much of Italy (most of what we know about it is actually related to Tuscany).34 During the puerperio, mothers received visits from the godparents, kinsmen, and others who usually brought gifts such a desco da parto (birth plate) or (since the sixteenth century) a tazza da puerpera (puerperium cup), both of which could be richly ornate and finely painted.35 Such visits were another occa30 

Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Fêtes du baptême’. Burguière, ‘Prénoms et parenté’; Bennett, ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Baptismal Name’. 32  Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Parrains et filleuls’; Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Le Nom “refait”’. 33  Alfani, ‘La selezione dei nomi e dei padrini’. See also, about namegiving in Europe, Mitterauer, Ahnen und Heilige. 34  Haas, The Renaissance Man and his Children, pp. 67–68. 35  Mannini, ‘Dal desco de parto alla tazza da puerpera’; Haas, The Renaissance Man and his Children, pp. 59–60. 31 

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sion for expense and consumption that sumptuary laws tried to mitigate or forbade altogether. This period of ritual separation of the woman from the community ended with the andare in santo (the ‘going to the holy’) when the woman, escorted by other women, was admitted to the church again. Taken as a whole, late medieval birth rituals were a mix of sacred and profane, involved a lot of people with varied characteristics who played their role in different occasions, and had a markedly public character. The Council of Trent was a real turning point, both because Catholic Church repudiated practices that it had accepted and promoted up until then,36 and because it managed to impose its views upon populations that had ignored them for a long time. As will be seen, much the same can be said for another key family ritual: marriage.

Marriage For Europeans in the Middle Ages, while baptism was a sacrament established by the Church and (save for exceptions) performed within sacred buildings, marriage was a private matter, regulated by kin and family, in which the clergy played a role but not an essential one. On the other hand, the doctrine about the sacrament of marriage began to develop only in the eleventh century. Still at the time of the bulla Exsultate Deo of 1439, while marriage was mentioned among the sacraments it was the only one for which a specific ritual form was not established, meaning that for this specific sacrament rituals and liturgies were not essential, the substance being instead the contract freely established between man and woman.37 The most important role played by the Church, then, was to identify barriers to marriage, which could be due to consanguinity, affinity, or spiritual kinship.38 Less than a century later, Luther would have refused the very notion of a sacrament of marriage, while the Council of Trent chose to fiercely reaffirm it and also stated the necessity of public rituals administered by the Church. 36 

As part of the process through which the Church managed to impose its will, individual members of the clergy were excluded from many aspects of the birth rituals. Priests came to be very rarely selected as godfathers (the only godfather allowed being chosen of preference among lay élites) thus being excluded from networks of spiritual kinship, and many European statutes forbade them to take part in the banquets and feasts following baptism. Such rules, though, were still widely disregarded around the mid-seventeenth century. Alfani, ‘La Famille spirituelle des prêtres’; Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Fêtes du baptême’. 37  Kadzioch, Il ministro del sacramento del matrimonio, pp. 171–72. 38  About developments over time regarding impediments to marriage, Cimetier, ‘Parentè (empêchements de)’.

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Even if it was a private (lay) matter, medieval marriage had an eminently public character. It was not performed as a single rite, but as a sequence of rituals happening over a period of time which could last quite long. At every step, lots of people were involved: as with baptism, the aim was to make clear to the community at large that ties between different lineages, different branches of the same lineage, or simply between different families were going to change. Furthermore, given that marriage implied procreation, the rituals also were an announcement that the inter-generational flow of property and wealth within a certain human group was going to alter its course: a fact full of implications for the future which could affect the lives of many people, and not just relations of the couple. The long path towards the completion of a marriage began precisely with defining the economic implications of the union. Representatives of the families involved met and defined essential details such as the amount of the dowry along with how and when it was to be paid. A final meeting involved the fathers of the future couple and was not devoid of a ritual character: in Florence it ended (if an agreement was reached) with them shaking hands (impalmamento), while in Rome they kissed on the mouth (abboccamento).39 Unavoidably, witnesses were required to give the ritual its social power, as well as to provide the means for future juridical action should one of the parties prove to be untrustworthy. After the families had reached an agreement, for the couple began a long path of approaching, which was partly a social approaching, and partly a sexual one. Society came first: in late medieval Florence, of the three rituals established by local customs, the first one (the betrothal or sponsali) did not require the presence of the future bride. Only the masculine components of the lineages or kinship groups who were to become allied took part in the feast, which was enlarged as much as physically (and financially) possible. In this way, all those who were to be affected by the union, even marginally, could evaluate how their affairs were to be changed by it, and how they could profit from a reconfiguration of the social and economic networks of their kinship group. Only later women were involved, beginning with the giorno dell’anello (day of the ring), when all kinsmen of both sexes were invited to a party and a banquet offered at the bride’s house, in order to assist the young couple expressing their consent to get married at a future date. A notary took part in the ceremony, and it was at his presence (not that of a priest) that the promise was exchanged. It was him, again, who offered the hand of the woman to her future husband, who in his turn put a ring to her finger. The ring symbolized the promise but also made it visible for everybody, thus excluding 39 

Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Zacharie, ou le père évincé’.

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the woman from the marriage market and putting her out of reach from others’ ambitions. The final rituals, that brought to the whole community’s attention the new marriage and often (although rarely in Florence) involved the Church, were only the third step in this ritual process. It was not uncommon that the betrothed had to wait many years before completing the process, both because the betrothal could take place when they were very young (especially for women), and because according to the Florentine custom the dowry had to be paid before marriage. Collecting the dowry could represent a complex medium- or even long-term task for the family of the bride, delaying marriage.40 Similar customs also existed in the rest of Italy and across Europe. The exchange of a premarital promise, in particular, had key importance. This was the moment when the new couple was born; after that, the betrothed were considered as husband and wife already. After the promise, woman and man were authorized to treat each other with intimacy, which of course generated both the temptation and the occasion for sexual activity. While men, at the time of their marriage, were often experts in the field, for young women the period between promise and marriage could result in a path of sexual initiation. It was socially acceptable for a man to visit his fiancée, stay in her house as a guest and sleep in her bed, which by itself did not automatically mean having sex with her (if only because of the lack of intimacy). On the other hand, according to the twelfth century canonist Gratian after the exchange of the consent between man and woman marriage was already initiated, to be completed and made indissoluble by sexual intercourse (copula carnis). In this perspective, what we could a bit improperly call ‘premarital sexuality’ was largely tolerated and future husbands were surely allowed to kiss and touch (tochar, baciar, palpar) their betrothed. Such practices were accepted also in the rest of Europe, but often it was required from young men to respect the virginity of their fiancée up until the completion of marriage. The ambiguity of the situation is apparent. Even if the doctrine suggested by Pietro Lombardo, which in time triumphed over Gratian’s theories, did not indicate sexual intercourse as the completion of a marriage but attributed such function to the exchange of the consent ‘for the present’, problems remained. Lombardo proposed a distinction between the exchange of consent per verba de futuro (the promise) and that per verba de presenti (at the time of the final rituals of marriage), of which only the latter would complete the marriage. The copula carnis, or sexual union, only acted as proof that the consent had been exchanged for the present, which implied that 40 

Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Zacharie, ou le père évincé’; Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual; see also Lombardi, Storia del matrimonio.

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a promise followed by sexual intercourse was considered by the law to produce a complete, and indissoluble, marriage.41 However, the intimacy which developed between the couple after the promise, as well as the relative social acceptability or sexual attentions between the betrothed, created problems — especially if the would-be husband refused to complete the rituals and formally exchange the verba de presenti, behaviour which generated innumerable juridical actions for seduction, bigamy, and so on.42 As a matter of fact, if we look at social practice the distinction between ‘promise’ and ‘marriage’ continued to be very weak until the Council of Trent at least. What we would call ‘marriage’, then, was only the last stage of a long ritual process which could unfold over many years. Basically it consisted in the traductio mulieris, the transfer of the woman from her father’s house to the husband’s. A flamboyant parade which went through all the main roads of the community to ensure maximum publicity for the event. The bride arrived at her new house with the kin and friends who accompanied her with servitors carrying her trousseau and was celebrated with banquets and feasts. At this stage a priest was commonly involved to bless the marital bed, so as to prevent spells and curses cast by ill-wishers that might make the couple sterile. For the very same reason, in some parts of Italy and of Europe a priest was also required to bless the ring at the time of the promise, or the groom and bride with their followers went to find him at the church on the day of the marriage to receive a blessing. The priest, though, was still not necessary to complete marriage rituals: rather, it was increasingly seen as preferable to avoid the risk of going unprotected against curses.43 These final44 marriage rituals involved great expense on the part of the families, both because they were characterized by the presence of the largest number of guests (given that their main aim was publicity) and as they served to reinforce the social status of the couple and of the groom’s and bride’s lineages, thus 41  Lombardi, Storia del matrimonio; Lombardi, Matrimoni di antico regime; Gaudemet, Le Mariage en Occident. 42  Seidel Menchi and Quaglioni, Trasgressioni, seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia. 43  Bossy, Christianity in the West. 44  Truth be said, in many Italian cities a further ritual followed the traditio mulieris: a week after it the bride returned briefly to her father’s home. This event (the ritornata) was celebrated with further banquets and festivities to be held separately at the groom’s and bride’s homes, with the participation of the respective kinsmen and friends only. The ritual symbolized the provisional character of a marriage alliance, with the woman’s family ready to accept her again in case of widowhood, also retrieving the dowry (which, during the marriage, remained the property of the wife even if it was administered by the husband): Lombardi, Storia del matrimonio, p. 25.

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resulting in a great show of material wealth and of relational power. As in the case of celebrations of baptism, city authorities tried to regulate nuptial feasts and banquets by means of sumptuary law. In Bologna, for example, in 1398 it was stated that a marriage banquet could have no more than thirty guests, and that a maximum of two meat courses were to be served. Three years later, the new statutes reduced to twenty-four the maximum number of guests (people living in the house where the banquet took place were excluded) and also established that the meat courses could include no more than two partridges and just one pheasant per person. The statutes, though, made it clear the nature of these limitations: extra guests could be invited by paying a fine of 5 lire per head, and more pheasants and partridges could be served by paying a fine of 10 lire. General rules about excessively rich dresses and jewels also applied; paying a fine settled this issue, too.45 The publicity of marriage was assured also by the presence of formal witnesses, whose role would have been reinforced by the Council of Trent. For now, what needs to be underlined is that lots of people were involved in marriage rituals, making them an inherently public event: as with baptism and spiritual kinship, the newly established alliance acquired in effectiveness when made visible to the community. Publicity, though, could also be entirely lacking — such as in the case of clandestine marriages. The theory of consent, which identified in the exchange of the promise per verba de presenti between man and wife the path to establishing a sacramentally complete marriage, meant that young men and women had the means to try and fulfil their own desires about who to wed, escaping the control of their parents and kinsmen. If it could not be proven that a young woman was deceived by a dishonest seducer (that is, no one could disprove a ‘true’ consent on her part), there was very little that the respective families could do to cancel the union. While city authorities tried to make clandestine marriages impossible (for example, by stating that witnesses were required along with a notary drawing a public deed, and prescribing punishment for the clandestine couple — in Bologna in 1454 even inflicting death upon the groom),46 the clergy was often a willing witness to such secret ceremonies. A radically different position was to be taken by the Reformation, thus forcing Catholic Church to change stance in her turn. Luther, who considered marriage as a private contract and not a sacrament, stated that parental consent to the marriage was needed and that clandestine marriage 45  46 

La legislazione suntuaria, ed. by Muzzarelli, p. 10 and pp. 132–33. Lombardi, Storia del matrimonio, pp. 42–43.

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was null; he also reduced the number of impediments to marriage that had multiplied over the centuries (restricting the barrier of consanguinity and abrogating entirely spiritual kinship barriers). Such a development was surely welcomed by European great families (as well as by many not-so-great ones), given that it fulfilled their aspirations which the Church had long frustrated. It was feared, then, that the possibility for lineages to place under a rigid control the sexual (and social) behaviour of the young generations, and then to control even more closely the flow of patrimonies through the generations, could represent a real incentive to abandon Catholicism in favour of Reformed Christianism.47 The Council of Trent was faced with a dilemma: how to avoid repudiating the traditional doctrine of the Church concerning the sacrament of marriage and the theory of consent, while at the same time solving the problem represented by the competition of Reformed marriage. The canon of reform of the sacrament of marriage, the famed Tametsi, is a truly exceptional document insofar as it managed to do just this. While reaffirming that consent between the future husband and wife was the only thing needed to complete the sacrament of marriage, a public celebration was also made necessary: but rites had no longer to be autonomously performed by the families. Instead, they had to take place in front of the church (in facie ecclesiae); only the Rituale romanum of 1614 moved the celebration within the building. It was there that, at the presence of a priest and of witnesses, groom and bride exchanged their consent to the marriage. Furthermore, to ensure that everybody had knowledge of the ceremony going to take place, three publications had to be made over a period of time in the parishes of both spouses. Lastly, the priest had to register the details of the participants (witnesses included) in a book of marriages analogous to those books of baptisms that in some parts of Italy already existed and that the Council made mandatory for all parishes. A marriage not celebrated in the new public form (meaning without witnesses and the presence of a priest) was to be considered null.48 By imposing universal publicity the Catholic Church brought forward a drastic reduction in the number of clandestine marriages. By imposing a different idea of publicity, though, it compromised the ancient marital rites, of which families had been, up until then, the jealous keepers. The very presence of the priest, and the celebration of the rite near or within the sacred buildings, implied in the postTridentine spirit a fight without quarter against all manifestations of inappropriate merriment during the ceremony (laughing and joking, drinking, dancing 47  48 

Bossy, Christianity in the West. Zarri, ‘Il matrimonio tridentino’; Lombardi, Storia del matrimonio.

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and singing), as well as against the feasts and banquets that took place at home or, when the means were limited, at the tavern. As in the case of baptism, the Church was much more successful in imposing her will within the church than in private houses, the help provided by lay authorities by means of sumptuary laws notwithstanding. As well as the reform of baptism, the Tridentine reform of marriage introduced an element of social rigidity, and also of ritual rigidity, in Italy and other Catholic areas, whose effects still need to be fully explored. While godparenthood verticalized and became an instrument of social clientele, Catholic young men and women were de facto obliged to adequate their ‘free will’ to socio-economic and relational strategies formulated chiefly by the older generations.49 Another aspect also deserves underlining. By the simple fact of establishing books of marriages in which the identity of the witnesses was recorded (and, at a later stage, their signature collected), and by stating that their presence was necessary for the sacrament to be completed,50 the Church transformed them into much more important actors than they were. While the choice of witnesses to escort the spouses to marriage had always been the public recognition of the existence of an important tie between them, now their presence during a holy ceremony seemingly reinforced that tie and made it a kind of quasi-kinship — a fact that the Church never recognized and that, as far as I know, did not have any implication other than, maybe, a changing in the reciprocal behaviour of the parties, and almost surely in how the community considered their relationship. In other words, the role played by marriage witnesses in each individual’s social network changed. As a matter of fact, the most ancient books of marriages show clearly that selection of witnesses to marriage answered to specific strategies and relational needs. Even if witnesses to marriage, like godparents, become subject to an increasingly greater interest due to their usefulness in reconstructing social networks, this is still an almost uncharted field and very few case studies are available.51 In Ivrea at the end of sixteenth century there were on average 2.5 witnesses per marriage but often there were more, up to a maximum of ten; in the same period in Nonantola,

49  In this regard, see, for some further considerations, Alfani, Fathers and Godfathers; and Alfani and Gourdon, ‘Entrepreneurs, Formalization of Social Ties and Trustbuilding’. 50  Which meant establishing a ritual necessity, not only a juridical one, like before. 51  Slightly more abundant research is available for later periods, both for religious and for civic marriage: see for a recent synthesis Gourdon, ‘Les Témoins de mariage civil’. For an example of network analysis techniques applied to marriage witnesses, Alfani and Munno, ‘Godparenthood and Social Networks’.

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near Modena, there were 2.2 witnesses to a marriage on average.52 The Council of Trent had stated that two or three witnesses were enough,53 but a certain flexibility (like in Ivrea) was admitted considering that, differently from godparenthood, witnessing a marriage did not ‘officially’ change the nature of the tie between the witnesses and the couple. More interesting in the perspective of network studies as well as of social history is the fact that, if we compare who was chosen as godparent with who was chosen as marriage witness, we find strikingly different strategies of selection. Even considering the whole community, we find that people most chosen to act as godparent were different to those most chosen to witness a marriage.54 In general, in this period marriage witnessing is seemingly related to a social space mainly characterized by friendship, emotional closeness, and horizontal ties, having maybe taken up the role once played by horizontal comparatico, an ancient tradition that the reduction in number of godparents imposed by the Council of Trent had hindered.

Conclusion This short article could not fully account for the great variety of rituals of birth and of marriage to be found in late medieval and early modern Italy. Furthermore, for reasons of space it has not been possible to include in the analysis the third fundamental kind of rites of passage identified by Van Gennep: those related to death,55 that were attended by family and kin and that also had their own relational significance, if for no other reason but for being the public recognition that a knot in the net had been severed (and perhaps creating a need to mend it by means of freshly established ties). Even if much ethnographic material could be added to the analysis, though, identification of the fundamental characteristics of family rituals of birth 52 

Alfani, ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Others’; Alfani, ‘Parrains, “partecipanti” et parenté’. All these witnesses are male, even if canon law did not explicitly prevent women from playing such a role. The only requirement was that witnesses were able to understand what was happening and in the condition of observing the exchange of consent between the spouses. It is probable that exclusion of women from witnessing was due to the fact that they were not considered to be faithful enough, as was the case regarding notary deeds. In France, for exemple, this was the opinion of jurists, as noted by Imbert, ‘Les Témoins au mariage du Concile de Trente’. 54  Alfani, ‘Mobilità “matrimoniale” e mobilità “spirituale”’; Alfani, ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Others’; Alfani, ‘Closing a Network’. 55  See for example Cohn, Death and Property in Siena and Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe. 53 

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(baptism) and marriage would not change. Equally, further cases would only reinforce the conclusion that, if we study family rituals from the point of view of their relational effectiveness (an increasingly relevant perspective given the recent developments of network studies), we have to identify the key element in their publicity. Only when known to others and when officially presented to the community were the new ties of spiritual kinship and comparatico opposable to third parties. Only when the bride was publicly transferred to the house of her groom was a marriage really complete, meaning that only then was the intention of lineages and kinship groups to ally, socially and economically, established beyond question. The Council of Trent, the real forge of European Catholic modern and contemporary social institutions, did not refuse the principle of publicity. In the case of marriage, though, it imposed a different notion of publicity that transformed the church into the place where the new ties were presented to the community — making what was substantially a lay ceremony into a religious one. In general, the Tridentine reform both of baptism and of marriage had very relevant implications for how such rites could be used in shaping own social networks. We could define this process as one of increasing control if we looked at the Church as the main actor; this however should not lead us to forget that it was also a process of decreasing freedom for Italian populations, both from the relational and from the ritual point of view. The long-term consequences of this transformation still need to be fully understood.

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Works Cited Primary Sources La legislazione suntuaria secoli xiii–xvi: Emilia Romagna, ed. by Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Pubblicazioni degli archivi di Stato, 41 (Roma: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, 2002)

Secondary Studies Alfani, Guido, ‘Closing a Network: A Tale Of Not-So-Common Lands (Nonantola, xvith–xviiith Centuries)’, paper presented at the Conference on Social Networks and Institutional Change: Pathways and Limits of State Intervention in Rural Societies, University of Münster, Münster, 30–31 March 2007 —— , ‘La Famille spirituelle des prêtres en Italie septentrionale avant et après le Concile de Trente: caractéristiques et transformations d’un instrument d’intégration sociale’, Annales de démographie historique, 107 (2004), 137–61 —— , Fathers and Godfathers: Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern Italy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009) —— , ‘Geistige Allianzen: Patenschaft als Instrument sozialer Beziehung in Italien und Europa (15. bis 20. Jahrhundert)’, in Politiken der Verwandschaft: Beziehungsnetze, Geschlecht und Recht, ed. by Margareth Lanzinger and Edith Saurer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), pp. 25–54 —— , ‘Mobilità “matrimoniale” e mobilità “spirituale”: l’integrazione territoriale per affinità e parentela spirituale nel basso Canavese tra Cinquecento e Seicento’, Popolazione e Storia, 2 (2005), 33–46 —— , ‘I padrini: patroni o parenti? Tendenze di fondo nella selezione dei parenti spirituali in Europa (xv–xx secolo)’, Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, available online at [accessed 4 March 2013] —— , ‘Parrains, “partecipanti” et parenté: tendances de longue durée dans la sélection des parents spirituels au sein d’une communauté exceptionnelle: Nonantola, xvie– xviiie siècles’, in Baptiser: pratique sacramentelle, pratique sociale, ed. by Guido Alfani, Philippe Castagnetti, and Vincent Gourdon (Saint-Ètienne: Publications de l’Université Saint-Ètienne, 2009), pp. 293–316 —— , ‘La selezione dei nomi e dei padrini degli esposti in Italia settentrionale nei secoli xv–xvii: “pari opportunità” o discriminazione?’, Annali di storia moderna e contemporanea, 13 (2007), 193–222 —— , ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Others: Ivrea, xvith–xviith Centuries’, Popolazione e storia, 1 (2006), 57–80 —— , and Cristina Munno, ‘Godparenthood and Social Networks in an Italian Rural Com­munity: Nonantola, Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries’, in Spiritual Kinship in Europe, 1500–1900, ed. by Guido Alfani and Vincent Gourdon (London: Palgrave, 2012), pp. 96–123

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Alfani, Guido, and Vincent Gourdon, ‘Entrepreneurs, Formalization of Social Ties and Trustbuilding in Europe (Fourteenth to Twentieth Centuries)’, Economic History Review, 65 (2012), 1005–28 —— , ‘Fêtes du baptême et publicité des réseaux sociaux: grandes tendances de la fin du Moyen-Âge au xxe siècle’, Annales de démographie historique, 1 (2009), 153–89 —— , ‘Il ruolo economico del padrinato: un fenomeno osservabile?’, Cheiron, 23 (2006), 129–77 —— , eds, Spiritual Kinship in Europe, 1500–1900 (London: Palgrave, 2012) Bellonci, Maria, Lucrezia Borgia (Milano: Mondadori, 1983) Bennett, Michael, ‘Spiritual Kinship and the Baptismal Name in Traditional European Society’, in Principalities, Powers and Estates: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Government and Society, ed. by Leighton V. Frappell (Adelaide: Adelaide University Press, 1977), pp. 1–13 Bossy, John, Christianity in the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) —— , ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe’, Past and Present, 47 (1970), 51–70 Bulst, Neithard, ‘La legislazione suntuaria in Francia’, in Disciplinare il lusso: la legislazione suntuaria in Italia e in Europa tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. by Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli and Antonella Campanini, Studi storici Carocci, 40 (Roma: Carocci, 2003), pp. 121–36 Burguière, André, ‘Prénoms et parenté’, in Le Prénom: mode et histoire, ed. by Jacques Dupâquier, Alain Bideau, and Marie-Elisabeth Duceux (Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Ducreux, 1984), pp. 29–36 Chauvard, Jean-François, ‘Parrainage et liens sociaux à Venise (xviie–xviiie siècles)’, in Baptiser: pratique sacramentelle, pratique sociale, xvie–xxe siècles, ed. by Guido Alfani, Philippe Castagnetti, and Vincent Gourdon (Saint-Ètienne: Publications de l’Université Saint-Ètienne, 2009), pp. 341–68 Cimetier, F., ‘Parenté (empêchements de)’, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. by Alfred Vacant, Eugène Mangenot, and Emile Amann (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1932), pp. 1995–2003 Cohn, Samuel K., Jr, Death and Property in Siena, 1205–1800: Strategies for the Afterlife (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) Corblet, Jules, Histoire du sacrement de baptême, 2 vols (Paris: Société générale de librairie catholique, 1881–82) Gaudemet, Jean, Le Mariage en Occident: les moeurs et le droit (Paris: Cerf, 1987) Gourdon, Vincent, ‘Les Témoins de mariage civil dans les villes européennes du xixe siècle: quel intérêt pour l’analyse des réseaux familiaux et sociaux?’, Histoire, economie et société, 2 (2008), 61–88 —— , Cyril Grange, and Claire Lemercier, eds, Histoire de la famille et analyse de réseaux (= Annales de démographie historique, 109 (2005)) Granovetter, Mark S., ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology, 6 (1973), 1360–80 Guerreau-Jalabert, Anita, ‘Parenté’, in Dictionnaire raisonné de l’Occident médiéval, ed. by Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris: Fayard, 1999), pp. 855–70

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—— , ‘Spiritus et caritas: le baptême dans la société médiévale’, in La Parenté spirituelle, ed. by Françoise Héritier-Augé and Élisabeth Copet-Rougier (Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines, 1995), pp. 133–203 Haas, Louis, The Renaissance Man and his Children: Childbirth and Early Childhood in Florence, 1300–1600 (New York: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 67–68 Hammel, Eugene A., Alternative Social Structures and Ritual Relations in the Balkans (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968) Imbert, Jean, ‘Les Témoins au mariage du Concile de Trente à 1792, en France’, in Le Droit de la famille en Europe: son évolution de l’antiquité à nos jours (Strasbourg: Presses Uni­ versitaires de Strasbourg, 1993), pp. 307–13 Kadzioch, Grzegorz, Il ministro del sacramento del matrimonio nella tradizione e nel diritto canonico latino e orientale (Roma: Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1997) Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘Compérage et clientèlisme à Florence (1360–1520)’, Ricerche storiche, 15 (1985), 61–76 —— , ‘Le Nom “refait”’, L’Homme, 20 (1980), 77–104 —— , ‘Parrains et filleuls: une approche comparée de la France, l’Angleterre et l’Italie médiévales’, Medieval Prosopography, 6 (1985), 51–77 —— , Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985) —— , ‘Zacharie, ou le père évincé: les rites nuptiaux toscans entre Giotto et le concile de Trente’, Annales: économies, sociétiés, civilisations, 34 (1979), 1216–43 Lombardi, Daniela, Matrimoni di antico regime (Bologna: Mulino, 2001) —— , Storia del matrimonio dal medioevo ad oggi (Bologna: Mulino, 2008) Lynch, Joseph H., Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) Mannini, Maria Pia, ‘Dal desco da parto alla tazza da puerpera: significato e simbologia di un oggetto legato alla nascita’, Popolazione e storia, 1 (2002), 7–12 Mitterauer, Michael, Ahnen und Heilige: Namengebung in der europäischen Geschichte (München: Beck, 1993) Muir, Edward, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Munno, Cristina, ‘Prestige, intégration, parentèle: les réseaux de parrainage dans une communauté de Vénétie (1834–1854)’, Annales de démographie historique, 109 (2005), 95–130 Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina, and Antonella Campanini, eds, Disciplinare il lusso: la legislazione suntuaria in Italia e in Europa tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Roma: Carocci, 2003) Seidel Menchi, Silvana, and Diego Quaglioni, Trasgressioni: seduzione, concubinato, adulterio, bigamia (xiv–xviii secolo) (Bologna: Mulino, 2004) Van Gennep, Arnold, Les Rites de passage (Paris: Nourry, 1909) Verga, Ettore, ‘Le leggi suntuarie e la decadenza dell’industria in Milano 1565–1750’, Archivio storico lombardo, 27 (1900), 49–116 Zarri, Gabriella, ‘Il matrimonio tridentino’, in Il Concilio di Trento e il moderno, ed. by Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard (Bologna: Mulino, 1996), pp. 437–83

The First Female Nudes of the Quattrocento Christiane Klapisch-Zuber*

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n his study of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, David Rosand evokes the Florentine epithalamic painting supposed to have been the matrix of the female nude, a genre that came into its own from the last decades of the quattrocento with the compositions of Piero di Cosimo, Botticelli, and Giorgione.1 As he said, ‘although created in a specific context, to serve particular social function, the category eventually liberates itself from the restrictions of historical circumstance to assert its own generic independence, its existence as a recognizable formal type per se. But it carries with it as well the meanings, actual or potential — however vestigial or attenuated — generated by its origin’.2 It is thus here that in the second half of the fifteenth century the reclining nude woman appears. David Rosand links Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus to the *  I dedicate this essay to the memory of Daniel Arasse with whom I discussed time and

again feminine nudity in the quattrocento. 1  See all of the articles in the volume Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’, ed. by Goffen. 2  Rosand, ‘So-and-So Reclining on Her Couch’, p. 46.

Christiane Klapisch-Zuber ([email protected]) is Directrice d’études honoraires at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (ÉHESS), where she has taught history of the population, family, and women for three decades. She has published several books on those topics, among them most recently one on the graphic representations of kinship, L’Ombre des ancêtres: essai sur l’imaginaire médiéval de la parenté (Paris: Fayard, 2000), and another, Retour à la cité: les magnats de Florence (1340–1440) (Paris: Éditions de l’ÉHESS, 2006), on the political exclusion and reintegration of Florentine nobles during the late Middle Ages. She was co-editor of Histoire de la famille (Paris: Colin, 1986), and of Histoire des femmes, gen. eds, Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot, vol. ii: Le Moyen Âge (1991), and she is active on the editorial board of the review Clio: histoire, femmes, sociétés. She is now interested in images relating to justice, pain, and devotion. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 161–180 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100772

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female nudes that since the mid-fifteenth century had been part of the paintings related to marriage in Florence. I will discuss here not only the female nudes, but also their male partners, when they decorated inside covers of the marriage chests — the forzieri dipinti as the Florentines called them, or cassoni, as they have been designated most often since Karl Schubring. These symbolically laden objects were a regular part of the ritual of bourgeois marriage in Florence.3 The paintings on their front and sides long ago drew the attention of art historians. But the epithalamic art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries concerned other objects as well: carved or painted forzerini (chests), cups and basins, books, portraits, even fabrics, dresses, clothes or livery, and tapestries. It was especially related, however, to objects more precisely attached to the cycle of pregnancy and childbirth, such as the deschi and tondi da parto (birth trays), and from the end of the fifteenth century, the decorated platters and goblets of majolica presented to newly delivered women — all objects recently the topic of an important study.4 From the point of view that concerns us here, women were the first if not indeed the only recipients. Brides moving to their husbands’ houses, pregnant women or parturients, new mothers recovering from delivery and beginning to feed their child — these women are the first spectators invited to look at the images decorating these objects; their husbands, nonetheless, joined them in viewing the chests that furnished the marital bedroom. It might seem paradoxical that in the second half of the fifteenth century, paintings of nudes, male or female, reclining in languid positions, would have been designed and painted for new brides, generally just barely adolescent. These strange figures raise several questions: Why are they presented? What are their literary, moral, and pedagogical references? And why are they hidden inside the chests? The placement of these first nudes, seen only on lifting the cover of the marriage chest, has kindled the imagination of art and social historians, who have not yet, however, found any incontrovertible answers to these questions. Besides the artist’s possibly licentious intentions,5 experts have seen these erotic objects as meant to excite the desire of the couple, or even as adjuvants to their function of biological reproduction and, in some sense, a support for a family policy. 6 These observations are not completely satisfactory. There are some objective reasons, to which I shall return 3 

Schubring, Cassoni: Truhen und Truhenbilder, and Schubring, Cassoni: Supplement. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth. 5  Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, p. 273: ‘The obvious disparity of this type of image appealed to the good humour of the Florentine cassone painters who decorated the lid of many a fifteenth-century marriage chest with such an incongruous-looking pair’. 6  This thesis is implicit throughout Musacchio’s book. 4 

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shortly, for this lack of convincing response. Insufficient knowledge about the conditions in which these nudes were designed, shown, contemplated, and commented upon likely also explains it. I would therefore like to place these images, the origin of a new genre that becomes the female nude, in the context of recent research on family life, on wedding rituals, and on the laws and customs governing exchanges associated with marriage. * * * Let us describe them in more detail. The rare nudes on cassoni that have been preserved maintain an air of mystery, difficult to pierce because most have been detached from the original chest and are exhibited today as stand-alone panels in diverse museums or private collections; this is one of the objective reasons for the difficulty in interpreting them. We nonetheless recognize them by their size, compatible with those of a marriage chest of their time.7 That said, marriage chests in Tuscany always came in pairs.8 Documentation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries never speaks of an isolated marriage forziere, at least in relation to the wedding ritual.9 We would thus expect to find an opposite-sex partner of a single nude on its matching chest. And indeed, the two chests stored at the National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst) in Copenhagen and the two panels in the Earl of Crawford’s collection, both sets that clearly go together, demonstrate that the artists chose to represent couples, rather than a person of either sex, who could have been accompanied on the second chest by another motif or a counterpart of the same sex. The female nude at its epithalamic origins was thus presented as part of a pair — a heterosexual pair.10 Unfortunately, of the roughly ten figures identified, only these two pairs are known to have been preserved, and only a few chests have kept their original covers.11 Also rare are the sepa7 

That is, around 1.7 to 2 metres in length by 0.5 to 0.6 metres in height. Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Les Corbeilles de la mariée’; Chabot, ‘“La sposa in nero”’, especially p. 431, and pp. 445–46. 9  The inventories could, obviously, mention forzieri separated from their twin. But before the mid-sixteenth century, families tended to keep these pairs together, that is, they still had a living memory of their association with the wedding rituals and the establishment of the couple. For that, see Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, Appendix A, ‘Inventory of Francesco Inghirami in 1471’, pp. 158–73. 10  Collection of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, two chests with Young woman and Young man; København, Statens Museum, Scheggia, two chests with Young woman and Young man. 11  Specifically, the København, Statens Museum, Scheggia, two chests with Young woman and Young man, and the New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, chest with Young woman. 8 

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Figure 1. Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, Jeune femme nue, København, Statens Museum for Kunst. c. 1460. © Statens Museum for Kunst.

Figure 2. Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, Jeune homme nu, København, Statens Museum for Kunst. c. 1460. © Statens Museum for Kunst.

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rated nudes with a stylistic proximity that might justify reuniting them.12 Thus detached from one another, these nudes have often lost not only their symmetric complement but also their possible link with the other images on their common support, which was decorated, as pointed out above, with paintings on its front and its narrow sides.13 Note a first difference, one that clearly distinguishes the male and female figures. Although in all of the identified cases, the woman is either nude or barely covered by a transparent veil, the man may or may not be dressed. In addition, their respective positions almost always show the man with a more active role than the woman. Her attitude is modest, her eyes lowered, and she sometimes raises her veil delicately. One of these nudes is even dozing, her head on a cushion and her eyes closed.14 On the other hand, although the man may also have his eyes downcast and the same dreamy attitude as his partner,15 sometimes staring at a flower,16 other panels show his gaze much more active, fixed intensely on the woman. The youth on the panel from the Earl of Crawford’s collection is dressed in a doublet and bicoloured hose, hands open in a gesture of respectful marvel, or perhaps of greeting and welcome, or recognition, facing a nude young woman who is gently pulling her veil away.17 An isolated panel presents a young man dressed in a brocade doublet and again bicoloured hose, designated as ‘Paris’. This of course calls for a Venus or a Helen, which alas has disappeared.18 In these diverse examples, the man’s everyday clothes may refer to his status as a mortal, and the woman’s nudity to her divine nature. Even so, the eerie nature of the relation between the 12  The Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais, Scheggia, chest with Young woman, and New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, chest with Young woman, have been suggested as a pair, but we will see below a reason arguing against this hypothesis. 13  A single panel of a young girl dozing has been conserved in London (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Scheggia, chest with Young girl dozing); another with a clothed ‘Paris’, formerly in the Landau collection in Florence (Firenze, Museo Horne, chest with ‘Pâris’). Ongoing research by Delphine Lesbros shows that even the backs of chests, and their interior walls, often had painted decoration. 14  London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Scheggia, chest with Young girl dozing. 15  Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais, Scheggia, chest with Young woman, and København, Statens Museum, Scheggia, two chests with Young woman and Young man. 16  København, Statens Museum, Scheggia, two chests with Young woman and Young man. 17  Reproduced in Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, figs 44 and 45. By a publishing error in the French translation, Wind, Mystères païens de la Renaissance, the image of the woman is inversed; she should be symmetric to the man, and her head should thus be on the right. 18  Firenze, Museo Horne, chest with ‘Pâris’.

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figures on the pairs of chests is reinforced still further by the background from which the figures emerge. The only element of furniture is the cushion on which a head or an arm rests; and some do not even have a pillow.19 But the background itself may be solid, or an imitation of a rich brocade fabric, or a sky through which light clouds skim by, as on the Crawford panels. The figures seem to float in an unreal space, without dimension or depth, and the void is echoed by the absence of historic or literary references, except for the inscription ‘Paris’. The reserved attitude and unreal atmosphere, the dreamlike or half-awake vision of couples including at least one nude — these require that we qualify the idea that the nudes of these chests were directly intended to excite the couple’s desire for and pleasure in their marital relations, but I will return to this point. There is no narrative context, no dispositio (to use a term of Antoninus of Florence, discussed below), indeed no subject other than the unequal visual relationship between the woman and the man who lets his admiration of this female beauty shine through. It suggests that we consider instead an interpretation of the relationship that links the figures as an epiphany of beauty — a beauty that may be divine or mortal and that reveals itself to a dazzled Paris through the characteristics of Aphrodite or Helen.20 We perceive here a distant echo of courtly love and a faint perfume of the Neoplatonism that so strongly permeated the contemporary humanist circles of Florence.21 In the pairs that have come down to us, the man is lying in a position symmetric to that of his female partner. Let us suppose that the figures are placed so that they can look at each other, as the Crawford panels seem to indicate. Several authors have proposed that various panels were once pairs because of the similarity in their style and the attributes of the partners. In these pairs, however, we do not observe this symmetry relative to an axis formed by the space between the two chests. This situation is exemplified by the Avignon panel (a young man covered by a simple leafy loincloth, his elbow on a cushion) and that of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven (a young woman in a similar loincloth of foliage, her hair covered by a turban and her elbow leaning on an almost identical 19 

Cushions on the panels of London, Avignon, and New Haven. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, p. 143 n. 7, mentions not only the ‘disparity between mortal and goddess’ and the ‘deliberate paradox of posture’, but the ‘look back’ cast by the (clothed) mortal on the (nude) divinity. Following Schubring, Cassoni: Truhen und Truhenbilder, i, 211, Ernst H. Gombrich interpreted the couple as Paris and Helen: Gombrich, ‘Apollonio di Giovanni’. 21  Panofsky, Hercules am Schedewege; Panofsky, ‘New Platonic Movement and Michel­ angelo’. 20 

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Figure 3. ‘Couple couronné par des putti’, in Francesco Petrarca, Trionfi (incipit), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ital. 545, fol. 12r. 1456. © Bibliothèque nationale de France.

cushion). Unfortunately the man and the woman are both arranged with their head on the left, which makes it impossible for one to serve as the other’s counterpoint: however they are placed, he must have his back to her, or she to him. Although they are probably due to the same artist or the same workshop and perhaps even copied from the same set of models, this lack of symmetry makes them an improbable couple on a pair of matching chests.22 It might be objected that the man and the woman on the chests were indeed deliberately represented as resolutely turning the back to the other, rather than being able to exchange glances. Several similar back-to-back images can be cited, on objects other than marriage chests. First pointed out by Annarosa Garzelli23 and Karinne Simonneau,24 two miniatures contemporary to our chests exist, both based on Petrarch’s Triumphs. 22 

Simonneau, ‘Le Rituel matrimonial et les coffres de mariage’ argues against the attribution of these works to Scheggia and proposes to assign them instead to Maso Finiguerra, who has left drawings of reclining female nudes, studio models perhaps for his chests; she also proposes Maso as the painter of the Copenhagen panels attributed to Scheggia. 23  Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, ed. by Garzelli, i, 119–20: Garzelli comments on the Paris manuscript, Paris, BnF, MS ital. 545, fol. 12r (clothed man on the left and nude woman on the right, both crowned by putti, coat of arms in the centre, scratched out). 24  Simonneau reproduces, in addition to the Paris manuscript, dated 1456, another incipit of works by Petrarch, also containing the ‘Triumphs’ and datable to 1460–70; Firenze, Bibl. Medicea Laurenziana, MS Ashb. 845, fol. 11r (nude man on the left, nude woman on the right, dominated by two putti).

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Figure 4. Baccio Baldini, Rond avec un couple de danseurs et un couple allongé, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 3687 L. R. 1475. © Réunion des musées nationaux.

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The presence of little cupids or putti suggests at the least a context that augurs fecundity, and the occasion for their commission could well have been a particular marriage alliance. If so, these images are connected to ‘epithalamic painting’; if not, they remains a loose link to them, through the theme of the triumph of love. In any case, the putti surround a pair consisting of a young man and a young woman, reclining but turning their back to one another, each leaning against opposite sides of the shield of the patron. What they have in common with the couples on our chests is that in this function of heraldic support, the man is again sometimes nude and sometimes dressed, while the woman is undressed each time. Finally a copper engraving dated 1475 takes up the theme of lovers reclining, this time head-to-foot; Baccio Baldini presented a pair of lovers, beneath two dancers framed by a crown of winged putti.25 Again, the man, at right and withdrawn, is dressed while the woman, on the left and partly hiding her partner, is exposed in her nudity.26 But unlike the miniatures where their heraldic positions constrain them to turn their backs, they are face to face here. Let us return to the marriage chests. To decide on the respective position of the couples, we should probably take into account the respective positions in the room of the cassoni on which they are painted and therefore of the general organization and order of reading of the narrative paintings that decorated their fronts. We know very little about the initial installation of the chests in the purchasers’ bedroom; even the most detailed inventories are stingy in information on this point. Were they placed next to or facing each other? The importance of this detail can be seen when we go back to the example of the potential pair (New Haven and Avignon) with their heads on the same side: if the two chests had been designed not to be lined up along the same wall — so that from the point of view of a spectator in the middle of the room, she would appear to be turning her back to him (or vice versa) — but to be placed against two facing walls, one figure would no longer be ignoring the other. Instead, both would be parallel, seeming to ogle each other from one wall to the opposite. Does the unwinding of the narrative storie on the front of the chests tell us more about the relation between the two figures? If so, does it allow us to assign 25 

Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, ed. by Garzelli, i, 119–20; Phillips, Early Florentine Designers and Engravers. Reproduced in The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Strauss, xxiv (1993), pt 1, p. 136. 26  Phillips, Early Florentine Designers and Engravers, pl. 70B, reproduced another engraving by Baldini, today in Budapest and dated between 1450 and 1463, representing below a young couple exchanging a crown, a nude woman reclining, taking a heart pierced by two arrows from a vase presented by a cupid. See also Oberhuber, ‘Baccio Baldini’, pp. 14–15, fig. 2.3.

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a more privileged or honourable place to one of the two sexes — the heraldic right to the man, for example? According to the logic by which we usually read, it is self-evident that a story beginning on one chest and moving to the second directs the movement of the eyes, constraining them to read the images from left to right. The Copenhagen chests, the only available complete set, place the nude woman above the beginning of the story (the intervention of Hersilia between the Sabines and the Romans), while the young man dreams above its conclusion (the entry into Rome of the two chiefs, Romulus and Tatius, now reconciled). There is a certain logic to placing the woman reclining inside the cover above Hersilia the mediator, and the young man above the image of the peace of the warriors. On the other hand, if we agree that what happened first should be on the left, read before what happens next, described on the right, our lovers are head-tohead, adjacent, but facing away from one another.27 This layout is surprising, for the members of our pair may behave as if they do not know each other. Inversely, however, any supposition that the end of the story, topped by the nude man, had been placed to the left of the chest with the beginning of the storia clashes with our reading habits. Without rejecting both hypotheses, we nonetheless point out two facts suggesting that the Copenhagen cassoni may be exceptional. First, the two young people keep their eyes lowered at the same time as they twist their chests slightly to turn their heads towards one another. Accordingly, they may still be looking at each other, although their heads may face away. Secondly, the storie told beneath these nudes both focus on a single event and are strictly constructed around a primary axis, with processions moving towards the centre and no narrative elements that suggest the scrolling of successive images in one direction rather than the other. These two points also justify a somewhat stationary reading, centred on the respective axis of each panel (Hersilia and the gate of Rome), with the relative position of the chests unimportant. Indeed, a comparison with the cassoni paintings of the Justice of Trajan convinces me that the stories can be read as a whole, according to the cassoni pair considered, indiscriminately from right to left or left to right.28 If I have lingered over this example, it is to show that once we seek to understand the logic of these images linked by their supports or by their themes, we see how much their interpretation requires that we mistrust our own way of looking 27 

Assuming that the covers were not reversed during a restoration … Panels by Mantegna and an anonymous artist (Scheggia?), now lost, reproduced by Schubring, go from left to right, but the Scheggia in the collection of A. Bruschi reads from right to left; Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Les Noces feintes’. 28 

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at these images, which is, after all, particular to our time and our culture: we must instead refer to the habits of people of the time in deciphering a figurative storia. Unfortunately not enough complete pairs have survived for us to be sure of the robustness of the preceding observations, especially given the rarity of pairs of chests containing nudes. Nonetheless they converge towards the suggestion that the youth on the covers were generally painted as looking at each other — looking at each other openly, or with lowered eyes, surreptitiously, looking and being looked at, dreaming of looking or of being looked at. The variety of ways of looking must not hide the substance of the exchange between the couple: a visual exchange, often dissymmetric, an appropriation of the woman’s nudity by her male partner. There is no need to raise here, even briefly, the multiple facets of the principal iconography of the marriage chests, iconography that continues to inspire numerous detailed studies.29 Let us simply note that long ago historians observed a shift that began during the decade 1430–40, from the courtly themes of medieval literature and Ovidian traditions in particular, towards themes taken from classical or even Biblical history. In terms of epithalamic iconography, it is tempting to relate this change in taste, interests, and literary references (certainly a change in much more than this one object) to a major change in wedding practices and rituals.30 These images appear to have had as their principal spectators the newlywed couple and as their more specific target the woman — first the young bride, for many decades of the trecento and quattrocento very personally and deeply associated with the chests of her trousseau, and then the wife, who lived fairly secluded in the couple’s bedroom, who would have heard stories about this furniture, stories she would have recounted in turn to her children. If this is so, then our research about the nudes on the hidden side of the cover must look not only at the lesson that would be drawn from the storie on the front panel but also at the conditions of the production of this furniture. We must thus recall that from around the end of the fourteenth century, the goods given to a woman in Tuscany and especially in Florence by her family on the occasion of marriage tended to be placed under the nearly exclusive control of her husband, from a legal point of view. Indeed it was commonly said around 1400 that the woman’s dowry was ‘given’ to the husband and that he could 29  In addition to the well-known pioneering studies of Ernest Gombrich, Ellen Callmann, Paul Watson, etc., we note, more recently, Baskins, Cassone Painting, Humanism And Gender; and Miziolek, Soggestti classici sui cassoni fiorentini. 30  See Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Les Coffres de mariage et les plateaux d’accouchée’.

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dispose of it and manage it until his death. Before then he had been obliged, as under Roman law, to return it to her family if she died, whether or not any children had been born or survived. As the fifteenth century began, a woman who made a will encountered many obstacles if she wished to transmit and bequeath a part of her dowry or any other property to any one other than her husband and her children.31 Even the trousseau, to which the cassoni belonged in the fourteenth century and which is linked more directly to the woman and to her body, both materially and symbolically, tended to follow the fate of the dowry, of which it became a sort of metonymy. In a parallel development, the husband, traditionally responsible for the organization and furnishing of the camera, the bedroom where he would live with his wife and where they would procreate, took over responsibility for the marriage chests after 1440 and throughout the entire second half of the quattrocento.32 That is, in the fourteenth century and at the beginning of the fifteenth, these chests were part of the trousseau brought by the woman, and until the years 1430–40, they arrived as part of the small procession that brought her to her husband’s home on the wedding day. By then, the chests were severed from the rest of the trousseau. I will not linger over the probable reasons for this change in custom whereby the solemn transport of the chests and trousseau lost its place in the wedding ritual. The transport became in any case more practical and consistent with the final destination of these items, which were promised, like the rest of the dowry, to the couple’s heirs. They were thus carried without fuss from the studio where they were manufactured to their permanent home, the husband’s home.33 Control of these items, with the rest of the furnishings, thus passed to the husband, and their manufacture and decoration therefore came to depend on his initiative and his preferences during the second half of the century. As a corollary, he chose their iconographic themes. Simultaneously, as mentioned above, the 31 

Venice. 32 

On the different development in Venice, see Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance

The chests, now the husband’s responsibility, become better integrated with the bedroom’s décor. Callman, ‘Apollonio di Giovanni and Painting’, pp. 7–9, notes that in the course of the fifteenth century, the rich, at least, tried to harmonize them with the other furnishings. 33  The sumptuary laws played a role in this development when, in 1388, they banned the transport across the city of open chests exhibiting the trousseau; the creation of the Monte delle doti also played a role, for it worked on the assumption that the marriage must be consummated before the dowry was paid, thus reversing previous practices in which the dowry payment and the delivery of the trousseau launched the wedding ceremonies. But the primary reason for this change was the new custom whereby the husband controlled and later kept the property linked to his predeceased wife.

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theme of the paintings decorating the front panel was moving towards classical Antiquity, stressing the virile and heroic virtues (courage, fortitude, magnanimity, and justice) and at the same time women’s submission to marital authority (themes such as the abduction of the Sabines and Griselda) and absolute obedience to the virtues of their sex (Lucretia’s chastity and the fecundity of the Sabines). But we must underline that this marital investment was made for the benefit of the couple’s children, since the chests would now remain in the husband’s home and would no longer return with the widow to her house of birth. In some sense, the conjugal couple was enhanced, as the founder of a lineage. Like the husband’s authority, it is the fecundity of the couple, and not only that of the woman that became the stake of the marriage and of the cassoni paintings. Now, the first examples of recumbent couples and female nudes on the inside cover of marriage chests also date to after 1450. From this point of view, it is useful to compare the chests and their interior paintings with another type of painted object produced in large numbers, on the occasion of births: the deschi da parto or birth trays. Their iconography also evolved between the end of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, changing to accord a larger place to the events of women’s lives and to maternity. Representations of the visits and the bringing of gifts to the new mother in particular, as well as the care lavished on the newborn occupied an important place on the obverse of these trays. Their reverses or backs, which were sometimes decorated with heraldic motifs, checkerboard patterns, or allegorical figures, also favoured putti with attributes or in positions portending the fecundity of which they are a symbol.34 Masaccio’s brother, Scheggia, one of the first to paint couples and female nudes after 1450, also made such deschi da parto with these putti on the reverse. I mention these temporal correlations to suggest that the husbandly takeover of women’s goods, so notable in fifteenth century law and custom, was accompanied by the takeover of the chests originally intended to contain the trousseau (and therefore, at least symbols of the female body), and finally a takeover of their iconography. It is probably not by chance that these events coincided with the appearance of nudes. The nudes betokened a relationship between the spouses, and no longer only an alliance between lineages. The hidden decoration of these chests, exposed until the beginning of the fifteenth century to the eyes of all during the processional transfer of the trousseau, was now reserved to the couple: the husband who had chosen them and the wife who opened them. Now these articles 34 

Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth, pp. 131–34; De Carli, I deschi da parto e la pittura.

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could have a secret side, images that concerned only the couple. The reason for hiding the nude images probably lies there: less for reasons related to censorship than because these paintings had too intimate a relationship with the couple. According to classical tradition, viewing such effigies activates the imagination of the pair of lovers and imprints the beauty or characteristics of the images onto the seed by which they conceive their offspring. Alberti applied this theory to argue that representations of figures imprinted with beauty and dignity in the marital chamber have a direct effect ‘because they strongly affect the mother at the moment of conception and the future appearance of the offspring’.35 Lay people referred often to this stack of medical theories; a physician such as Girolamo Cardano (1501–76) identified the painting of a beautiful woman as a certain antidote to depression or premature ageing.36 Later, the theologians and theoreticians of post-Tridentine art in the sixteenth century applied this idea endlessly, but to warn against the effects of lascivious paintings on anyone other than married couples.37 Around the middle of the fifteenth century, one of their most illustrious predecessors in this criticism was the archbishop of Florence, Antoninus, author of an important Summa theologica. Antoninus protested there against the images of female nudes, but his verdict was both somewhat tortuous and qualified: ‘Painters err when they make images that induce desire, not because of the beauty of the images, but because of their arrangement (dispositio), such as nude women and other [images] of the same genre.’38 Female nudes were therefore spared the Church’s criticism to the extent that their ‘arrangement’ saved them, that is, when they were placed in a praiseworthy iconographic theme, such as Eve chased from Paradise. It is not the intrinsic beauty of a body offered to desire that the archbishop judged culpable, but rather the painter’s intention to arouse the spectator’s sensuality, which depended in part on the iconographic context given 35 

This passage from De re aedificatoria (ix. 4) is cited in its Latin version and in two Italian translations of the sixteenth century by Rosand, ‘So-and-So Reclining on Her Couch’, p. 48 and p. 60 n. 40. 36  He recommends that inveterate scholars keep lascivious paintings of nude women in their bedroom to remedy the effects of their desk-bound status and their long nights; cited by Thornton, The Scholar in his Study, p. 174, following Hale, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance, p. 435. On Molanus, see Freedberg, ‘Johannes Molanus on provocative paintings’. 37  A text by Giulio Mancini stating these theories explicitly (c. 1621) is the point of departure of the superb analysis of Freedberg, The Power of Images. 38  ‘Qui [pictores] in hoc offendunt, quando formant imagines provocativas ad libidinem, non ex pulcritudine sed dispositione earum, ut mulieres nudas et hujusmodi’; Antoninus, Summa theologica, iii, tit. 8, sec. 4, cap. 11.

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to this beauty.39 Was Antoninus already targeting the nudes on cassoni, the first known examples of which postdated 1450? His target was more likely to have been the nude figures of the painted storie, based on courtly and medieval novels. Creighton Gilbert, however, did not link the criticism to medieval condemnations of the nude, but rather to the new trends in Florentine art, where Masaccio had begun to cover nudity with noble drapery.40 If the oh-so-respected spiritual director of Florence accepted representations of the body’s beauty (and even though he does not mention in this passage the conditions of their contemplation), they could only be justified by a higher purpose. For example, in the eyes of a man of the Church, if the male desire that it provoked was placed in an acceptable iconographic and real framework, it could accentuate the very principle of marriage and the legitimate exercise of sexuality during procreation. Even though their detachment from any narrative and moralizing context and the absence of literary references risked the bishop’s reprobation, the nudes of the marriage chests could, if need be, be excused by their location, the newlyweds’ bedroom, the most private place in the home. Antoninus implicitly noted his condemnation of all carnal desire, attributable to the woman or the man, at the beginning of his sentence. The last part, however, refers more clearly to male desire, by designating expressly only female nudes, and thus does not contradict our observations above about the dissymmetry of attitudes, gazes, and clothes on pairs of chests. Nonetheless the images of nude young men on the cover reverses show that Antoninus was not incriminating only the arousal of male sexuality. The wife and future mother was also involved by the representations of the ‘beautiful and worthy’ male body, as the physicians of the time firmly believed. The latent idea, which no one dared to state too explicitly, was that the viewing of such paintings would bring her, like the man, to carnal climax, which some tenets of the Galenic school held to be a condition for the emission of semen and for conception. But some historians, going further, have displaced onto the woman alone, with her weak and easily influenced mind, the main part of the effect exerted by the image. Studies today analyse primarily the woman’s viewing of these pictorial representations, where contemporaries praised or inveighed against it for both lovers, both spouses. Since the time of Aby Warburg and Julius von Schlosser, well aware of the ethnological research of their contemporaries (by A. De Gubernatis, J. G. Frazer, 39  See the comments on this passage and on the term dispositio, interpreted in the last analysis as the ‘subject’: Gilbert, ‘The Archbishop on the Painters of Florence’. 40  Gilbert, ‘The Archbishop on the Painters of Florence’, pp. 78–80.

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and Marcel Mauss, among others), Florentine historiography has applied their anthropological theories of magic to stress the magical capacities of images and thus explain the Florentines’ belief in their power.41 The iconography produced on the occasion of births has drawn particular attention, as a recent book demonstrates.42 The hypothesis of a ‘sympathetic magic’ effect inducing greater fecundity in the couple, in particular in the woman, was advanced especially for the images of beautiful nude babies or putti, the baby Jesus first of all, placed under the eyes of the young wife, manipulated by her, and supposed to encourage her to procreate boys.43 But the epithalamic imagery has not escaped this type of explanation. The spectacle of nudes is not only supposed to have stimulated the couple’s sexual activity directly and visually, by eroticizing the procreative function permitted in the conjugal setting; these figures, as objects presented and manipulated throughout the couple’s reproductive life, were also supposed to increase the woman’s fecundity by ‘sympathetic magic’. One might already doubt that the deschi da parto could have had such effects via the visual organs, since their augural and fecundatory face remained hidden. Because, like the inside cover generally kept closed to hide the surprising nude figure, the reverse of a desco da parto was, we might say, made to not be seen. That is, the desco was presented to the new mother with its obverse or main side facing her, often veiled by a cloth, when used to bring her food; its reverse was invisible on this occasion as indeed in ordinary times, when from its place on a wall between deliveries it presented the moralizing storia of its obverse to any passer-by. Only by physical contact between the new mother and the reverse side of the tray placed on or against her on the bed could it have exercised any magical effect — a possibility that the authors seem not to have considered, talking as they do only about vision and viewing. At the same time, the wife would have looked at or touched the nude images inside the chests only while dressing or during housework: it is difficult to believe that the couple went to bed before the exposed image, with the chests wide open.44 If the beneficial effects of one or the 41 

See Freedberg, The Power of Images, especially pp. 271–77. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth. 43  The sumptuary laws of 1388 banned all people carrying gifts from a husband to his fiancée, during the immediate wedding period, from holding a small child in their arms. See the literature cited in Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Les Saintes Poupées’; Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth. 44  De Gubernatis, Storia com parata degli usi natalizi; De Gubernatis, Storia comparata degli usi nuziali. See especially, in the abundant literature, the foundational work by Warburg, Bildniskunst und florentinisches Bürgertum. 42 

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other representations — the nude on the cassoni covers, the putto of the deschi — depended on the gaze or direct contact of the woman or the couple, a precise intention must therefore be supposed, a deliberate gesture to open or turn over the object, for its interior or reverse to be exposed. Should we not instead return to the idea that the contemporaries believed that these figures acted even when they were invisible and a fortiori untouchable? In fact, the people of the quattrocento thought that hiding an image maximized its virtue and showing it too complacently eroded its power. 45 This theory was believed for the Virgin and Child in private homes, covered usually with a piece of fabric, as for the most famous icons of sanctuaries and for the most sacred relics, and it was probably believed as well for these profane images whose possible references to medical or Neoplatonic theories did not mask the hope for immediate efficacy. The inside faces of the chests, like the reverses of deschi da parto, raise the problem of the secret of the image; they also present questions about the modes of action of the image. What is operating here is not so much the dynamics of magical practices, strictly speaking, but rather an indecisive faith in the power of the image. These figures intended for the couple and above all for women — whose functions as wives and mothers the images were ultimately intended to control — called out very widely used attitudes towards images, which had powers too great to be constantly unveiled, that is, behaviours close to those of devotees, who accorded to the image a confidence all the greater when it was hidden almost completely or almost constantly from view. Unlike the dolls and other baby Jesus objects made not only to be seen and venerated but also caressed and manipulated, these profane images called upon the organ of sight and solicited contact only furtively. Theoreticians or practitioners of the image have insisted on the need for the gaze of a spectator for it to act, but it was a gaze that was in some sense passive, which submitted itself to the image. The nudes of the chests or the putti of the deschi exercised their effects more mysteriously, since neither was intended to be displayed. In their way, they called upon a living memory of the view, to visual memories still active before the invisible. (Translated from the French by Jo Ann Cahn)

45 

Trexler, ‘Florentine Religious Experience’, and Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Ashburnham 845 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ital. 545

Primary Sources Antoninus of Florence, Summa theologica S. Antonini, cum repertorio sive tabula Johannis Molitoris (Lyon: Schwab, 1500) Artefacts and Works of Art Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais, Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, reverse of the lid of a chest with Young woman Collection of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, reverses of the lids of two chests with Young woman and Young man Firenze, formerly in the Landau collection now at Museo Horne, reverse of the lid of a chest with ‘Pâris’ København, Statens Museum for Kunst, Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, reverses of the lids of two chests with Young woman and Young man, c. 1460 [figs 1 and 2] London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Giovanni di ser Giovanni detto lo Scheggia, reverse of the lid of a chest with Young girl dozing New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, reverse of the lid of a chest with Young woman

Secondary Studies Baskins, Cristelle, Cassone Painting, Humanism and Gender in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Callman, Ellen, ‘Apollonio di Giovanni and Painting for the Early Renaissance Room’, Antichità viva: rassegna d’arte, 27 (1988), 5–18 Chabot, Isabelle, ‘“La sposa in nero”: la ritualizzazione del lutto delle vedove fiorentine (secoli xiv–xv)’, Quaderni storici, 86 (1994), 421–62 Chojnacki, Stanley, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) De Carli, Cecilia, I deschi da parto e la pittura del primo Rinascimento toscano (Torino: Allemandi, 1997) De Gubernatis, Angelo, Storia comparata degli usi natalizi in Italia e presso gli altri popoli indo-europei (Milano: Treves, 1878) —— , Storia comparata degli usi nuziali e presso gli altri popoli indo-europei (Milano: Treves, 1869) Freedberg, David, ‘Johannes Molanus on Provocative Paintings’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 34 (1971), 229–45 —— , The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1989)

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Garzelli, Annarosa, ed., Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440–1525: un primo censimento, 2 vols (Firenze: Nuova Italia, 1985) Gilbert, Creighton, ‘The Archbishop on the Painters of Florence, 1450’, Art Bulletin, 41 (1959), 75–87 Goffen, Rona, ed., Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Gombrich, Ernst H., ‘Apollonio di Giovanni: A Florentine cassone Workshop Seen through the Eyes of a Humanist Poet’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 18 (1955), 16–34 Hale, John, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance (London: Harper Collins, 1993) Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘Les Coffres de mariage et les plateaux d’accouchée à Florence: archive, ethnologie, iconographie’, in À travers l’image: lecture iconographique et sens de l’oeuvre, ed. by Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa (Paris: Klincksieck, 1994), pp. 309–23 —— , ‘Les Corbeilles de la mariée’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, La Maison et le nom: stratégies et rituels dans l’Italie de la Renaissance (Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1990), pp. 215–28 —— , ‘Les Noces feintes: sur quelques lectures de deux thèmes iconographiques dans les cassoni florentins’, I Tatti Studies, 6 (1995), 11–30 —— , ‘Les Saintes Poupées: jeu, art et dévotion’, in Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, La Maison et le nom: stratégies et rituels dans l’Italie de la Renaissance (Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1990), pp. 291–308 Miziolek, Jerzy, Soggetti classici sui cassoni fiorentini alla vigilia de Rinascimento (Warszawa: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1996) Musacchio, Jacqueline M., The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) Oberhuber, Konrad, ‘Baccio Baldini’, in Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art, ed. by Jay A. Levenson, Konrad Oberhuber, and Jacquelyn L. Sheehan (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1973), pp. 13–21 Panofsky, Erwin, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst (Leipzig: Teubner, 1930) —— , ‘New Platonic Movement and Michelangelo’, in Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962; orig. publ. Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 171–230 Phillips, John Goldsmith, Early Florentine Designers and Engravers: Maso Finiguerra, Baccio Baldini, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Fr. Rosselli (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955) (repr. in The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Walter  L. Strauss, 166 vols (New York: Abaris, 1978–2012), xxiv.1: Early Italian Masters, ed. by Mark Zucker (1993)) Rosand, David, ‘So-and-So Reclining on Her Couch’, in Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’, ed. by Rona Goffen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 37–62 Schubring, Paul, Cassoni: Supplement (Leipzig: Hierseman, 1923) —— , Cassoni: Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen Frührenaissance, 2 vols (Leipzig: Hierseman, 1915)

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Simonneau, Karinne, ‘Le rituel matrimonial et les coffres de mariage à Florence au xve siècle; lectures iconologiques des forzieri à sujets ovidiens’ (thèse de doctorat de l’Université François Rabelais, Tours, 2000) Strauss, Walter L., ed., The Illustrated Bartsch, 166 vols (New York: Abaris, 1978–2012) Thornton, Dora, The Scholar in his Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) Trexler, Richard C., ‘Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image’, Studies in the Renaissance, 19 (1972), 7–41 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1980) Warburg, Aby, Bildniskunst und florentinisches Bürgertum (Leipzig: Seemann, 1902) Wind, Edgar, Mystères païens de la Renaissance, trans. by Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat (Paris: Gallimard, 1992) —— , Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New York: Norton, 1968; orig. publ. London: Faber & Faber, 1958)

Part III Death and Violence

Honour and Insult: Military Rituals in Late Medieval Tuscany William Caferro

M

edieval Italian warfare was a keenly ritualistic and symbolic activity. The appointment of the captain of war, the mobilization of armies and initial routes taken towards the field were governed by rites, arranged in consultation with astrologers and with attention to the cycle of civic festival. The captain general received the baton of command by means of public ceremony. Bartolomeo Colleoni’s appointment as head of Venetian forces in 1458 coincided with the ascension of Doge Pasquale Malipiero and was described by contemporaries as one of the most elaborate public events of the era.1 The array of military ritual was broad. They included tournaments and jousts and the knighting of soldiers.2 Challenges to battle were initiated by a torn and bloody glove sent to opponents. Victories were announced to allies by means of

1  Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 285; Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 144–46; Diario d’anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi; Mallet, Mercenaries and their Masters, p. 207 and Mallett, ‘Venice and its Condottieri’, pp. 121 and 135; Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 220. 2  On medieval tournaments, see Balestracci, La festa in armi. On jousts see also Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 233–35. For knighthood in Florence, see the still useful Salvemini, La dignità cavalleresca and more recently, Cardini, Quell’antica festa crudele; Cardini, L’acciar de’ cavalieri.

William Caferro ([email protected]) is Professor of Medieval History at Vanderbilt University. William Caferro received his PhD from Yale University in 1992. His research focuses on economy and warfare in fourteenth- and fifteenth- century Italy. He is author, most recently, of Contesting the Renaissance (Malden: Blackwell, 2010) and is completing a book manuscript entitled ‘Petrarch’s War’, examining the interrelation of prices, wages, and military conflict at the time of the Black Death. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 183–209 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100773

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olive branches. The most conspicuous symbol for much of the Middle Ages was the carroccio, an ox-drawn cart with communal banners and images of patron saints, that was wheeled into the field by armies. It served as a focus of communal unity and a rallying point for forces. Its capture was a basic objective of enemy armies and constituted both the actual and symbolic sign of victory.3 Rituals were in short intrinsic to the conduct of warfare. The frequency of conflict among Italian states made them a regular and very noticeable practice, much discussed by contemporary chroniclers and writers. The modern Anglophone literature on the subject is, however, surprisingly limited, particularly in comparison to the vast and growing literature on civic ritual more generally.4 The historiographical status quo reflects a general lack of scholarly attention afforded to warfare. It reflects also the locus of military ritual, much of which, as we shall discuss below, occurred in the field, outside of town walls and thus away from internal urban space and more rigorous notice in archival sources. The aim of this essay is to examine the military rituals in trecento Tuscany, a period, as has been amply demonstrated, of intense military activity. Richard Trexler, who has gone the furthest in the subject, has depicted the period and region as singularly dense in military rituals.5 Trexler has offered a useful paradigm with which to view them, connecting external acts in the field, notably defamatory races (palii) and ‘collective insults’ with internal urban palii and civic celebrations, seeing them as ‘contiguous social forms’.6 Trexler likewise emphasized the inherent connection in military ritual between honour and insult: how defamatory military ritual aimed at ‘sacralizing’ that which was anathema to the enemy. Thus ‘honour’ for the participant was intrinsically linked to shame and humiliation for the victim.7 This paper seeks to explore further this binary aspect of honour and insult and to stress the dialogue nature of military rituals among states, which I will argue includes the burial and commemoration of military captains.8 The discus3 

Zug Tucci, ‘Il carroccio nella vita comunale’. Among multa alia, see Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence; Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood; Cohn, Lust for Liberty; Ricciardelli, ‘Propaganda politica e rituali’; I luoghi del sacro, ed. by Ricciardelli. For literature on violence from legal point of view, Zorzi, ‘Rituali di violenza, cerimoniali penali’. 5  Trexler, ‘Correre la Terra’. 6  Trexler, ‘Correre la Terra’, p. 845. 7  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 4–5; Trexler, ‘Correre la Terra’, pp. 864 and 871. 8  For discussion of medieval legal notions of honour and shame, see Todeschini, ‘Infamia 4 

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sion is particularly appropriate to trecento warfare, which involved continuous conflict among the same opponents, with little resolution. Enemies thus had long histories that engendered a ritual dialogue that was a basic feature of military competition and often extended over years. The dialogue provides context for Randolph Starn’s well-known observation that the trecento represented one of the ‘great bursts of heroic image making in the history of public art’, a time of ‘symbolic body snatching’ that included the projection and commemoration of military captains as local heroes.9 The development should be understood as part of a military ritual discourse of shame and honour. The essay is suggestive rather than comprehensive. As Edward Muir has reminded scholars, ritual is an ‘inherently ambiguous’ form that speaks in ‘in many voices’.10 The most basic aim here is to bring war more firmly into the discussion of ritual, to blur the distinction between the internal function of these acts and their external function. The military and pacific realm were, as I have argued elsewhere, intrinsically linked; sharp distinction between the two spheres is a modern construct.11 The full array of trecento military activities governed by ritual awaits systematic study by scholars. What is immediately clear, however, is, as Trexler noted, the prevalence of insult. Sources pointedly describe the acts as ones of dispetto, vergogna, and strazio, words that recur in the chronicles. Banners and flags taken from the defeated enemy were torn or turned upside down, displayed publicly on buildings, as Perugians did with the Sienese communal insignia 1358, and on communal gates, as the Florentines did with the captured chains of Porto Pisano in 1362.12 The knighting of soldiers often occurred before the enemy town walls and involved local exiles, honoured not so much because of their military activity but because of their significance to the enemy.13 Celebrations of battlefield victories deserve special notice in this context. They have received little scholarly attention, but were highly symbolic and e defensio fidei’, and Fama, ed. by Fenster and Smail: for Italy in that volume, see Wickham, ‘Fama and the Law’, and Kuehn, ‘Fama as a Legal Status in Renaissance Florence’. 9  Starn, ‘Reinventing Heroes in Renaissance Italy’, pp. 67, 70, and 84. 10  Muir, Rituals in Early Modern Europe, p. 6. 11  A recent statement on close connection between pacific and military sphere is in Grillo, Cavalieri e popoli in armi. 12  Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, p. 230. 13  The traditional knighting ceremony was done in several ways at this time, both before and after battle. See Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 216–24. On an elaborate ceremony in Siena, see Cardini, L’acciar de’ cavalieri, pp. 144–48.

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choreographed events that connected activities in the field with those within the city. Victorious armies brought back the spoils of war, which included captured banner and enemy prisoners. The celebrations were highly staged and bore semblance to Roman triumphs of antiquity, upon which they may have in part been modelled. Victorious captains, for example, received laurel wreathes.14 The celebration by the Lucchese tyrant Castruccio Castracani after victory against Florence at Altopascio was described as ‘grande trionfo’,15 a point elaborated on by Castracani’s subsequent biographers, who described the event very much in Roman terms.16 The influence of ancient Rome may be seen more generally in trecento warfare and is worthy of further study. There is evidence of conscious imitation of Roman practice and chroniclers often described battles and military activities in terms of Roman precedents. Central to trecento triumphs was, however, humiliation. Castracani’s triumph was, according to the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, an act of ‘dispregio’ towards his city. Prisoners were publicly humiliated, forced to ring the bell of the captured Florentine carroccio, whose flags were overturned. The ridicule was heightened by participation of whole city, ‘tutti quegli della città, uomini e donne’, which came out to watch the ‘grande processione’. The captives, including the captain general of the Florentine army, Ramon de Cardona, were compelled to participate in the celebration, attending a celebratory dinner and helping sanctify it by offering candles and ‘torchietti’ in honour of Saint Martin, to whom the victory was dedicated.17 Prisoners taken by Padua in its victory at Brentelles in 1386 were forced to participate in a celebratory dinner alongside prostitutes captured with them. Since battles in the field were, however, relatively rare and, as a rule, avoided, there were in fact relatively few triumphs in our period. More common were demonstrations before town walls, which held a special place in the ritual cycle. The walls were themselves, as Julian Gardner has demonstrated, symbolically charged, containing iconographic statues and images that presented the city to the outsider.18 The Sienese gates had images of its patron, the Virgin, with the child; the Florentine porta san Gallo possessed a scene of the coronation of the 14 

On the Roman triumph, see Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, pp. 29–30, Mattern, Rome and the Enemy, p. 216. 15  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii (1990), 492. 16  Green, Castruccio Castracani, pp. 180–81. 17  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 493. 18  Gardner, ‘An Introduction to the Iconography of the Italian City Gate’.

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Virgin flanked by an image of its patron, John the Baptist.19 It was at the gates, and in front of these same images, that armies fashioned some of their most elaborate ritual insults. Reaching the enemy wall was itself a species of victory, since it involved a successful offensive that overcame the enemy defences. But breaching the walls of a major city was an unlikely prospect, thus the space outside became one of celebration and display. Armies usually did this alongside laying waste to fields, vineyards, and surrounding villages, burning palaces and physical structures.20 The running of a palio was, as Trexler has shown, a typical act of ridicule. It usually involved a series of races, run in succession by cavalry, infantry, and prostitutes, with prizes (the palio itself ) of descending value. The races were followed by other mocking gestures: the minting of coins with defamatory insignia, the knighting of soldiers, the performance of dances, the loud playing of instruments through the night, and the hanging of animals. The displays also had a verbal and written dimension. Besiegers shouted crude and disparaging remarks over the wall and sent ‘vile and disrespectful’ letters and mocking embassies to the enemy. The Florentine Donato Velluti specifically noted how his city’s demonstration before walls of Pisa included both ‘parole e fatti’.21 The demonstrations highlighted the notion of impending conquest, imagined if not entirely real. The minting of money co-opted a basic communal right; the knighting of enemy exiles gave legitimacy to those stripped of it locally. There was likewise a psychological dimension. Trexler stressed how the demonstrations were intended ‘to frighten and bring despair’ upon the enemy and surrounding communities.22 In the most basic sense, the acts made, to co-opt Edward Muir’s felicitous phrase, ‘power visible’ and rendered it ‘noticeable to the eye’.23 Above all, however, the rituals were, as the chronicler Giovanni Villani described them, acts of ‘dispetto e vergogna’ or, as his nephew Filippo wrote, ‘beffe feste’, feasts of ridicule, aimed at the enemy.24 The defamatory races outside town walls mirrored internal celebratory races that had long been part of Italian civic life and were well established throughout Italy by the fourteenth century. Civic palii were held yearly on feast days and had military connotations insofar as they were 19 

Gardner, ‘An Introduction to the Iconography of the Italian City Gate’, pp. 211–13. Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 486. 21  Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, p. 233. 22  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 4. 23  Muir, ‘Representations of Power’, p. 226. 24  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 486; Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 239. 20 

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often instituted after major battlefield victories, to commemorate the event and the saint who helped facilitate it. Siena’s yearly civic palio honoured the victory over Florence at Montaperti and the intercession of the Virgin Mary; Bologna held a palio on Saint Peter’s day (29 June) celebrating its defeat of Imola in 1153; Padua’s palio was on 19 June, the feast of Saint Anthony, commemorating the expulsion of the tyrant Ezzelino da Romano and Florence ran a civic palio dedicated to Saint Anne, celebrating the expulsion of the tyrant Walter VI of Brienne in 1344.25 This was in addition to its palio honouring its patron saint, John the Baptist. Defamatory palii at enemy walls were made to correspond to the civic cycle. The Florentines, for example, ran their defamatory races, where possible, on the same day as their civic race, 24 June, the feast of Saint John the Baptist. The act symbolically stamped their ritual practice on the enemy, mirroring the actual practice of conquest at this time, in which victors suppressed civic feast and palii of vanquished, subject cities and imposed their own of them. Trexler stressed the social and gender dimensions of these acts. He noted that during the ‘classical’ period of Florentine palio races (1343–1480) the lower classes were generally excluded from participation.26 The defamatory palii, however, invariably included a foot race, which involved the participation of barattieri, which Trexler defined as ribalds, but who were in any case social inferiors to the cavalry. Prostitutes occupied a level still lower. They figured prominently in defamatory military ritual, and are themselves worthy of further investigation in this context. They were often taken alongside prisoners of war, suggesting that they were a regular part of the train of armies. Those captured by Padua at Brentelles in 1386 participated with the male captives in dinner celebrating the victory and given laurels for their hair.27 It is worth noting the participation in the rituals of foreign mercenaries soldiers, who formed an important element of communal armies at this time. The elaborate acts before the Florentine walls in 1363 and 1364 were done largely by English and German mercenaries in Pisan employ. The men seem to have joined willingly in the deeds, following seamlessly the lead of their Italian employers. The Lucchese Sercambi noted, however, that English soldiers observed the feast of Saint Edward in honour of their king of the same name, which coincided with their advance to the Florentine walls.28 25 

Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, p. 84. Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, p. 223. 27  For the humiliation of prisoners at Brentelles, see Cronaca carrarese, ed. by Medin and Tolomei, pp. 276–77; Kohl, Padua under the Carrara. 28  Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i (1892), 124. 26 

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The defamatory use of animals, the hanging of them upside down at walls, was a familiar act of derision with roots in antiquity.29 Base animals such as dogs and donkeys emphasized the contempt. Respectable animals served as symbols of war. Lions were, for example, commonly kept by Italian cities and were viewed not only as exotic, but as metaphors of communal strength and power. In Florence, which kept live lions and used them as ornamental images on the Palazzo dei Priori (later the Palazzo Vecchio), writers fashioned the war against Pisa in 1362–64 as an instance of the lion versus the fox: the more potent commune (Florence) against the smaller crafty one (Pisa). 30 The metaphors found physical expression on the battlefield. The Milanese captain Jacopo Dal Verme purportedly sent his opponent John Hawkwood a live fox in a cage, when the latter was trapped with his army near Brescia in 1390, short of supplies, and waiting for a conjunction with French forces.31 Hawkwood released the fox from its cage and then turned metaphor into reality, escaping himself from Dal Verme’s trap by crossing three rivers swollen by rains. The Pisans in 1363 carried into battle a live eagle, the symbol of the commune, which they carried to Florentine town wall to display in full view of the enemy.32 Symbols in short mattered, so much so that when a Florentine trumpeter was felled by an arrow outside the Pisan walls, his comrades scrambled to get his instrument, to prevent the lily inscribed on it, the ‘segno’ of Florence, from falling into the hands of the enemy and becoming an object of ridicule.33 After the decisive battle of Cascina in 1364, according to Giovanni Morelli, Pisan prisoners brought back to Florence were made to kiss the rear end of the lion cub as they passed through the gate of San Frediano. Florence had won; the lion had humiliated the fox. The rear end of animals functioned more generally as a means of disrespect. After a victory in the field against Siena in 1358, the Perugians compelled Sienese prisoners to enter their city holding the tails of their horses.34 Such acts were not restricted to the trecento or to Tuscany in particular. In its war against Siena in 1233, Florence hanged donkeys ( as acts of ‘dispetto and 29  Dean, The Towns of Italy, pp. 7–8; Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, p. 87; For use of donkeys in ritual,see Schmitt-Pantel, ‘L’Âne, l’aultère e la cite’. 30  Dean, The Towns of Italy, pp. 7–8; Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 112; Morelli, Ricordi, ed. by Branca, p. 312. 31  Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 303. 32  Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi. 33  Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 213. 34  Cronaca senese di Donato di Neri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, p. 750.

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vergogna’) outside the Sienese city walls, during its conflict with Pisa in 1256 Florence struck coins at the stump of a large pine felled not far from the walls, and in 1288 Florence ran a palio outside of Arezzo.35 The Milanese army in 1378 held banquets with music, songs, and races outside of the walls of Verona in 1378.36 In late thirteenth and fourteenth century, however, the rituals of humiliation also included pittura infamante, a genre well known to art historians, but less studied in its military and political context. Pittura infamante was not, as Gherardo Ortalli has shown, a Tuscan phenomenon, nor, as Robert Mills has indicated, a uniquely Italian one.37 In trecento Italy it nevertheless became a common species of punishment, enacted by public decree by the state, levied most commonly (though by no means exclusively) on those guilty of treason, but who were out of reach of physical chastisement.38 In this manner it was applied to military captains, who betrayed employers by switching sides, a disturbingly frequent occurrence at this time. The themes of the pittura infamante reinforce many of those noted above relating to military rituals. Pittura made use of animals, often creatures such basilisks and serpents, symbolic of inconstancy and deception. Like captured enemy banners and animals before town walls, subjects of the pitture were hanged upside down, placed in public and conspicuous areas. In Florence the pittura infamante of the exiled Walter of Brienne, duke of Athens, was painted on the walls of the Bargello. Likewise, the Romagnol mercenary Ridolfo Varano da Camerino, who left Florentine service during the War of Eight Saints in 1377 was painted on the Bargello, depicting him hanging upside down by his left foot on a gallows, giving two fingers, one to Florence and the other to the church, both of whom he betrayed.39 The Sienese town wall in 1392 bore images of local citizens who had betrayed the city during its war with Florence. The images had verses attached to them outlining their crimes. Pittura infamante highlight the nature of military ritual as dialogue. Although no fourteenth-century pitture have survived, we know that they evoked direct responses from their victims. Ridolfo Varano, for example, answered Florence’s 35 

Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, i (1990), 285; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p. 4. 36  Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 200; Cronaca carrarese, ed. by Medin and Tolomei, p. 148. 37  Mills, Suspended Animation, p. 4; Ortalli, Pingatur in palatio, p. 54. 38  Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, p. 68. 39  Diario d’anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, pp. 6 and 340; Ortalli, Pingatur in palatio, pp. 40–41.

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defamatory painting with one of his own, in his native Camarino, picturing him defecating on the members of Florentine ‘eight saints’ who managed the war. Ridolfo added the vernacular inscription: ‘I am Ridolfo and I shit in the throat of the eight saints’.40 The German mercenary captain Lutz von Landau was the subject of a defamatory painting in Bologna when he left the service of that city in 1386. He responded by having painted on his saddle a pittura depicting Bolognese politicians hanged upside down by their feet, in the hands of a gigantic whore.41 Dialogue was clearly an important feature of the genre. As the art historian Wendy Wegener and others have shown, it was operative on the communal level in the fifteenth century, part of the political and artistic context from which Uccello’s famous portrait of John Hawkwood in 1436 derived.42 The genre may have reached something of a high point earlier in the late trecento. One of the conditions of the peace treaty between Florence and Milan in 1392 was that both sides and their allies (which in this war included most of northern Italy) remove all pitture infamante drawn during the conflict.43 It is the contention here, however, that pittura infamante is best understood in terms of the broader pattern of defamatory military ritual of which it was a part. Indeed, it emphasized a conspicuous aspect of the latter, i.e., that military insults were not random, but stylized and imitated and with room for variation. Each offence committed in the theatre of the absurd was to be vindicated. Response was mandatory: memory ran deep, sometimes years passed before an affront was avenged. In this sense, defamatory rituals represented a species of war within the war. The ritual dialogue often began with the issue of the bloody glove, the supposed call to action in the field. Rather than initiate battle, it frequently set off its own set of choreographed responses. In July 1372, a Milanese army outside of Modena sent the bloody glove to papal forces. But instead of mobilizing, the papal army sent the glove back clean. The Milanese then returned it by means of a one-legged trumpeter. The papal army sent it back again by means of a priest.44 The meaning of the interchange is not at all clear. But neither army was inclined to battle; both sides had been entrenched near Modena for some time before the challenge was 40 

Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, p. 87. Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 290; Ortalli, Pingatur in palatio, p. 77. 42  Wieruszowski, ‘Art and the Commune’; Wegener, ‘“That the practice of arms is most excellent”’; Hudson, ‘The Politics of War’. 43  Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, pp. 89–90; Ortalli, Pingatur in palatio, pp. 77–78. 44  Cognasso, ‘L’unificazione della Lombarda’. 41 

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made. Symbol soon shifted to negotiations, in particular, about putting the issue to a test of champions. Letters from the Este archives in Modena show that the sides went so far as to choose six men and the field upon which they would fight. But the battle did not take place.45 The dialogue is also apparent in the defamatory races at town walls. These were, as noted above, held on feast days, connecting them directly to internal civic rituals. But adversaries kept close watch on the acts themselves, addressing where possible individual deeds. When Castruccio Castracani advanced to the Florentine town walls after his victory at Altopascio in 1325, he ran three defamatory races: one with cavalry, another with infantry and a third with prostitutes. Several days later, however, Azzo Visconti of Milan, an allied captain in Castracani’s army, ran a separate defamatory palio with his Milanese contingent of troops, specifically to avenge the palio run by the Florentines two years early, in 1323, on John the Baptist’s day (24 June) outside the walls of Milan. The Florentines were then allies of the pope, at war with Milan, and their commander was the Catalan mercenary, Ramon de Cardona, who now, in 1325, was captain general of Florentine forces against Castracani. Thus Visconti’s race was revenge for a wholly different war, with perhaps also a personal message aimed at Cardona.46 To make the connection more plain, the prize offered by Visconti to the victor of the palio was the same as Cardona had offered his men two years earlier, a silk cloth (drappo di sciamito). Five years passed before the Florentine could avenge the palii perpetrated against them by Castracani after Altopascio. In October 1330, with Castracani now dead, Florence finally gained the military advantage and rode to the Lucchese city walls. Following Castracani’s example, they ran three palii, involving cavalry, infantry, and whores.47 The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani makes explicit that this was retribution for ‘quegli che fece correre Castruccio a Firenze’ (those that Castruccio had run against Florence).48 Response could also be immediate, as happened during the Florentine display before the Pisan walls in 1362. City officials quickly sent out troops to break up the races, to ‘vindicate’ the affront. Indeed ‘vindicate’ was the operative term, used to decribe the event by Matteo Villani.49 Matteo’s brother, Giovanni spoke specifically of ‘vendetta’ to describe the acts of Castracani after Altopascio and 45 

Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 148. Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 488; Green, Castruccio Castracani, p. 179. 47  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 727–28. 48  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 727. 49  For the verb vendicare, see Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 163. 46 

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the retribution enacted by Florence in 1330.50 The word appears widely in the source with respect to defamatory rituals. It was also used by the Florentine diarist Donato Velluti in his account of the Pisan-Florentine war of 1362–64, and by the vernacular poet Antonio Pucci for that same war. Velluti juxtaposed the terms ‘vendetta’ and ‘guerra’, saying Florence made both against the Pisans.51 The workings of vendetta are particularly apparent in the Pisan-Florentine war of 1362–64, a conflict for which much source material has survived, particularly on the Florentine side.52 From the point of view of ritual it was one of spiralling excess. There were at least six instances of defamatory palii run at the town walls, along with wide array of additional insults, employing all available media, visual, verbal and written. According to the Florentine chronicler Matteo Villani, the Pisans set the tone of excess from the outset of the war, celebrating the recapture of the small town of Pietrabuona with ‘befferia smisurata’, limitless ridicule, as if ‘they had acquired a province’.53 The Florentines responded a month later ( July 1362), when its army advanced to the Pisan walls. The Florentines ran four races rather than the typical three.54 They returned the next year, in May 1363, and this time minted money, an action recalling Castracani’s deed after Altopascio, during which he coined the ‘castruccino’ outside of Florence at Signa, just after running palii.55 The Florentines took it further, minting the whole range of coinage used in Pisa, including gold florins, silver grossi, and quattrini, in full view at the gate of San Marco.56 The coins 50 

Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 727, uses the same word earlier ‘per vendetta’ (ii, 488). For literature on vendetta, see Dean, ‘Marriage and Mutilation’; Dean, ‘Violence, Vendetta and Peacemaking’; and Dean, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy, pp. 123–32. 51  Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, pp. 228, 233. The poet Antonio Pucci made explicit that the end of the war was an occasion to vindicate all prior humiliations (‘vendicaro ogni dispetto’) before putting on a final display, after the victory at Cascina: Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv (1775), 254. 52  For the general outlines of this war in English, see Caferro, John Hawkwood, pp. 97–115. 53  Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 135–36, and p. 97. 54  There is some question about the number of races. The Lucchese chronicler Sercambi and Anonymous Pisa claim there were three. Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i (1890), 120; the Sienese chronicler also mentions three: Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, pp. 600–01. 55  For coining of the castruccino, see Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 492. For the Florentine advance to the Pisan walls, see Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1041. The Florentine description of the offensive is in Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 201–02, and pp. 206–08. 56  Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 210–12; Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1041, Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, 116.

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displayed the Pisa’s communal symbol, the eagle, upside down under the feet of Saint John, the patron of Florence. Pisa’s revenge occurred a month later, when it hired the English White Com­ pany, which altered the balance of the war. Reinforced by the formidable band, the Pisan army advanced to Florentine gates near Rifredi.57 The Pisan army ran races, minted money and, to add further ‘derisione’ (Filippo Villani) and ‘più strazio’ (Chronica di Pisa), they hanged donkeys upside down.58 The symbolism of the animals was explained by means of a letter sent to Florentine officials, which Donato Velluti, who served as an ambassador during the war, read and described as ‘brutta e villana’. It explained that the donkeys represented the major Florentine families (Strozzi, Ricci, and Albizzi).59 The Lucchese chronicler Sercambi added that the Pisans also hanged a small, young donkey as a more specific act of retribution. A placard was placed under the donkey, which read ‘this little donkey was born the day you were at San Savino’, the site of Florentine defamatory demonstration in 1362.60 Pisa’s retaliatory acts were accompanied by loud music, shouted insults and the knighting of Ghisello Ubaldini, a Florentine exile and titular commander of the Pisan army. Also knighted were other Florentine exiles, including a member of the Uberti family, another independent Florentine feudatory.61 The celebrations were clearly examples of excess. But a more precise dialogue structured them. The anonymous Pisan chronicler differentiated among the races run by the Pisans in the summer of 1363, making clear that one of them was specifically intended to avenge the city of Lucca, where Florence had attempted to foment discord. The coins minted by the Pisans at the Florentine walls responded directly to the Florence’s earlier effort. They involved the whole range of Florentine coinage, including both the silver and gold standard.62 On the gold florin, they substituted Florence’s patron John the Baptist with an image of the Virgin Mary and on the obverse side replaced the Florentine lily with the Pisan eagle. The eagle pressed under its claw the Florentine lion.63 In addition, 57 

Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 222; Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1042. Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 99; Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, pp. 232–33; Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1042, Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, p. 601; Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 222. 59  Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, p. 233. 60  Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, 123. 61  Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1042. 62  Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, cols 1042–43. 63  Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, p. 601. 58 

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Pisan archers shot arrows over the wall into Florence with tags on them saying, ‘Pisa sends this to you’. This was a direct response to arrows shot by Florentine troops into Pisa during the demonstration in July 1362.64 At the end of the war, the victor, Florence, as the diarist Giovanni Morelli makes clear, decided to inflict ‘tutti i vituperi che era possible’, as a final statement and end of the ritual cycle.65 The poet Antonio Pucci was equally explicit, equating victory with an occasion to vindicate all prior humiliations (‘vendicaro ogni dispetto’).66 A final defamatory palio was run after the decisive battle at Cascina, on Saint Anne’s day, the Florentine feast day celebrating the expulsion of the duke of Athens. It was accompanied by the hanging of animals — sheep and dogs. As the Pisans had done earlier, the Florentines explained the symbolism by means of a letter, saying (according to Sercambi) ‘you came like sheep and dogs to attack our camp, and like sheep and dogs we treat you’.67 Defamatory coins were again minted: a florin with the lily of Florence on one side and John the Baptist on the other, now holding the chains of Porto Pisano, and a silver grosso with the Florentine lily and John the Baptist with chains of Porto Pisano in his hands and a rabbit under foot.68 The Florentines then returned home with their prisoners and staged a triumph on the order of Castruccio Castracani’s lavish spectacle in 1325. The whole city turned out to greet the army and participate in the event, including, Filippo Villani tells us, upper and lower class, men and women. Florence dedicated their victory to San Vittorio and honoured the saint with a chapel dedicated to him in the church of Santa Reparata, a civic feast, and palio.69 Filippo Villani described it as a moment of ‘grande onore’ for the city and a ‘dispettoso e vile spettacolo’ for the enemy.70 The Pisan-Florentine war of 1362–64 represented a high point for collective insults and military symbols more generally. We may add to our list of deeds the display of the captured chains of the Porto Pisano at the palace of the priors 64 

Trexler, ‘Correre la Terra’, pp. 864 and 867. Morelli, Ricordi, ed. by Branca, p. 308. 66  Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv, 254. 67  Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, 126. The anonymous Pisan chronicler reports a similar meaning, minus the last clause: Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, cols 1045, 1046. The Sienese chronicler also tried to apprehend the meaning: Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, p. 609. 68  Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, 126. 69  Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 294. 70  Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 293. 65 

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and baptistery in Florence and the theft by Pisa at Altopascio of relics relating to Saint James.71 That this seemed excessive even to contemporaries is made clear in Filippo Villani’s caustic aside ‘behold how the wise communes of Florence and Pisa spent millions renewing such villanies’.72 In addition to its excesses, the Pisan-Florentine war also makes clear the wide currency of the rituals, how they were public events whose audience was more than the victimized city. Chroniclers of neighbouring communes took careful note of them. The Perugian, Bolognese, and Sienese chroniclers all discuss and interpret these acts of ‘vergogna’ and ‘dispetto’. The details in the accounts differ, but they suggest that the spectacles were noted and their meaning assayed.73 Neighbouring communes generally kept close on wars and indeed participated in them as allies, sending troops in support of one side or the other. Most important for this essay, the Pisan-Florentine war makes explicit the tight connection in the rituals between honour and shame. Antonio Pucci stated the binary outright at the beginning of his verse account of the war, describing the first Florentine demonstration before the walls in 1362 as an act per crescere a Firenze onore, e fama con vergogna di Pisa, e di chi l’ama74 (to add to the honour and reputation of Florence and to the shame of Pisa and their allies).

The binary is stated directly also by Filippo Villani’s in his description of the Florentine celebration at the conclusion of the war, which conferring ‘grande onore’ on the victors, while at the same time casting shame on the vanquished.75 The Sienese chronicler Donato di Neri adds an intriguing dimension to the 71 

Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti, ed. by del Lungo and Volpi, p. 230, Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 184–86. On theft of relics, see Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, p. 605. 72  Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 222. 73  The Perugian Graziani tells how the White Company ‘fece molta vergogna al commune de fiorenza’ and ‘piu dispregio’ before the Florentine walls: ‘Cronaca della città di Perugia’, ed. by Fabretti, p. 193. The Bolognese chronicle describes Florentine making of money and Pisan response as acts of ‘dispetto’. Corpus chronicorum Bononiensium, ed. by Sorbelli, xviii (1906), 160 and 166. The Sienese chronicler Donati di Neri, makes especially detailed note of the rituals and attempts to parse their meaning: Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, pp. 596–97, and pp. 600–01. 74  Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv, 194. 75  Filippo Villani, Cronica, v, 293.

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binary, suggesting that the very capture of prisoners as an act of ‘molto onore’ and implicitly an act of great dishonour for the foe. The Pisan-Florentine war also suggests the ways the binary was extended to burials and commemoration of military men. During the course of the conflict, two leading military captains on both sides died, resulting not from activities in battle, but of plague in 1363. The Florentine captain general Piero Farnese, who led forces to the Pisan walls in May 1363, died a month later in June and the Pisan captain general Ghisello degli Ubaldini, who advanced to the Florentine walls with the White Company in August 1363, died in September. In sharp contrast to the defamatory displays and ‘dispetto’ the men perpetrated at the enemy walls, both were buried with ‘grande honore’ in public ceremonies, paid for by the city, culminating in interment in local churches (for Farnese, Santa Reparata; for Ubaldini, Santa Caterina d’Alessandra). The Pisan account of Ubaldini funeral is much briefer than the Florentine account for Farnese, thus inhibiting precise comparison. But what is clear in both is the emphasis on the great honour bestowed on the soldier, the public nature of the ceremony, and the participation in it of the whole city.76 This is most evident in the description of Piero Farnese’s burial, which takes take up much of the quinto cantare of Antonio Pucci’s poem.77 Pucci tells how it was attended by clerics and laymen, men and women, ‘picciolino e grande’. The corpse was dressed lavishly in expensive cloth and participants offered candles and torches for the dead, a feature that shall be discussed more fully below.78 Even if we account for the differences in sources, the ceremony honouring Farnese appears grander. The Florentine captain was also honoured by means of a public monument, a statue of papier mâché, which remained in the cathedral until the modern era. But it is important not to understate the magnitude of the Ubaldini ceremony and its function as a means of disparaging Florence. Ubaldini was, unlike Farnese, an active enemy of the Florentines, a well-known figure at home, from a powerful Ghibelline family in the Mugello region, north of Florence, near the Appenines, which formed an important passageway for both armies and merchants into Tuscany.79 To publicly honour Ubaldini in Pisa 76 

The term ‘grande honore’ was used in both extant accounts: Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Argelati, col. 1043; Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, p. 123. 77  Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv, 231–35. 78  Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv, 233–34. 79  He is explicitly identified as ‘nemico’ by sources on both sides. Matteo Villani, Cronica, v, 210; Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Bongi, i, 121. On the Ubaldini at this time see Cohn, Creating the Florentine State, pp. 19, 21, and 81.

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was an egregious insult in Florence. And, indeed, although Ubaldini was titular head of a successful army, and earned the respect of the Pisans thereby, he in fact contributed relatively little to Pisa’s military achievements in the field, which owed to the White Company. The appointment of Ubaldini as captain general may itself be considered an act of dispetto against Florence. His subsequent knighting before the Florentine walls conveyed still further insult, making his funeral in September 1363 the pinnacle of the defamatory acts and, to use Trexler’s language, an act of ‘sacralizing’ that which was anathema to the enemy. This is not to say that Ubaldini was not sincerely appreciated in Pisa or that communal burials did not follow their own traditions. Like all civic rituals, funerals expressed local custom. The Farnese ceremony in fact recalls a similar funeral that occurred a century earlier, which, indeed, Antonio Pucci leads us to directly in his account of the Farnese rite, claiming that Florence had not seen so magnificent a ceremony ‘for one hundred years’.80 Indeed, in 1256, Florence buried another war hero, Aldobrandino Ottobuono in Santa Reparata. The description of the event by Giovanni Villani description is strikingly similar to that of Pucci for Farnese. It emphasizes the ‘grande onore’ conferred on Ottobuono, the public nature of the ceremony (paid for by the city) and the commission of monument on Ottobuono’s behalf in the Florentine cathedral, in this instance in marble.81 But this ceremony was also referential. Ottobuono was buried, like Farnese, in the context of war with Pisa. Villani makes plain the affront to Pisa embedded in the honour. Ottobuono’s military distinction came primarily from his rejection of a Pisan bribe (four thousand florins) to betray Florence.82 Like Pucci’s description of Farnese, Villani juxtaposes the words ‘onore’ and ‘fama’, the latter understood, as above, to mean reputation and public standing, ‘honor’s outer dimension’ as Thomas Kuehn has called it.83 Four years later, Ottobuono’s corpse and monument themselves became objects of war-related insult. After Florence’s defeat at Montaperti in 1260, the victorious Ghibellines attacked Ottobuono’s monument and took his body and dragged it through the streets, finally tossing it into a ditch.84 The act gave 80 

Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, ed. by di San Luigi, iv, 235. Ottobuono gained ‘tanta buona fama per le sue vitudiose opere’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, i, 357. 82  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, i, 357. 83  Kuehn differentiates this public type of ‘fama’ from the strictly legal variety: Kuehn, ‘Fama as a Legal Status in Renaissance Florence’, pp. 27–28. 84  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, i, 356–57. 81 

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Giovanni Villani opportunity to meditate more deeply on the nature of ‘onore/ fama’ and ‘vergogna/dispetto’ suggesting that the honour (and reputation) that Ottobuono attained in his lifetime by his noteworthy deeds could not be taken away by the evil fortunes of war, and that each unwarranted ‘vergogna’ inflicted on his body bestowed still greater ‘fama’ on it, while simultaneously casting vergogna and ‘obrobrio’ on the perpetrators.85 The story of Ottobuono helps contextualize the Farnese and Ubaldini ceremonies, giving a sense of a tradition of honouring war heroes in sacred spaces that preceded them. The connection between military men and cathedrals is itself not unusual, and may be said to be emblematic of the connection between military activities and church more generally. The carroccio, symbol of martial pride, was kept in the cathedral between wars; soldiers had weapons blessed by priests, and even free companies made agreements to unite in churches. By the trecento the burial of military men in churches appears to have been widespread, if not yet fully investigated by scholars. There is much evidence of it in contemporary chronicles.86 At the same time as the Farnese and Ubaldini rites, for example, the Perugians laid to rest in the church of Sant’ Agostino their captain of the people, Ambrogio da Siena, who had fought for them in their war against Siena in 1358.87 In Florence, the highest place of honour was the cathedral. John Paoletti’s recent investigation of the Medici family in the fourteenth century has shown that the knights Giovanni d’Alamanno di Lippo dei Medici (d. 1352) and Giovanni di Conte di Medici (d. 1372), who gave distinguished military service, were granted burial there.88 The public nature of the Farnese and Ubaldini ceremonies suggests, however, that they represented the high end of the spectrum. Indeed, key features of the funerals evoke aspects of the military triumphs discussed above. All involved sanctification in a church or cathedral, the participation of the whole commune and explicit mention of ‘grande honore’, which was an essential characteristic of the event. Giovanni Villani described Castruccio’s triumph in November 1325 as performed before the whole city, including men and women.89 The Florentine triumph in 1364 in Giovanni Morelli, brought out the whole commune, ‘tutti e

85 

Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, i, 357–58. Caferro, John Hawkwood, p. 315. 87  ‘Cronaca della città di Perugia’, ed. by Fabretti, p. 194. 88  Paoletti, ‘Medici Funerary Monuments’. 89  Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, ii, 492. 86 

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grandi e piccoli’ who came to greet the victors and shame the prisoners.90 Funeral and triumphs involved candles and ‘torchietti accesi’. Antonio Pucci’s description of Farnese burial gives prominent place to candles, ‘doppieri accesi’ and ‘torchietti’, including precise account of their sizes (from one half to a whole pound in weight). It is important not to overstate the comparison. Candles were part of civic life and used extensively in festivals, in both lay and religious services, functioning as signs of devotion and piety as well as displays of civic identity and political order.91 Inasmuch as 1363 was a plague year, burials of public officials amid offerings of candles were common. This is evident in the Sienese chronicler Donato di Neri’s account of the numerous funerals in that year of leading public officials. He noted explicitly how the ceremonies conferred ‘grande onore’ on their subjects, were paid for with public funds and involved offerings of ‘cera, torchietti, doppieri e candele’.92 Consideration of Siena at this time, however, adds a further dimension to our discussion of the contextual nature of commemoration. The city not only witnessed the collective insults of the Pisan-Florentine war, but it also participated in them. In October 1363, a month after Pisa’s burial of Ghisello degli Ubaldini, the Sienese defeated a mercenary band, the Company of the Hat, in the southwest part of its territory, near the town of Torrita. The city celebrated the event as a victory of war, a triumph. It held a solemn mass in the cathedral and dedicated a chapel there in honour of Saint Paul to whom the victory was attributed (30 October 1363). The celebration was capped by the commission of a fresco of the battle by Lippo Vanni, painted in the Sala del Mappamondo in the Palazzo Pubblico.93 The scale of Siena’s celebration and the size of Vanni’s fresco (which covers a whole wall) have been interpreted by scholars as evidence of the enormous sense of relief produced by the defeat of a marauding company, a grave and recurrent problem for the city.94 But a closer look reveals that the act was much more. The Florentines had in fact summoned the band for service against the White 90 

Morelli, Ricordi, ed. by Branca, p. 312. Thompson, Cities of God, p. 169. 92  Cronaca senese di Donato di Neri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, pp. 599–600. For Sienese burial and commemoration at this time, see Cohn, Death and Property in Siena. 93  Cronaca senese di Donato di Neri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, p. 603; Siena, Archivio di Stato, MS 170, Consiglio Generale, fol. 60r. A fuller discussion of the political, diplomatic, and military situation is in Caferro, Mercenary Companies, pp. 88–90. 94  Norman, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, p. 126. 91 

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Company, which had just penetrated to the town walls. It was a tense time for Florence and much was hoped for from the Company of the Hat. Siena’s victory was thus an outright affront to Florence described by Filippo Villani in now familiar terms as an act of ‘dispetto and vergogna’ towards the city, all the more so because, as Villani claimed, the Company sought peaceful passage through Sienese lands. Siena had begun the war as an ally of Florence, but relations grew strained in large part owing to the violation of Sienese lands by Florentine armies. Thus the act was one of revenge. Siena’s celebration made a dual point, casting images of honour, pride and unity locally, while at the same time heaping scorn on Florence, by means of what Filippo Villano called a ‘beffa festa’. The roots of the vendetta, however, lay still deeper. Five years earlier, in 1358, Florence had dealt Siena a similar blow. After suffering a major defeat during its war with Perugia, the Sienese sought to reinforce its army by hiring mercenary company commanded by the German captain Konrad von Landau. The Company was north of Tuscany and needed to pass through Florentine territory to get to Siena. It entered Tuscany through the Appenine passes into the Mugello, whereupon it was attacked by the Florentines and defeated. The victory elicited celebrations in the city and a vernacular poem in ottava rime (‘Il Lamento di Conte Lando’).95 Matteo Villani devoted an unusually large amount of space to the event in his chronicle.96 There was no full-scale triumph or dedication to a saint, as later in Siena, but one of the Florentine captains who participated in the event, Biordo degli Ubertini, died soon after and was buried in Santa Croce.97 In Siena the disparaging nature of the event was clear. The chronicler, Donato di Neri called the defeat of Landau’s company an act of ‘danno e vergogna’ towards the Sienese, and, like Villani, stressed that the band did not intend to fight, but sought to move peacefully through Florentine territory. Its defeat thus brought no honour to Florence.98 The full diplomatic and political circumstances surrounding these events are more complicated than can be presented here.99 But the symmetry is evident, as is the aspect of vendetta between the communes. This is all the greater when we note that the erstwhile Pisan captain Ghisello degli Ubaldini participated in the events of 1358, leading the remnants of Landau’s band, imprisoned in the town 95 

‘Lamento di Conte Lando’, ed. by del Lungo. Matteo Villani, Cronica, iv, 95–108. 97  Matteo Villani, Cronica, iv, 202. 98  Cronaca senese di Donato di Neri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, p. 588. 99  Caferro, Mercenary Companies, pp. 168–70. 96 

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of Vicchio, out of Florentine territory into the Romagna, a deed condemned in Florence.100 After Florence’s final victory against Pisa at Cascina in August 1364, the city sent its demobilized army as ‘free’ companies into Sienese territory as revenge. On 29 October 1364, almost precisely a year to the day that Siena dedicated its chapel honouring its victory over the Company of the Hat, the city was compelled by the post-Cascina wave of mercenary companies to sign an accord to pay an enormous bribe. The above exchange brings into sharper focus the dispetto embedded in communal celebrations and more generally the dialogue of ritual. In this respect Lippo Vanni’s fresco may be said to follow, at least in broad outline, the pittura infamante tradition. In Florence, the Palazzo dei Priori was used to commemorate military victories and acquisitions and had at this time a painting of the battle of Campaldino (1289) in it.101 It is interesting to contemplate the distinction between what went inside public palace walls and what went outside. The latter was, as we have seen, a place for defamatory pictures. Many of internal commemorative paintings in Florence were removed and have not survived. It is a tribute, however, to Siena’s enduring enmity for Florence that Vanni’s battle of Torrita remains in the Palazzo Pubblico. The full extent of the dialogue, the defamatory exchange between states becomes, I believe, most evident in last decade of the trecento, when a similar concurrence of events occurred as during the Pisa-Florentine war. In 1390–92 Florence fought Milan, a conflict that involved much of northern Italy. Locally it pitted Florence against Siena, which sided with Milan. During the war and its immediate aftermath three major captains died, including yet another member of the Ubaldini clan. As earlier, none of these men died on the battlefield. All were buried in grand public ceremonies paid for by local authorities, interred in cathedrals, amid the offering of candles and commemorated with statues or paintings. Each rite bestowed ‘grande honore’ on its subject, while casting dispetto on the enemy, in this case Siena and Florence, the direct participants.102 The most well-known of the ceremonies was that on behalf of John Hawkwood, the greatest captain of the era, who died two years after truce, on 20 March 1394. Hawkwood’s burial has been the subject of much study, owing in part to the eventual commission (fifty years after his death) of the Uccello’s portrait that remains 100 

Matteo Villani, Cronica, iv, 108. Rubinstein, The Palazzo Vecchio, pp. 48–49. 102  A discussion of the war and funeral rites are in Caferro, John Hawkwood, pp. 289–309 and pp. 314–21. 101 

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in the Florentine Duomo and in part to the spectacular nature of the rite itself. As Sharon Strocchia has aptly noted, it was the most ‘flamboyant example’ of the post-plague Florentine funerary styles, used to convey images of communal loyalty and unity to the Florentine populace, who were sincerely devoted to the successful soldier.103 But as was the case during the Pisan-Florentine war (which Hawkwood participated in as a member of the White Company and later captain general of Pisan forces), the events inside of Florence must be understood in terms of events outside. Hawkwood’s funeral occurred in an already highly charged ritualistic atmosphere of the widespread use of pitture infamante, the removal of which, as noted above, was part of the treaty that brought a temporary end to hostilities. But as earlier, the funeral rights in Florence coincided closely with rites of the leading enemy captains, in this case Giovanni D’Azzo degli Ubaldini, captain general of Sienese forces, who died in June 1391, and his co-captain Giovanni ‘Tedesco’ da Pietramala, who died in 1395, a year after Hawkwood. The timing of the deaths accentuates the dialogue, as does the fact that both Sienese captains were Florentine exiles from powerful independent feudatories, and both were killed by means of Florentine poison. The common features of the three funerals link well to the prior rites afforded Piero Farnese, described by Pucci. All were expressions of the highest honour, in which the whole city participated.104 More so than in 1363, however, the chroniclers enumerate the participants, which included all levels of society: politicians, guildsmen, priests, monks, upper and lower classes, women and men. We again see resemblances to military triumphs, with the sanctification of war, the offering of candles and torches, and a new feature, eulogies on behalf of the dead by local priests.105 The Ubaldini rite represents perhaps a highpoint with regard to candles, involving five hundred doppieri and eight hundred torchietti, supplied by the city, which according to the chronicler flooded the cathedral with light.106 There is little question that the rites expressed heartfelt appreciation of the captains. Giovanni D’Azzo degli Ubaldini was Siena’s most effective captain 103 

Strocchia, Death and Ritual, pp. 55, 79–82. Cronica volgare di anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Bellondi, p. 183; Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso, ed. by Argelati, pp. 735 and 747. 105  Cronica volgare di anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Bellondi, p. 183. 106  Cronaca senese […] di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, xv (1933), 748. The service dwarfed the outlay for that of Pandolfo Petrucci (forty torches and ten doppieri), the famed Sienese tyrant of the sixteenth century, whose funeral scholars have viewed as the period’s most conspicuous. Jackson, ‘Pomp or Piety?’; Johnson, ‘Activating the Effigy’. 104 

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during the war, who led them to several important victories in the field. But the images were, like the other rituals of war, projected outwards. Ubaldini’s service to Siena was perceived as particularly treacherous in Florence, where officials had made an accommodation with him just prior to the war, which involved paying him a substantial amount of money. When he took employment with Siena, Florence placed a bounty on his head, offering a reward for his murder, which was paid out when Ubaldini died, purportedly from a tainted bowl of cherries. The size of the Ubaldini funeral must be understood in this context. The Sienese chronicler estimated its cost at between two and three thousand florins, an enormous figure that constituted fiscal negligence given the desperate financial state of Siena, whose armies were by now wholly paid for by Milan.107 The dialogue of these funerals is reinforced by the competitive hyperbole used by chroniclers to describe them. The Sienese chronicler Paolo di Tommaso Montauri called Giovanni D’Azzo degli Ubaldini’s funeral in 1391 the grandest ceremony of the era and claimed that ‘no man, pope, or emperor’ had ever received such consideration. Notwithstanding, the Florentine ‘Minerbetti’ chronicler described the subsequent Hawkwood funeral in similar terms ‘at no time had any person been honoured so magnificently’. The language of excess established, Montauri then described Giovanni Pietramala’s funeral, which occurred a year after Hawkwood’s, as an unparalleled event. ‘There was no one at this time who remembers having seen or heard of such magnificence and honour bestowed on a man’.108 The last account is blatantly disingenuous, written by the same man who had described the earlier Ubaldini ceremony and could not help but have noticed the recent Hawkwood rite. It is indeed the Pietramala funeral that reveals the extent to which the three ceremonies were relational. Like Ubaldini, Pietramala had been an effective captain in the war in 1390–92, hated back in Florence, and ultimately killed by Florentine poison. There was no ambiguity about the reaction in Florence to his death, which according to an anonymous chronicler,

107 

On the fiscal condition of Siena at this time see Caferro, Mercenary Companies, pp. 156–71. For trecento public funerary tradition in Siena, see Munman, Sienese Renaissance Tombs, pp. 4–8; Liberati, ‘Un funerale a Siena’; Turrini, ‘Le ceremonie funebri a Siena’. 108  Cronaca senese […] di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, xv, 748. For this language of excess see also the chronicle description of funeral of Taddeo d’Este, captain of Venice in the first half of the fifteenth century, who died in 1448: Mallett, ‘Venice and its Condottieri’, pp. 125–26 and 141; La cronaca di Cristoforo da Soldo, ed. by Brizzolara, p. 79.

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occasioned open rejoicing in the city.109 But a closer look at Pietramala’s relations with his employer, Siena, shows that he had fallen into disfavour with them after his service. Montauri makes clear that Pietramala had angered officials by aiding a band of Breton mercenaries, who had attacked and defeated a Sienese army. This happened just prior to his death, making the lavish funeral a curious affair. Indeed, Montauri is well aware of it. After boasting of the scale of the ceremony, he admits it would have been grander still had Pietramala not betrayed the city, a deed that the Sienese were ‘unable to forgive’. The statement evokes the obvious question: why celebrate Pietramala at all? The honour bears the unmistakable stamp of ‘sacralizing’ that which was anathema to the opponent, here Florence. Montauri’s declaration lays bare the pointed interstate dialogue embedded in the ceremony. Pietramala’s funeral makes little sense apart from its role in disparaging Florence, as a means of portraying images of power and civic loyalty as a counter to the Hawkwood rite. The full extent of the funerary dialogue awaits further investigation, both elsewhere in Italy and later during the Renaissance. Fourteenth-century mercenary captains received state funerals and burials in cathedrals beyond Tuscany. Tibertino Brandolino, an Italian mercenary, who fought both for and against Hawkwood, was laid to rest in the church of San Francesco in Venice; Jacopo de’ Cavalli, who had fought along with Hawkwood outside Verona in 1379, was interred in the same city at SS Giovanni e Paolo; and Paolo Savelli, who had opposed Hawkwood on the Sienese border during the Milanese war, was buried at the church of the Frari in Venice.110 What is clear is that military rituals were closely watched, responded to, and imitated. Their messages cannot be understood within the civic tradition of a single city-state. The dialogue of honour and insult was no mere diversion in the ways of war, but provided a means of structuring them and, more generally, of apprehending fourteenth-century ritual practice in its broader context.

109 

The charges of poison relating to Ubaldini are recorded, Cronaca senese […] di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, ed. by Lisini and Iacometti, xv, 735. The charges relating to Pietramala are in an anonymous Florentine account in Alle bocche della piazza, ed. by Molho and Sznura, p. 176. 110  Borsook, The Mural Painters of Tuscany, pp.  75–76; Mallet, Mercenaries and their Masters, pp. 94–95; Valentiner, ‘The Equestrian Statue of Paolo Savelli’; Mueller, ‘Veronesi e Capitali Veronesi’, p. 371.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Siena, Archivio di Stato, MS 170 (Consiglio generale)

Primary Sources Alla cronica domestica di Messer Donato Velluti addizioni di Paolo di Messer Luigi Velluti, 1555–60, ed. by Isidoro del Lungo and Guglielmo Volpi (Firenze: Sansoni, 1914) Alle bocche della piazza: diario di anonimo fiorentino, 1382–1401, ed. by Anthony Molho and Franek Sznura (Firenze: Olschki, 1986) Corpus chronicorum Bononiensium, ed. by Albano Sorbelli, 4 vols (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1900–68) Cronaca carrarese, confrontata con la redazione di Andrea Gatari, ed. by Antonio Medin and Guido Tolomei (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1920) ‘Cronaca della città di Perugia dal 1309 al 1491 nota col nome di Diario del Graziani: con supplementi di altri autori’’, ed. by Ariodante Fabretti, Archivio storico italiano, 16 (1850), 71–750) La cronaca di Cristoforo da Soldo (1437–1468), ed. by Giuseppe Brizzolara (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1938) Cronica di Matteo e Filippo Villani: a miglior lezione ridotta coll’aiuto de’ testi a penna, 6 vols (Roma: Multigrafica, 1980; orig. publ. Firenze: Magheri, 1825–26) Cronica di Pisa, ed. by Filippo Argelati (Milano: Società Palatina, 1977; orig. publ. 1729) Cronaca senese attribuita ad Agnolo di Tura del Grasso: detta la cronaca maggiore, ed. by Filippo Argelati (Milano: Società Palatina, 1977; orig. publ. 1729) Cronaca senese: conosciuta sotto il nome di Paolo di Tommaso Montauri, ed. by Alessandro Lisini and Fabio Iacometti, 3 vols (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1931–39) Cronaca senese di Donato di Neri e di suo figlio Neri, ed. by Alessandro Lisini and Fabio Iacometti (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1931) Cronica volgare di anonimo fiorentino: già attribuita a Piero di Giovanni Minerbetti, ed. by Elina Bellondi (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1937) Le croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, ed. by Salvatore Bongi, Fonti per la storia d’Italia pubblicate dall’Istituto storico italiano, 3 vols (Lucca: Giusti, 1892–93) Delle poesie di Antonio Pucci, celebre versificatore fiorentino del mccc, e prima, della cronica di Giovanni Villani ridotta in terza rima, ed. by Ildefonso di San Luigi, Delizie degli eruditi toscani, 3–6, 4 vols (Firenze: Cambiagi, 1772–75), iv (1775) Diario d’anonimo fiorentino dell anno 1358 al 1389, ed. by Alessandro Gherardi, Cronache dei secoli xiii e xiv, 4 (Firenze: Cellini, 1876) ‘Lamento di Conte Lando dopo la sconfitta della Gran Compagnia in Val di Lamone’, ed. by Isidoro del Lungo, Archivio storico italiano, 14 (1884), 3–19 Morelli, Giovanni di Pagolo, Ricordi, ed. by Vittore Branca (Firenze: Monnier, 1969) Villani, Giovanni, Nuova cronica, ed. by Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols (Parma: Guanda, 1990–91)

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Secondary Studies Balestracci, Duccio, La festa in armi: giostre, tornei e giochi del Medioevo (Roma: Laterza, 2003) Borsook, Eve, The Mural Painters of Tuscany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980) Caferro, William, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth Century Italy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) —— , Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) Cardini, Franco, L’acciar de’ cavalieri: studi sulla cavalleria nel mondo toscano e italico (secc. xii–xv) (Firenze: Lettere, 1997) —— , Quell’antica festa crudele: guerra e cultura della guerra dell’età feudale alla Grande Rivoluzione (Firenze: Sansoni, 1987) Cognasso, Francesco, ‘L’unificazione della Lombarda sotto Milano’, in Storia di Milano, ed. by Giovanni Treccani degli Alfieri, 18 vols (Torino: Utet, 1953–96), v: La signoria dei Visconti (1310–1392) (1995), pp. 470–71 Cohn, Samuel K., Jr, Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1348–1434 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) —— , Death and Property in Siena, 1205–1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) —— , Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200–1425 (Cam­ bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) Dean, Trevor, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) —— , ‘Marriage and Mutilation: Vendetta in Late Medieval Italy’, Past and Present, 157 (1997), 3–36 —— , The Towns of Italy in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) —— , ‘Violence, Vendetta and Peacemaking in Late Medieval Bologna’, in Crime, Gender, and Sexuality in Criminal Prosecutions, ed. by Louis A. Knafla (London: Greenwood, 2002), pp. 1–17 Edgerton, Samuel Y., Jr, Pictures and Punishment: Art and Criminal Prosecution during the Florentine Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985) Fenster, Thelma, and Daniel Lord Smail, eds, Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003) Gardner, Julian, ‘An Introduction to the Iconography of the Medieval Italian City Gate’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 41 (1987), 199–213 Green, Louis, Castruccio Castracani: A Study on the Origins of a Fourteenth-Century Italian Despotism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) Grillo, Paolo, Cavalieri e popoli in armi: le instituzioni nell’Italia medievale (Roma: Laterza, 2008) Hudson, Hugh, ‘The Politics of War: Paolo Uccello’s Equestrian Monument for Sir John Hawkwood in the Cathedral of Florence’, Parergon, 23 (2006), 1–33

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Jackson, Philippa, ‘Pomp or Piety? The Funeral of Pandolfo Petrucci’, Renaissance Studies, 20 (2006), 240–52 Johnson, Geraldine A., ‘Activating the Effigy: Donatello’s Pecci Tomb in Siena’s Cathedral’, Art Bulletin, 77 (1995), 445–59 Kertzer, David I., Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) Kohl, Benjamin G., Padua under the Carrara, 1318–1405 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) Kuehn, Thomas, ‘Fama as a Legal Status in Renaissance Florence’, in Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe, ed. by Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 27–46 Liberati, Alfredo, ‘Un funerale a Siena nel xv secolo’, Bulletino senese di storia patria, 46 (1939), 53–59 Mallett, Michael, Mercenaries and their Masters (London: Military Book Society, 1974) —— , ‘Venice and Its Condottieri, 1404–1454’, in Renaissance Venice, ed. by John Hale (London: Faber & Faber, 1973), pp. 121–45 Mattern, Susan P., Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) Mills, Robert, Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) Mueller, Reinhold, ‘Veronesi e Capitali Veronesi’, in Gli Scaligeri, 1277–1387, ed. by Gian Maria Varanini (Verona: Mondadori, 1988), pp. 369–76 Muir, Edward, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) —— , ‘Representations of Power’, in Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1300–1550, ed. by John M. Najemy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 226–245 —— , Rituals in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Munman, Robert, Sienese Renaissance Tombs (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993) Norman, Diana, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 1260–1555 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) Ortalli, Gherardo, Pingatur in palatio: la pittura infamante nei secoli xiii–xvi (Roma: Jouvence, 1979) Paoletti, John T., ‘Medici Funerary Monuments in the Duomo of Florence during the Fourteenth Century: A Prologue to the Early Medici’, Renaissance Quarterly, 59 (2006), 1117–63 Ricciardelli, Fabrizio, ‘Propaganda politica e rituali urbani nella Arezzo del tardo Medioevo’, Archivio storico italiano, 162 (2004), 233–58 —— , ed., I luoghi del sacro: il sacro e la città fra medioevo ed età moderna (Firenze: Pagliai, 2008) Rubinstein, Nicolai, The Palazzo Vecchio, 1298–1532: Government, Architecture and Imagery in the Civic Palace of the Florentine Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) Salvemini, Gaetano, La dignità cavalleresca nel commune di Firenze (Firenze: Ricci, 1896) Schmitt-Pantel, Pauline, ‘L’Âne, l’aultère e la cite’, in Le Charivari: actes de la table ronde organisée à Paris, 25–27 avril 1977 par l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales et

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le Centre national de le recherche scientifique, ed. by Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1981), pp. 117–22 Starn, Randolph, ‘Reinventing Heroes in Renaissance Italy’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1st ser., 17 (1986), 67–84 Strocchia, Sharon T., Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) Thompson, Augustine, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005) Todeschini, Giacomo, ‘Infamia e defensio fidei fra xii e xiii secolo’, in Ovidio Capitani: quaranta anni per la storia medievale, ed. by Maria Consiglia De Matteis (Bologna: Patron, 2003), pp. 129–39 Trexler, Richard, ‘Correre la Terra: Collective Insults in the Late Middle Ages’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 96 (1984), 845–902 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980) Turrini, Patrizia, ‘Le ceremonie funebri a Siena nel basso medioevo’, Bullettino senese di storia patria, 110 (2003), 53–104 Valentiner, Wilhelm, ‘The Equestrian Statue of Paolo Savelli in the Frari’, Art Quarterly, 16 (1953), 280–93 Wegener, Wendy J., ‘“That the practice of arms is most excellent declare the statues of valiant men”: The Luccan War and Florentine Political Ideology in Paintings by Uccello and Castagno’, Renaissance Studies, 7 (1993), 129–67 Weissman, Ronald F. E., Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press, 1982) Wickham, Chris, ‘Fama and the Law in Twelfth Century Tuscany’, in Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe, ed. by Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 15–26 Wieruszowski, Helene, ‘Art and the Commune in the Time of Dante’, Speculum, 19 (1944), 14–33 Zorzi, Andrea, ‘Rituali di violenza, cerimoniali penali, rappresentazioni della giustizia nelle città italiane centro-settentrionali (secoli xiii–xv)’, in Le forme della propaganda politica nel Due e nel Trecento, ed. by Paolo Cammarosano (Roma: École française de Rome, 1994), pp. 395–425 Zug Tucci, Hannelore, ‘Il carroccio nella vita comunale italiana’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Biblioteken, 65 (1985), 1–104

Philip II’s Royal Exequies in Two Italian Cities: His Deeds and Virtues as Seen in Florence and Naples John A. Marino

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hilip II modelled the preparation for his death in meticulous detail upon that of his father’s (the Emperor Charles V’s death on 21 September 1558), both in its private austerity and public ceremonies. A month before his own death forty years later on 13 September 1598, Philip sent monks ‘in secret’ to open Charles’ casket in order to be dressed for burial in the same manner as his father; and four days before his death, to bring him a chest with two candles and a crucifix given to him by his father to be used at the moment of his death.1 Philip  II’s funeral at El Escorial likewise was replicated in ritual and symbolism with subsequent commemorations locally in Iberia (three catafalques were 1 

Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 276–77.

John A. Marino ([email protected]) is Professor of History, University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1977 and has been teaching at UC San Diego since 1979. He is the author of Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) and Becoming Neapolitan: Citizen Culture in Baroque Naples (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). He has edited or co-edited, Good Government in Spanish Naples (New York: Lang, 1990); Early Modern History and the Social Sciences: Testing the Limits of Braudel’s Mediterranean (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2002); Early Modern Italy, 1550–1796 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); A Renaissance of Conflicts: Visions and Revisions of Law and Society in Italy and Spain (Toronto:Victoria University, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004); and Spain in Early Modern Italy: Politics, Society, and Religion, 1500–1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). He specializes in early modern European history, Renaissance and Reformation Europe, the early modern Mediterranean world, Spanish Italy, the city and kingdom of Naples, and the Italian South. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 211–234 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100774

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erected in different churches in Valladolid alone) and across the Spanish Empire from Mexico and Manila to Madrid and Milan, from the largest city in the New World (Potosí with some 160,000 inhabitants in 1611) to the largest city under Spanish rule (Naples with 270,000 inhabitants in 1606). Commemorative funerals were not limited to a ruler’s own realms, but were part of a state’s foreign policy as were the dozen such ceremonies in Ferrara in the sixteenth century.2 These funerary ceremonies were called exequias reales (‘royal exequies’) with no corpse and no burial, but were symbolic funeral rituals to confirm the transition of power throughout the royal’s realms according to the ‘political theology’ of ‘the king’s two bodies’.3 A comparison of the ephemeral narrative paintings (historia) and emblems celebrating the deceased Philip II’s deeds and virtues at the ceremonies in non-Spanish-ruled Florence and Spanish-ruled Naples contradicts the common assumption that the ubiquitous ritual practices of these innumerable exequies were marked by similar symbolic representations and that they carried the same meaning. Rather, the Florentine and Neapolitan exequies confirm Marcello Fantoni’s proposition on the ‘heterogeneous’ character of, and the different frameworks in which we discover ‘symbols’ and ‘rituals’ commemorating the same event in two late Renaissance cities. The exequies commemorating the death of Charles V numbered more than three thousand funeral ceremonies throughout his worldwide empire, some ordered by his son Philip II, others spontaneous.4 The symbolic value of such rites of passage provided for Philip II’s succession to lordship in the Spanish possessions in Iberia, Italy, the Low Countries, and the New World. The public spectacles of the ‘theatre 2 

Ricci, Il principe e la morte, p. 135 lists funerals without bodies at Ferrara for Beatrice d’Aragona, queen of Hungary (1508); Isabella d’Este Gonzaga, marchesa of Mantua (1539); Federico Gonzaga, duke of Mantua (1540); the kings of France, Francis I (1547), Henry II (1559), Francis  II (1560), and Charles  IX (1574); the Habsburgs, Ferdinand  I (1564), Maxmillian II (1576), Margherita, archduchess of Austria (1568); the joint French/Spanish rites for Elizabeth of Valois, wife of Philip II (1568); and Philip II (1598). For the funeral ceremony of Philip II in Ferrara, see Mitchell, 1598: A Year of Pageantry, pp. 36–43. 3  Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies; Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, ‘Regal Ceremonies’, pp. 271–87; and on Spanish royal funerary rites, Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 265, 287–99; Varela, La muerte del rey; and Orso, Art and Death at the Spanish Habsburg Court. 4  Evidence is from a late source, a biography of the emperor by the Milanese historian Gregorio Leti in Protestant exile in Amsterdam in 1700, in Anderson, ‘“Le roi ne meurt jamais”’ (pp. 379, 385), who cites Leti, Vita dell’invittissimo Imperadore Carlo V, iv, 411. ‘Tutte le Città all’Imperio soggette con ogni possibil sollennità l’esequie di un tanto Imperadore celebrarono’: Summonte, Dell’historia della città, iv, 308.

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of death’ for Charles V have been attributed to three additional motives5: a continuation of the triumphal royal entries of Charles V’s reign extended after death to his entry into heaven; the emperor’s ‘obsessive and personal preoccupation with death’ that would serve as a model of the ‘good death’ for his subjects;6 and the political agenda of Philip II who may have hoped to succeed his uncle and father’s heir the Emperor Ferdinand I to the imperial throne held by the Habsburgs. While Philip was in Arras prosecuting the war against France, he received the expected news of his father’s death in the remote retreat of the Hieronymite monastery at Yuste, and the dutiful son left the battlefield for Brussels where elaborate ceremonies were planned for Charles’ exequies on 29 December. Philip II presided over the exequies at Brussels as a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the ceremonies in honour of Charles V became an iconic model for future royal exequies throughout Europe.7 The Neapolitan historian, Giovanni Antonio Summonte, recorded that the Brussels ‘exequies caused the greatest astonishment, never before were similar ones celebrated for another Prince’.8 The deceased emperor had borrowed from Burgundian court ritual and the Church’s Latin rite to introduce a new funeral ceremony into the Spanish monarchy’s traditional funeral rituals.9 For the emperor’s royal funerary honours, churches were turned into elaborate mourning chapels full of symbolism with black draperies covering the external entrance, nave, and transept, with coats of arms, flags, emblems, imprese, statues of the virtues, and narrative paintings of the ruler’s deeds strategically placed for viewing by the procession of hierarchically ordered nobility and clergy entering the church, with the focal point a catafalque alit with candles, the chapelle ardente (flaming chapel) — an architecturally elaborate columned and arched construction (Sp. túmulo; It. apparato) — at the transept, and with the centrepiece under the catafalque’s arch a sepulchral slab displaying the crown, sword, sceptre, and orb symbols of royal authority.10 One spectacular mobile apparato for the Brussels exequies was an allegorical, eagle-prowed, three-masted ship named Victory that was pulled by two marine 5 

Anderson, ‘“Le roi ne meurt jamais”’, pp. 379–80. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, p. 4 n. 5. 7  Strong, Art and Power, pp. 95–96. 8  ‘le cui esequie furono di grandissimo stupore, giamai ad altro Principe le simili celebrate’: Summonte, Dell’historia della città, iv, 308. 9  Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 288–91, esp. p. 288 n. 14. 10  For the elaboration of the royal funeral catafalque (Castrum doloris) in the seventeenth century, see Tozzi, Incisioni barocche di feste, pp. 70–93. 6 

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monsters and was followed by two other marine monsters drawing the Pillars of Hercules rising out of two rocks and adorned with the imperial crowns atop — all sitting upon a flat slab of sea waves. This victory ship had a crew of the three theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity, flew sixteen flags with the coats of arms of Charles V’s kingdoms, and had twelve narrative paintings of his victorious deeds displayed on its sides and stern.11 Table 1. The Deeds and Victories of Charles V. Antwerp Engravings (1556)*

Brussels Exequies (1558)†

Naples Exequies (1559)‡

Vanquished adversaries

The acquisition of Milan

Charles’ virtues

Francis I taken prisoner at Pavia

The liberation of Genoa

Storming the walls of Rome

Navigation to Peru

Charles on earth and in heaven

The Castel Sant’Angelo

Suleiman fleeing Vienna

The relief of Vienna

Tremisseno or Mauritania

Civilization to the Indians

Mediterranean pirates pacified

The fall of Tunis

Christianity to the Indies

The duke of Cleves surrenders

Capture of Goleta and Tunis

The imperial camp at Ingolstadt

Capture of the Ottoman Morea

Elector of Saxony surrenders

Wars in Germany

The German cities surrender

Conquest of Naples The New World Italy secured Suleiman in Hungary Tunis captured The Low Countries The Morea

Reception in the Low Countries Wars in Germany

Philip of Hesse kneels to Charles V Libyan coastal towns * Rosier, ‘The Victories of Charles V’, pp. 24–38 n. 1, reproduces and describes the engravings in Divi Caroli V. † Descrittione della pompa funerale fatta in Brussele, pp. 8–9 and 12; and La magnifica, e suntuosa pompa funerale, fatta in Burselle, pl. 5. ‡ Summonte, Dell’historia della città, iv, 308–30.

The forecastle had a motto and narrative painting of Italian victories in Milan and Genoa on each side. The port and starboard of the hull each had four mottos and paintings portraying the victories in the New World and against the Turks with a lone image of the wars in Germany. The narrative cycle was completed on the 11 

Descrittione della pompa funerale fatta in Brussele, pp. 8–9 and 12; and La magnifica, e suntuosa pompa funerale, fatta in Burselle [sic], pl. 5.

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stern with two mottos and paintings of the Low Countries and North Africa. In addition, Charles had one enduring and universal impresa, Plus ultra,12 with the motto displayed on the ship’s poop deck ahead of the two columns of Hercules drawn behind. Both the emperor’s deeds and his virtues became part of his persona and, consequently, part of all the exequies in his honour. In Naples the exequies for Charles V13 were held on his birthdate, the feast of the twelfth apostle St Matthias (24 February), which was one day before the one-year anniversary of the death of his elder sister Eleanor of Austria, queen of France, and three days before the exequies for Philip II’s wife and queen of England, Mary Tudor. The ceremonies commemorating Charles’ death began on the feast’s vigil with a procession from Santa Chiara to the cathedral led by all the city’s religious orders accompanied by all the titled nobility, royal officials, and city magistrates. The cathedral was lit by torches and draped in black cloth covered with the imperial insignia and verse and prose imprese, and triumphs of Charles were displayed on a black, Persian silk centrepiece. Inside the cathedral two funeral constructions filled the sanctuary: a great apparato with the emperor’s motto Plus ultra that extended from the entrance of the choir to the high altar; and, a tall túmulo covered by a celestial globe with the twelve signs of the zodiac upon which a very large, two-headed imperial eagle stood guard. The ten inscriptions alluding to Charles’ deeds presented by Summonte compare generally with the twelve narrative paintings from the Brussels exequies; but, they are words, not pictures. The first three inscriptions offer two generic statements on the emperor’s virtues with the third on his conquest of Naples from the French. The last seven inscriptions all refer to deeds represented in the Brussels paintings: the New World, Italy secured (rather than the sea), Suleiman fought in Hungary, Tunis captured, the Low Countries, the Morea liberated, and Victories against rebels in Germany. Charles V’s deeds and victories in the New World, Mediterranean, and German theatres were well known and reflected his virtues, both princely and personal. Only the reference to Italy, especially the conquest of Naples from the French, is unique to the Neapolitan exequies for its local interest. The twelve historical narrative paintings at the thematic core of Charles V’s exequies in Brussels and the derivative inscriptions at Naples recount somewhat different deeds from the series of twelve engravings, The Victories of Charles V, designed by Maarten van Heemskerck and published in Antwerp by Hieronymus Cock in 1556 with a dedication to Philip, who had succeeded to his father’s 12  13 

Rosenthal, ‘Plus Ultra, Non Plus Ultra’. Summonte, Dell’historia della città, iv, 308–30.

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realms after Charles’ abdication on 25 October 1555.14 Heemsherck’s first engraving, Charles V Amidst His Vanquished Adversaries, ‘summarizes Charles’ political career as he would have wished it’ in ‘a fictional realization of Charles’ dream of empire and emperor’ victorious over enemies at home (the dukes of Saxony, Hesse, and Cleves) and abroad (Francis I, Clement VII, and the Turkish Sultan Suleiman).15 The last scene, Philip of Hesse Kneels to Charles V in 1547, has the vanquished duke of Hesse kneeling in supplication before the enthroned Charles holding orb and sceptre with the Empire’s three clerical electors on his right and its four lay electors on his left. The return full circle to the seven imperial electors confirming Charles V’s victorious rule in 1547, however, provides a dramatic, but premature closure that would unwind in the following decade. The greatest failure amid all of Charles’ deeds and victories in his forty year reign as king of Spain (1516–56) — his inability to hold his German lands and pass the imperial title to his son Philip — is never referenced in what is represented in either the Heemskerck engravings or at the Brussels and Naples exequies. Philip II’s equally long forty-two year reign (1556–98) also had its victories spoiled by defeats such as the Dutch Revolt, the loss of the Armada to the English, and the rise of Henry IV and the Bourbon dynasty in France. Despite Philip’s prudent life and model death, the uncertainties of his legacy haunted his old age in the 1590s. Unlike the near apotheosis of Charles in his exequies as the emperor triumphant in the New World and the Old (in the Holy Roman Empire, Low Countries, Italy, and the Mediterranean), the glorification of Philip in his exequies at Florence and Naples reveals the differences in the perception of the Prudent King, the vicissitudes of local power structures and their relationship to the Spanish monarchy, and the ambiguities of Spanish rule in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century. The narrative paintings of Philip’s deeds displayed in the Florentine exequies of 12 November 1598 numbered twenty-four, whereas those in the Neapolitan exequies eighty days later on 31 January 1599 numbered twenty-eight.16 Both exequies emphasized Philip’s rule over the four parts of the world with the personified female continents Asia, Africa, Europe, and America represented in full length portraits on the exterior and interior of the façade of S. Lorenzo in Florence and as statues in the four corners of the catafalque in the cathedral in Naples. Each of the two historical painting cycles had their own distinctive logic 14 

Rosier, ‘The Victories of Charles V’, reproduces and describes the engravings in Divi Caroli V. Rosier, ‘The Victories of Charles V’, p. 26. 16  Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna; Caputi, La pompa funerale. 15 

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Table 2. Narrative Paintings from the Exequies for Philip II in Florence and Naples. Florence (12 November 1598)*

Naples (31 January 1599)†

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1. The victory at San Quentin 2. The capture of San Quentin 3. The capture of the fortress of Civitella del Tronto, Abruzzo Ultra 4. The capture of the French general, Mon­seigneur De Ternes, at Gravelines 5. Philip II’s entry into France 6. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis 7. The relief of Oran in Africa 8. The capture of Fort Pignone in Africa 9. The relief of Malta 10. Putting-down of the Granada rebellion 11. The victory of Lepanto 12. Philip II in Genoa 13. Aid given to the French kings against the Huguenots 14. The war of Flanders (the Dutch Revolt) 15. The duke of Parma conquers Antwerp 16. The conquest of Portugal 17. The naval victory near the island of Terceira, Azores 18. The reconquest of one of the islands of Terceira, Azores 19. The conquest of the Philippine Islands, and other lands of the West and East Indies 20. The relief of Paris 21. The tumults in Aragón 22. The capture of Aalst in Flanders 23. The acquisition of Cambrai 24. The capture of Calais 25. The capture of Amiens 26. El Escorial 27. Ceremonies for the canonization of San Diego de Alcala 28. All of Italia, as it is

The birth of Philip II in Valladolid The education of Philip II The Spanish princes swear fidelity to Philip II Philip II disembarks from Barcelona for Flanders Philip II is received in Genoa by the doge Don Ferrante Gonzaga offers the keys of Milan to Philip II 7. Philip II makes his entry into Brussels 8. Philip II marries Mary Tudor, queen of England, in Winchester Cathedral 9. Charles V invests Philip II with the government of Flanders 10. Philip II captures San Quentin 11. Philip II examines the plans and construction of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial 12. Philip II takes back the government of Italy from the duke of Alba and names a new viceroy for Naples and a governor for Milan 13. Philip II sends his fleet to aid Oran 14. Philip II marries Anna of Austria (never painted) Philip II charges Don Juan of Austria to lead the Holy League against the Turks 15. Victory of the Holy League over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto 16. Don Juan of Austria conquers the city of Tunis for Philip II 17. Philip II justifies his claim to Portugal 18. The conquest of Lisbon (never painted) Philip II enters Elvas, city on the Portuguese frontier 19. Entrance of Philip II into Lisbon 20. Philip II crowned king of Portugal 21. Philip II receives ambassadors from the Indies 22. The conquest of the Philippine Islands 23. The duke of Parma conquers Antwerp 24. Philip II signs the Peace of Vervins with Henry IV in front of the cardinal of Florence

* Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna; Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’; La morte e la gloria, ed. by Bietti, pp. 99–129. † Caputi, La pompa funerale, pp. 32–71.

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and historical trajectory arranged in chronological order; but, they had only seven subjects — less than one-third of the narratives — in common. Let us look at these shared themes, albeit the evidence is different since for Florence, in addition to Vincentio Pitti’s contemporary published ekphrasis, we have an 1825 inventory of the monochrome, grisaille paintings, thirteen of which are extant in the Uffizi Deposit; whereas we must rely upon Ottavio Caputi’s printed ekphrasis for all of the Neapolitan paintings.17 The seven common subjects displayed in Florence and Naples represented the building of El Escorial and the principal victories of Philip II in France, in North Africa, against the Turks, in Portugal, the Philippines, and the Low Countries: 1. San Quentin was the site of the definitive Spanish victory on 10 August 1557 ending the more than half-century Habsburg-Valois Wars. The Florentine narrative no. 10 exists as a preparatory drawing by Bernardino Monaldi, which corresponds to the nineteenth-century inventory description: ‘Philip II in the background left on horseback in the middle of his officers; in the foreground right various soldiers scaling a wall’ with the walled town continuing from the right into the distant centre.18 The Neapolitan narrative holding pride of place as no. 1 is described as portraying ‘the King (ritratto al naturale), surrounded by his guard, to gaze at the battle from a distance, ready to go to aid his men if they would have had need of it; they were valourously fighting. Further in the distance, the tents of the French soldiers were under the city; and some of the French soldiers were entering there through a city gate with a full load of provisions’.19 While the first half of the Neapolitan ekphrasis could correspond to the extant Florentine drawing, nothing of the second half appears to correspond. 2. El Escorial (1563–82), the king’s monastery, retreat, palace, and mausoleum, is represented in Florentine narrative no. 11 in a preliminary, quadrated design by Gregorio Pagani that depicts Philip II standing on a flat stone under an umbrella surrounded by courtiers with his right hand touching a maquette of 17 

Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’; and La morte e la gloria, ed. by Bietti, pp. 99–129. 18  La morte e la gloria, ed. by Bietti, pp. 110–11. 19  ‘Si vedeva quivi il Re, (ritratto al naturale), cinto dalla sua guardia, mirar da lungi la battaglia, stando in atto di andare à soccorrere i suoi; se ne havessero havuto bisogno; i quail valorosamente combattevano. Più lungi erano le tende dell’essercito nostro, sotto la Città; & per una porta entravano colà alquanti soldati Francesi, con some cariche di vittovaglie’: Caputi, La pompa funerale, p. 35.

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the building complex held by a young man. Philip is in conversation with the architect who is also reaching around the boy touching the model with his left hand. The king is visiting the construction site in an early phase of building, since they are standing in front of a façade with no walls or roof, and ladders visible on the inside and outside of the facade. The Neapolitan narrative no. 26 comes out of chronological order as the antepenultimate in its history cycle and the first of three summary accomplishments of the king. This painting’s placement in its respective series gives an idea of this storia’s different function in the two programmes. The Florentine narrative appears in chronological order between historical events of 1557 and 1558 in order to emphasize the building complex’s naming after S. Lorenzo, whose patronage on his feast day secured the Spanish victory at the Battle of San Quentin (the previous Florentine painting no. 10), as well as the vision and hands-on planning of the young king, even though actual construction of El Escorial did not begin for another five years. The Neapolitan order coming as it does as part of the summary achievements, on the other hand, emphasizes the lasting glory of the king’s deeds as they live on in this celebrated physical monument, while at the same time it still recognizes the patronage of S. Lorenzo since El Escorial ‘can reasonably be celebrated among the other marvels of the world; and which was dedicated by him to S. Lorenzo because on his feast day the victory at San Quentin was obtained, which was the first enterprise that he did, and gave a most felicitous beginning to his actions’.20 The Caputi Neapolitan ekphrasis is very similar to the description in Pitti’s Florentine ekphrasis, which probably indicates Caputi’s modelling of his text after Pitti’s, albeit neither describes the image itself, but only its emotive valence and, thus, the Neapolitan image could or could not have been very similar to that of the one in Florence.21 20  ‘sorgeva alla man destra dell’arme il maraviglioso, & grandissimo Tempio dell Scoriale, (ritratto da’ disegni à punto come egli stà) con infinito thesoro da S. M. fabricato di maniera, che con ragione può trà l’altre maraviglie del mondo celebrarsi; & da lui dedicato à S. Lorenzo, perche nel giorno della sua festa ottenne la vittoria presso S. Quintino; la quale essendo la prima impresa,che egli facesse, diede felicissimo principio alle sue attioni. Sotto vi si vedeva scritto, admirabili d. laurentii aede maximo avri pondere extructa’: Caputi, La pompa funerale, p. 68. 21  ‘Appresso à questa, il Rè andare intorno al meravigilioso Tempio dello Scuriale, seguitandolo gli Architettori per disegnare il complimento, & la fine di esso si vedeva; il quale egli in honore di San Lorenzo in Spagna edifice, la cagione n’adducono le parole dosì dicendo, dura belli necessitate templum in hostili evertitur, at restituitur, pietate regis patrio in solo, religioni eius par, atque opibus octavvum orbis miraculum’: Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, pp. 43–44.

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3. The Spanish fleet aids Oran is placed no. 13 at Florence and is preserved as a preliminary drawing by Santi di Tito depicting the king of Algiers standing on the shore to the left above the port of Oran as his fleet besieging the Spanish fort of Mers-el-Kebir flees (with the loss of pieces of artillery and of reputation) rather than fight the arriving Spanish fleet on 3 April 1559. Significantly, the Spanish fleet includes some galleys of the grand duke of Tuscany, as well as those of Genoa and the duke of Savoy. The Neapolitan ekphrasis no. 7, for its part, does not mention either Tuscany or Savoy, but gives credit to the Spanish commanding general, Don Francisco de Mendoza, and the Genoese captain, Giovan Andrea Doria, as it denigrates the Turks for fleeing in fear and disorder at the Spanish armada still a little way off sailing in good order flags flying. 4. The Victory of the Holy League over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto (mod. Návpaktos) on 7 October 1571, no. 15 in Florence, has been lost, but is believed to have been the 1589 painting by Girolamo Maschetti and Bernardino Monaldi. Grand Duke Cosimo I had counselled Pius V’s participation and had provided twelve galleys, six of them completely at his own expense. The Neapolitan storia no. 11 identifies the naval victory off the island of Cocciolare under the united forces of Philip II, Pius V, and the Republic of Venice with no mention of the Medici. It emphasizes that Philip II fought ‘for the common defence of all the Christian peoples’, and that the victory prevented the Turks from advancing towards their aspiration ‘of an empire in all Italy’. 5. The Conquest of Lisbon, no. 18 in Florence (but no. 19 in Vincenzo Pitti’s ekphrasis), is a monochrome painting commissioned to Domenico Cresti called il Passignano, but probably executed in the workshop of a master such as Pietro Sorri. The painting shows a commander on horseback waving his baton towards action on the right in front of a cityscape. Grand Duke Francesco de’Medici helped finance Philip II’s conquest of Portugal. The Neapolitan ekphrasis gives the history of the conquest under the duke of Alba from the death of King Henry and the capital’s defence by Antonio. In the Neapolitan painting the Portuguese are humbly presenting the keys of the city to Philip with a view of the port below the city walls filled with many galleys of the royal armada. 6. The conquest of the Philippines in 1572, no. 22 in Florence is missing, but described in the 1825 inventory as a native army fighting with bows and arrows on the left against Spanish soldiers armed with lances and firearms on the right. The Neapolitan narrative history no. 19 describes the scene in great detail. The king’s navy is at anchor near the shore where ‘a few Spanish sol-

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diers appear to be battling an innumerable multitude of Indians with the most marvellous ardour and valour’. When one Spaniard is struck in the breast by an arrow and killed, the natives attempt to take his body, but out of piety two companions recover the body ‘so that he would not be buried in the entrails of these Barbarians’.22 7. The duke of Parma conquers Antwerp for Philip II, no. 23 in Florence, is lost, but the 1825 inventory description has a commander in discussion with an officer near a battery in the right foreground with a standard bearer on the left, and a view of Antwerp in the background. The taking of Antwerp in 1585 is the culmination of eight years of warfare in the Low Countries by Alessandro Farnese, the duke of Parma, who had first arrived there in the autumn of 1577, and after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Gembloux succeeded Don Juan of Austria upon his death as commander in 1578. The Neapolitan placement of this history painting as no. 15 follows a general description of ‘the war of Flanders’ and provides a positive conclusion to it in this historical cycle of Philip’s deeds. It is, however, out of chronological order since the fall of Antwerp in 1585 would follow the events pictured in the three paintings of the conquest of Portugal (nos. 16–18) and the conquest of the Philippines (no. 19). Caputi’s text erroneously dates the conquest of Antwerp as 1576 either as a typographical error or having confused the 1585 victory of the duke of Parma (who had not yet arrived in Flanders in 1576) with the Spanish Fury of 1576. The Neapolitan text describes the background to the painting as Alba’s siege, which cut the city’s supply line by constructing a dam of tethered boats blocking the river. The painting itself depicts the ramparts of the castle held by Parma and his army with three citizens coming out from the city to supplicate mercy by genuflecting before Parma and surrendering the city to him. These seven deeds of Philip II were not always presented as complete victories, as in the example of Lepanto, which is described as blocking Turkish expansion not an actual conquest. Nevertheless, the deeds are all high water marks in Philip’s fortunes. To understand more about them in the context of the two narrative 22 

‘Vi si vedevano le navi del Re starsene sù l’anchore presso terra ferma; nella quale pochi soldati Spagnuoli sembrevano cõ maraviglioso ardire, & valore combattere con innumerabile moltitudine di Indiani. Era questa gente fiera nell’aspetto, & meza ignuda; & teneva per arme alcuni dardi, & l’arco con le freccie, & bastoni molto grossi. Eravi dipinto un fante, che essendo ferito da una freccia nel petto, & ucciso, correvano gli Indiani per prenderlo così morto; ma dalla pietà di due compagni, era il cadavero di lui ricoverato, accioche non fosse sepolto nel ventre di quei Barbari’: Caputi, La pompa funerale, p. 59.

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history cycles in Florence and Naples, we must analyse the organizing rationale in each city’s programme. Eve Borsook was the first scholar to identify the importance of the Florentine narrative cycle on Philip II. For the history of art, Borsook presented the thirteen extant chiaroscuro canvasses as ‘the earliest surviving example of a type of monumental history painting which might be classed as pictorial biography’.23 She argues that ‘before 1550, history painting of the life and achievements of an individual who was not a saint were rare in Italy’.24 Ephemeral paintings prepared for Charles V’s triumphal entries in Italy between 1528 and 1536, like the allegorical ship of state in his Brussels exequies of 1558, focused on his battles and deeds. The Florentine exequey paintings of Philip II’s life, on the other hand, covered a chronological sweep from his birth (no. 1) in 1527 to the Peace of Vervins (no. 24) in 1598, the year of his death. The Florentine cycle for Philip II originally sought to follow the funeral precedent set by Charles V at Brussels; but, except for the catafalque, it instead took as its model the funeral in 1574 of the first grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I, and that of his successor, Francesco I, in 1587; the general themes of the 1598 rites were ‘Philip’s power and religious fervour’.25 This general theme, however, was inflected with Medicean political propaganda that referenced the ties between the house of Medici and the Spanish monarchy in the numerous Tuscan contributions to Philip’s victories and political acts. The reigning Grand Duke Ferdinand’s foreign policy of maintaining intermediary and conciliatory relations between France and Spain is clearly reflected in the representations of the deceased King Philip’s life, as it recycled some earlier images from his predecessor’s exequies. The dominant motif of the overall decorations at the church of San Lorenzo in Florence was one of the Triumph of Death, as a ‘theatre of death’ proclaimed Philip’s double victory in this world and the next: ‘La Beatitudine eterna et gloriosa visione d’Iddio’ and ‘La Gloria del Mondo’.26 Paintings of death attempted to capture Christian faith in the immortality of the soul from mourning to exhaltation with renderings of Death as the gateway to eternal life and how the thought of Death leads to Virtue. Skeletons abound in the church’s decorations with every narrative painting of Philip’s deeds placed in between two skeletons, and each skeleton thus associated with two paintings. Juxtaposing death and life 23 

Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’, 14 (1969–70), p. 91 n. 1. Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’, 14 (1969–70), p. 92 n. 1. 25  Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’, 14 (1969–70), p. 96 n. 1. 26  Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, p. 17. 24 

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highlighted how Philip’s religious faith allowed him to live and die as a saint.27 Such emphasis on his good life (and good death) showed how Philip’s life of virtue — with the virtues personified by ten statues of angels forming a Coro delle Virtù of Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Faith, Charity, Hope, Clemency, Mercy, and Magnificence — led him to his heavenly glory.28 Eternal glory was also Philip’s on earth, where his power was greater than Augustus and more fortunate than Alexander.29 Philip’s deeds in the four parts of the world were prepared for by paintings of Africa and Asia outside on the church façade and Europe and America inside around the door.30 Three emblems announce in word and image Philip’s rule over the earth temporally and spatially from the rising to the setting sun.31 The first emblem shows Apollo’s chariot pulling the sun across the sky, ‘Iam illustrabit omnia’; the second emblem, ‘Oriens ex alto’, has the sun rising in the east, above the ascending horizon; and the third emblem tells us that even though the sun sets below the horizon, it does not lose its light, ‘Nec occidet ultra’. The illuminating metaphor of light brightens the whole world basking in Philip’s lordship. The state policies of the Tuscan Grand Duke Ferdinand, however, is what sets the Florentine exequies apart. Motives for Ferdinand’s ‘demonstrations of Love and Honor toward the Glorious King’ Philip are numerous and well known.32 As vassals of the Spanish monarchy which had created their title, the grand dukes had been faithful contributors of men and materiel to Spanish Habsburg campaigns. Ferdinand had recently helped broker the Peace of Vervins with France, and he now sought investiture of Siena for his half-brother Don Giovanni. At the same time, rivalry with Ferrara, where exequies for Philip were held on 14 October as the pope was visiting to preside over the double Spanish-Austrian Habsburg wedding, spurred the Florentines to act more quickly. Above all, the subjects chosen and their manner of representation redound to the glory and magnanimity of the Tuscan grand dukes, whose collaboration with and support of Philip II’s enterprises helped bring them to a successful conclusion. Thus, six of the Florentine deeds of Philip speak directly to the grand duke’s support: the young Prince 27 

La morte e la gloria, ed. by Bietti, p. 90. Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, pp. 58–63. 29  La morte e la gloria, ed. by Bietti, p. 90. 30  Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, pp. 8–12. 31  Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, pp. 28–30. 32  Borsook, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’, 14 (1969–70), pp. 105–06 n. 1, cites Pitti, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna, p. 75. 28 

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Franceso de’ Medici was present to greet Philip at Genoa (no. 5); the Accademia del Disegno had been asked to review the plans of El Escorial (no. 11); Florentine aid given towards the victories at Oran (no. 13), Lepanto (no. 15), and Portugal (no. 17); and the aforementioned Peace of Vervins (no. 24). The grand duke was praising himself as much as the deceased Spanish king. In the Naples exequies, the proof of who Philip II was and why he was to be remembered with such pomp and circumstance can be seen in the twenty-eight narrative paintings (storie) in the duomo. Caputi’s ekphrasis allows us to visualize each painting and understand its importance in the significant victories of Philip’s reign: against the French at and after Saint-Quentin (six paintings), against the corsairs in North Africa and the Turks in the Mediterranean (four paintings), against the Portuguese in Portugal, the Azores, and in India and Asia, especially in the Philippines (four paintings), against the Dutch rebels in Flanders (six paintings), against the French Huguenots and other rebels in Granada, Genoa, and Aragón (five paintings). The picture of an ever-expanding Spanish empire in defence of the Faith, led by victorious conquerors and advancing armies, is clearly portrayed by one of the kingdoms within it. In the final three history paintings, religion and peace seal the Spanish conquests to confirm the new order imposed on subject cities, states, and peoples. In painting no. 26, the church of S. Lorenzo in the Escorial is painted from a design model and the whole narrative cycle thus ends where it began, when S. Lorenzo, whose intercession on his feast day provided for the defeat of the French at the battle of Saint-Quentin, now is given due thanks in the dedication and naming of the king’s retreat-residence-church-mausoleum. Likewise, the penultimate history no. 27 depicts the ceremony in St John Lateran with pope and cardinals present in sumptuous ritual for the 1588 canonization of San Diego di Alcala, whose curative powers were seen to have intervened in saving Philip’s son, the young Prince Carlos from death in 1561.33 The last storia no. 28 renders a picture of ‘All Italy as it is’. A map of Italy now overcome by Peace, personified as a woman riding a horse and carrying an olive branch, renders the innumerable previous battle scenes subordinate to the divine purpose of Spanish rule in the establishment and maintenance of God’s peaceful kingdom on earth. The exequies for Philip II at Naples, however, add something new, an explosion of imprese which visualize in the symbolic language of the emblem the attributes of the king. The imprese or device, which developed in the tradition of court culture as the expression of a purpose or undertaking, preceded the invention of 33 

Kamen, Philip of Spain, pp. 91–92.

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the genre of the emblem by Andrea Alciato in his publications of 1531 and 1534. During his long reign and at his exequies, as we have seen, Charles V had only one impresa, the ‘famous device of the two columns with the motto Plus ultra, praised above all others and routinely mentioned as perfect by later authors on imprese’.34 Charles’ impresa was invented in the Burgundian court in 1516 as he came to the Spanish throne and means ‘Further beyond’ the columns of Hercules, in a geographic sense to expand his rule beyond the boundaries of the Spanish inheritance. During Charles’ son’s long reign, Philip II had only five imprese associated with his life and deeds; at the Florentine exequies only three imprese are described. The exequies at Naples multiplied the number of the king’s imprese beyond those of courtiers to new ones by Jesuits and academicians, so that Caputi describes fifty-seven of these esoteric emblems (fifty-two of them new). The façade of the túmulo facing the central nave reproduced by Caputi allows us to see the only visual evidence of any of the twenty-four mausoleum emblems and to correlate each of these six imprese with the ekphrasis in his text.35 Their moral message is quite clear. Reading Caputi’s verbal order, which does not correspond to his inserted illustration, we see the five traditional devices previously associated with Philip during his life. First, Hercules carrying the world on his shoulders was already seen in Antwerp at Philip’s 1549 entry, and both motif and motto, ‘Ut quiescat Atlas’ (So that Atlas rests), derive from a commemorative medal struck in 1555 upon the abdication of Charles V, who like the fatigued Atlas, had the weight of the world put on his son Philip II, the new Hercules.36 The second imprese (the only one of the three from Florence at Naples) shows Phoebus Apollo guiding his sun chariot, a device that was conceived at the beginning of Philip’s reign in the hope that his virtue would not be in vain; for, just as the Sun and Night illuminated the world below, so too Philip’s virtues were to do the same: ‘Iam illustrabit omnia’ (Henceforth he shall illuminate everything).37 In the third imprese on the opposite side of the arch, the Scales signify the constancy and greatness of spirit of the king who never changed either with prosperity or unhappiness, not from despair or fear. The motto ‘Nec spe, necu metu’ (Not out of hope, not out of fear) is taken from an oration of Cicero and was inscribed on 34  Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa, p. 18. See Rosenthal, ‘Plus Ultra, Non Plus Ultra’. 35  Caputi, La pompa funerale, pp. 12–24. 36  See Strong, Art and Power, fig. 63 shows Philip II’s entry into Antwerp in 1549 with Charles V, the still Prince Philip bearing up the world. 37  This imprese had been published in all four editions of Ruscelli, Le imprese illustri.

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Table 3. Imprese of Philip II in Exequies at Naples. Twenty-four Emblems on apparato. Source: Caputi, La pompa funerale, pp. 12–24. I. Visible Side: Statues of Fortitude and Justice 1) Hercules carrying world on shoulders

Ut quiescat Atlas

2) Phoebus’s chariot

Iam illustrabit omnia

3) Compass

Circuit immotus [Labore et constantia]

4) The Scales (Libra)

Nec spe, nec metu

5) Palfrey rampant in a circle

Non sufficit orbis

6) Gordian knot

Tanto monta (monta tanto)

II. Side Two: Statues of Prudence and Temperance 1) Eighth sphere adorned by stars

Ulteriora micant

2) Serene Heaven with stars

Nec noxia sidera turbant

3) Falling star in serene air

Lucebit post eam semita

4) Tree with dead bird of Paradise

Interminatis fulget honoribus

5) Lightning having struck a tower goes to ground

Cessat, non cedit

6) Balsam tree

Ab ipso ducit opes (Horace, Ode, iv. 59–60)

III. Side Three: Statues of Mercy and Peace and Faith 1) Bird called Paradise

Caelo per fruitur sereniore (Martial, Epigrams, iv. lxiv. 5–7)

2) Sun to the West

Spectantes patitur

3) Bird with broken wing

Effracto libera vinclo

4) Scales, one towards heaven, other towards earth

Tollitur atque cadit

5) Refined pure gold above a fiery furnace

Nobiliora manent

6) A vine inside a large ditch in need of pruning

Div renovata virebit

IV. Side Four: Statues of Christian Charity and Hope 1) At sunset leaves reflection in centre of sky

Non deficit alter (Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 143)

2) A small phoenix

Totidem quae vivere debeat annos (Ovid, Metamporphoses, xv. 401)

3) An eaglet just ready to fly

Generosa in prole relinquor

4) Old fallen oak tree gives rise to new sprout

Meliore in parte superstes

5) Part of Zodiac with sign of Leo

Etiam dominabitur astris

6) Aged lion saved by young cub fighting a dragon

Unguis subit integrior

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Table 4. Imprese of Philip II in Exequies at Naples. Forty-one coats of arms of the royal kingdoms and thirty-three emblems. Source: Caputi, La pompa funerale, pp. 73–107. 1. Pepper tree 2. Ship with favourable winds sails into safe port 3. Phoebus’s chariot begins to dive into the sea 4. Luminescent ruby lights shade around it 5. Old bear takes repose after licks down newborn 6. Rock in middle of tempestuous sea breaks up 7. Bird of paradise flies with chicks on shoulder 8. Sun sets leaving sky completely clear 9. Cloth on fire is not consumed, but turns white 10. Highest mountain appears covered by clouds 11. Pomegranate broken open 12. Chicks venture out to fly from sea bird’s nest 13. Tower with lion asleep, cub below defending 14. A gun and flint with sparks of fire inside 15. Setting sun covered by clouds, bright moon above 16. Horse in circle looks dead but is asleep 17. Vase full of water inside grains of wheat 18. Cut ivy that grows and stands without aid 19. Eagle in turbid air and lightning flies 20. Tower of Castile with beautiful stones 21. None 22. None 23. Lion wakens his lion cub from sleep 24. None 25. None 26. Iron clock on wall 27. Lightning bolt like word in a tree 28. Tower of Castile with a lion on guard 29. Eagle flies high above birds below it 30. Lion with two underlings, submissive animals 31. Ostrich swallows a sword point and more after 32. Dragon wounded by lightning remains alive 33. Lightning in a cloud 34. Lightning splits a laurel in half 35. None 36. None 37. Eagle holds an eaglet with its talons 38. None 39. None 40. Lightning in tempest 41. Lion puts to flight other animals by its roar

Pulvis odora magis Aut tenet, aut plenis subit Ut alterum nunc orbem Nocte nitentior Formata stripe quiesco Tollor effracta Sedes ad huc grata quietis Frustra terrebere nimbis Purgata levantur Celsior exurgit Resecta intent magis Clarior mihi risit Apollo Excubo fortiori Magis in tenebris Haud eripit lunare iubar Perfecto requiescit in orbe Nil nisi vile perit Recisa, secernitur sono Tuta Maiestas Mole, atque ordine

Virtutem ex me

Ne ruam in praeceps In duriora magis Robur intus Praevertitur omnes Sat subegisse Vim non laedunt, sed augent Reddit innoxia Tempestatesque serenat Franguntur nescia vinci

Educat unum

Par nulla potestas Infremuit

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the façade of the tower of the Schepenhuis (Aldermen’s House) of Aalst, where Philip had been made earl in 1555.38 The fourth imprese with a palfrey rampant and exercising in a circle, which according to Caputi should be read as an imperial sign, means that just as such a horse wants to break out of its circle, the greatness of the king’s spirit (like that of Alexander the Great) is greater than the world alone. The motto ‘Non sufficit orbis’ (The World is not Enough) appeared on a 1583 medal and had been incorporated into the royal arms of Spain by 1586.39 Finally, the fifth traditional imprese displays the Gordian Knot with the motto, ‘Tanto monta, monta tanto’ (One is worth as much as the other), as was used by Philip’s ancestor Ferdinand the Catholic (Charles V’s maternal grandfather) when he took Granada and appeared on coins of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Juana and her son Charles, and in England of Mary Tudor and Philip II to denote joint kingship. Its invention is credited to the Spanish humanist Antonio de Lebrija, and was reappropriated by Philip in his Portuguese enterprise of 1580. Just as Alexander in obeying the Oracle could not untie the knot peacefully, but had to use a sword to cut through it; so too, Philip had to use force to resolve the impasse and make good his claim to the Portuguese crown. The only completely new imprese not previously Philip’s in this façade was invented by the Jesuits and portrays a compass with one of its feet pinned down in the centre (‘Circuit immotus’, Going around unmoved) in Caputi’s text, but ‘Labore et constantia’ (Through work and constancy) in the accompanying illustration. The motto in the text according to Caputi signifies that, if even in life Philip stayed in Spain, his high and generous thought circumscribed the world and his undefeatable power circled the earth, while the motto in the image says that Philip’s hard work, constant attention, steady and unmoved hand completed his many deeds with toil and perseverance. Overall, these six emblems speak to the same imperial images of Philip and his deeds — as a ‘Cavalier Sereno’, a serene knight whose duty, brilliance, prudence, virtue, and decisiveness fulfilled the hopes and aspirations of his dynasty and his own life.40 The mausoleum’s remaining eighteen newly invented Jesuit emblems addressed similar themes, with each of the three facades carrying a particular 38  ‘quos neque terror nec vis, nec spes nec metus, nec promissa nec minae, nec tela nec faces a vestra auctoritate, a populi Romani dignitate, a mea salute depellerent’ (whom neither terror, nor violence, nor hope, nor fear, nor promises, nor threats, nor arms, nor firebrands, could influence so as to make them cease to stand by your authority, the dignity of the Roman people, and my safety): Cicero, Post reditum in senatu, vii. 9. 39  Parker, The World Is Not Enough, pp. 10–11. 40  Caputi, La pompa funerale, p. 25.

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message. The right face compared Philip to the Sun with images of the Eighth Sphere, a Serene Heaven, a Falling Star, Lightning, a tree with a dead bird, and the balsam tree with a motto from Horace (Ode, iv. 59–60): ‘Ab ipso ducit opes’ (From it he derives strength). Philip’s virtues brought peace and tranquility to earth. The facade facing the main altar again invoked solar images, for example, the Sun setting in the west, to symbolize how one cannot see the sun directly with one’s eye, but now in death/sunset we can see Philip’s virtues. Similarly, are pictured images of the bird of paradise, a bird with a broken wing, scales with one paten towards heaven, the other towards earth, refined pure gold above a fiery furnace, and a vine inside a large ditch in need of pruning. With the separation of body and soul, death brings Philip fame forever. The final facade to the left invokes a series of images — the sun near sunset leaving another reflection in the centre of the sky, a small phoenix, an eaglet just ready to fly, an old fallen oak tree giving rise to new sprouts, part of the zodiac with the sign of a lion, and an aged lion protected by a generous young cub fighting off a dragon, which all offer direct messages on the passing of the kingdom to his son Philip III — the king is dead, long live the king; or as one motto from Virgil (Aeneid, vi. 142) offers, ‘Non deficit alter’ (When one is torn away another succeeds). Whether the often esoteric meanings of the imprese could have been read without Caputi’s explication is an open question; once explained, however, their meanings appear as transparent as an Erasmian adage. On the lower level of festooned black silk the newly invented emblems carried much the same message as those on the mausoleum. Imprese and mottos with the sun and the moon, fire, lightening, high mountains, ships on tranquil seas, rocks in tempestuous oceans, a pepper tree, an open pomegranate, lions, and eagles all point to Philip’s virtues and accomplishments. A classical reference from Virgil (Aeneid, i. 400), ‘Aut tenet, aut plenis subit’ (Either has or will enter in full), for example, accompanies a ship in full sail with a favourable wind on a tranquil sea already entering a secure port, which Caputi writes ‘demonstrates that King Philip, having passed this sea of mortal life very tranquilly, and having the wind of favourable divine grace, entered the most happy port of Heaven’. But this invocation of Aeneid i. 393–400 does much more than extol the king’s passing safely to heaven, for it is filled with Book i’s augury as Aeneas lands in Carthage and his mother Venus explains that the twelve swans that have escaped the attack of an eagle foreshadow his ships thought lost that are either safe in port or approaching port in full sail — a safe landing following Jupiter’s prophecy to Venus of the coming greatness of the new Trojan Caesar.41 How the erudite Jesuits com41 

Hardie, ‘Aeneas and the Omen of the Swans’. The Latin text is: Aspice bis senos laetantis

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bine literary allusion to royal beatification and mythical prophecy with funerary pomp goes far in illustrating how such emblems were supposed to work on their audience. In an appendix, sixteen of twenty-eight Jesuit-composed poems for twenty-eight miscellaneous imprese and emblems highlight the most common metaphor, the two animals that symbolize the king’s lordship on earth and in the heavens — the lion and the eagle.42 As a group, the Jesuits provided the most influential intervention in the invention of emblems. In the definitive third edition of the Ratio studiorum, the Jesuit curriculum and administrative plan for their fast expanding colleges, first published in Naples in 1598 and promulgated in 1599, three references to the teaching of emblems explain how they were taught.43 In the ‘Rules of the Teacher of Rhetoric’, Rule 12 specifies that ‘the class content or exercise’ was to include in a list of some dozen practices, ‘interpreting hieroglyphics and Pythagorean symbols, maxims, proverbs, emblems, riddles, delivering declamations, and other similar exercises at the teacher’s pleasure’. Further, in Rule 15, ‘on the weekly holidays in place of the historical work, for the sake of erudition, other and more recondite subjects may be introduced, for examples, hieroglyphics, emblems’ and other genres and topics. And in the ‘Rules of the Prefect of Lower Studies’, Rule 3 states that these ‘emblematic compositions and poems which are to be displayed on the greater feast days were to be read by two judges appointed by the rector, and they were to select the best’. Thus, the Jesuits were not only masters of emblematic inventions themselves, but also teachers of emblematic invention to their students, who were instructed to devise emblems on holidays for judged competitions. At the turn of the seventeenth century, we are at the beginning not only of an explosion of emblematic invention, but also of the creation of an audience trained both to understand and appreciate the intricacies of the genre. Jan David’s Veridicus christianus (‘The True Christian’), published in Antwerp in 1601, was the first Jesuit emblem book. He explains how the combination of image and word worked together to create the desired interior effect to move the soul.44 Jesuit emblem theory emphasized two traditions: the medieval rheagmine cycnos, | aetheria quos lapsa plaga Iovis ales aperto | turbabat caelo; nunc terras ordine longo | aut capere, aut captas iam despectare videntur: | ut reduces illi ludunt stridentibus alis, | et coetu cinxere polum, cantusque dedere, | haud aliter puppesque tuae pubesque tuorum | aut portum tenet aut pleno subit ostia velo. 42  Caputi, La pompa funerale, pp. 116–27. 43  The Jesuit Ratio studiorum, trans. by Farrell, pp. 77, 78, and 47. 44  Dimler, The Jesuit Emblem, pp. 701–71.

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torical tradition of literary exegesis, that is, the movement from the liberal sense to spiritual sense of an allegorical, tropologoical, or anagogical sense, and the Ignatian ideas on meditation as in the Spiritual Exercises whereby contemplation lead to the interior effect of enlightened transcendence. In the triparitite journey of motto, pictura, and epigram and/or commentary, it is most often the words of the commentary that reorient and reveal the deeper meaning of the commonplace object, scene, or symbol. Interpretation is the key to understanding the mystical meaning of the emblem. Not only Jesuit rhetoric and spirituality, but also emblem theory informed the Neapolitan inventions. The Caputi emblems of Philip II are copied and explained in detail within the framework outlined earlier by Giulio Cesare Capaccio, the erudite writer of local Neapolitan lore, founding member of the Academia degli Oziosi, and later city secretary from 1602 until 1610, in his Delle imprese of 1592. For Capaccio, ‘any object which can be represented to the intellect can be the matter for imprese’.45 Capaccio’s inclusion of everything obscure, mystical, imaginary, and similtudinous corresponds to the three kinds of mental vision — corporal, spiritual, and intellectual. His Neoplatonic vision determines ‘that an impresa should be understood through intuition rather than discursive reason’ and should be drawn ‘from an innate store of ideas’. And he draws a sharp distinction between imprese and emblems. Where imprese express ideas in ‘the mind, the inferior emblem deals with moral precepts’. Modern commentators on Renaissance and Baroque emblems as symbol theory emphasize the difficulty of interpreting the image as a puzzle as ‘anti-mimetic’, that is, ‘poetic, moralistic, or doctrinal motives’ often worked against the grain of imitation.46 Thus, the familiar was presented in a new way, in a veiled allegorical language, ‘concealing esoteric wisdom from the vulgar’ by emphasizing poetic language as the only way to ‘behold the dazzling ray of divine truth’.47 The commonplace became vessels of hidden meaning, profound truth, and inexplicable beauty; the emblematic puzzle revealed a kind of baroque Sileni Alcibiades. As a control, we might take a brief look at the collection of another ninetyfive royal imprese not only recorded but also reproduced by our same witness, Ottavio Caputi, in his festival book thirteen years later on the Neapolitan obsequies of the Spanish queen and wife of Philip III, Margherita d’Austria (d. 1612). 45 

Capaccio, Delle imprese, p. 21. See Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa, pp. 178–79. 46  Manning, ‘Introduction’, p. xv. 47  Manning, ‘Introduction’, pp. xvii–xviii.

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Gender here determines the emblem’s meaning and message. What we see over and over again is the queen’s holiness, virtues, and fecundity in allegories drawn from countless natural objects, here for example, the unopened oyster with its hidden pearl, the evening star emerging at the setting of the sun, the prickly pear in abundant bloom, and the dove building its nest for its young.48 Humdrum domestic allegories turn our thoughts to praise of the queen at the same time that they act as moral injunctions for their audience. What we have learned from the obsequies for Philip II in Naples is the esteem that the Neapolitan ruling class held for him and for themselves. The imprese portray royal power and moral virtue through mythological, astronomical, geographical, and animal iconography. Typologies of the emblematic images reveal the rules of ideology as much as the ideology of rule. Cracking the code of this emblemology helps explain how these secret meanings in motto and image became mannered manipulations of royal propaganda for the ruling class in their close identification with Spanish rule and their moral imperative to lead dutiful, virtuous lives. The language of the elites is reflected in a hall of mirrors of royal and aristocratic views on good government and a good death. The authoritative teachers drawing out these visual and verbal lessons from Philip’s life were the Jesuits in Naples, whose message of the staunch Counter-Reformation offensive against Protestantism and proponents of the worldwide Spanish imperium in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America reinforced their own special ministry to the local elites. What is especially poignant about this message, however, is the fact that most viewers probably couldn’t understand the message at the time of the spectacle, because as imprese without commentary, their interpretation awaited exegesis. Caputi’s festival book, thus, became much more than a record or memento of the event, but rather its narrative function was to recreate the spectacle so that readers could relive it in light of the new understanding of its hidden meaning and deeper significance. The invention of ‘pictorial biography’ at Philip II’s exequies in Florence and the elaboration of imprese at those in Naples demonstrate how ritual provided the occasion to establish new traditions in creative additions to the received repertoire of practices and symbols. Rather than a dead letter of repetitive conformity, rituals had a local distinctiveness that allowed participants to remake the past into the present and turn the present celebration towards the future. When ritual time stopped the normal flow of actions, it reordered and redirected normal time towards a new future. 48 

Caputi, Relatione della pompa funerale che si celebro, pp. 23–24.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Capaccio, Giulio Cesare, Delle imprese (Napoli: Carlino and Pace, 1592) Caputi, Ottavio, La pompa funerale fatta in Napoli nell’essequie del Catholico Re Filippo II di Austria (Napoli: Stigliola, 1599) —— , Relatione della pompa funerale che si celebro in Napoli, nella morte della Serenissima Reina Margherita d’Austria (Napoli: Tarquineo Longo, 1612) Descrittione della pompa funerale fatta in Brussele alli xxix di Decembre m.d.lviii per la felice, & immortal memoria di Carlo V. Imperatore, con una naue delle vittorie di sua Cesarea Maesta (Milano: Moschenio, 1559) Divi Caroli V imp. opt. max. victoriae ex multis praecipuae (Antwerpen: Hieronymus Cock, 1556) The Jesuit Ratio studiorum of 1599, trans. by Allan P. Farrell (1970) [accessed 17 January 2008] Leti, Gregorio, Vita dell’invittissimo Imperadore Carlo V, 4 vols (Amsterdam: Gallet, 1700) La magnifica, e suntuosa pompa funerale, fatta in Burselle [sic] il di xxix di Decembre, l’anno m.d.lviii nell’essequie dello ’nuittissimo Carlo Quinto, imperadore massimo (Ant­werpen: Plantino, 1559) La morte e la gloria: apparati funebri medicei per Filippo II di Spagna e Marherita d’Austria, ed. by Monica Bietti (Livorno: Sillabe, 1999) Pitti, Vincentio, Essequie della Sacra Cattolica Real Maesta del Re di Spagna D. Filippo II d’Austria celebrate dal Serenissimo D. Ferdinando Medici, Gran Duca di Toscana nella Città di Firenze (Firenze: Sermartelli, 1598) Ruscelli, Girolamo, Le imprese illustri con espositioni, et discorsi (Venezia: Rampazetto, 1566; repr. Monferrato, 1572; Senese, 1580; Senese 1584) Summonte, Giovanni Antonio, Dell’historia della città e regno di Napoli, 4 vols (Napoli: Gaffaro, 1643)

Secondary Studies Anderson, Jaynie, ‘“Le roi ne meurt jamais”: Charles V’s Exequies in Italy’, in El Cardenal Albornoz y el Colegio de España, ed. by Evelio Verdera y Tuells, 6 vols (Bologna: Publicaciones del Real Colegio de España, 1972–79), v (1977), 377–99 Borsook, Eve, ‘Art and Politics at the Medici Court’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 12 (1965–66), 31–54, 366–71; 13 (1967–68), 95–114; 14 (1969–70), 91–114, 201–34, and 248–49 Caldwell, Dorigen, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice (Brooklyn: AMS, 2004) Dimler, G. Richard, The Jesuit Emblem: Bibliography of Secondary Literature with Select Commentary and Descriptions (Brooklyn: AMS, 2005)

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Eire, Carlo M. N., From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in SixteenthCentury Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1995) Hardie, P. R., ‘Aeneas and the Omen of the Swans (Verg. Aen. 1. 393–400)’, Classical Philology, 82 (1987), 145–50 Kamen, Henry, Philip of Spain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) Kantorowicz, Ernst, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press, 1957) Manning, John, ‘Introduction’, in Aspects of Renaissance and Baroque Symbol Theory, 1500–1700, ed. by Peter M. Daly and John Manning (New York: AMS, 1999), pp. xi– xxii Mitchell, Bonner, 1598: A Year of Pageantry in Late Renaissance Ferrara (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1990) Muir, Edward, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity, 2005) Orso, Steven N., Art and Death at the Spanish Habsburg Court: The Royal Exequies for Philip IV (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1989) Parker, Geoffrey, The World Is Not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Philip II of Spain (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2001) Ricci, Giovanni, Il principe e la morte: corpo, cuore, effigie nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Mulino, 1998) Rosenthal, Earl, ‘Plus Ultra, Non Plus Ultra, and the Columnar Device of Emperor Charles V’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 34 (1971), 204–28 Rosier, Bart, ‘The Victories of Charles V: A Series of Prints by Maarten van Heemskerck, 1555–56’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 20 (1990–91), 24–38 Strong, Roy, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals (1450–1650) (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984) Tozzi, Simonetta, Incisioni barocche di feste o avvenimenti giorni d’allegrezza (Roma: Gangemi, 2002) Varela, Javier, La muerte del rey: el ceremonial funerario de la monarquía española (1500–1885) (Madrid: Turner, 1990)

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies Andrea Zorzi*

T

he urban societies of Western Europe from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, as we know, were traversed by violence. These social systems worked out ways of interpersonal and group coexistence that were deeply imbued with the language of force and the exhibition of violence, from the most varied forms of social and political conflict to the most ritualized manifestations. Suffice it to mention, for example, the fights between factions or the feuds between consortia, but also, on another level, the games on horseback or the battles using fists and clubs. Until recently, however, studies have lacked a specific attention to certain practices of violence featuring the younger male *  I offer here, with some reviews and bibliographic updates, the translation of my essay:

Zorzi, ‘Rituali di violenza giovanile nelle società urbane’.

Andrea Zorzi ([email protected]) is Professor of Medieval History at the Università di Firenze. He was fellow at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome in 1993, at the Warburg Institute in London in 1994, and at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in 1996–97. He also taught Digital Humanities at the Università di Padova, the Università di Siena, and the Università di Venezia. In 1998 he founded the e-journal Reti medievali: Iniziative on line per gli studi medievistici, of which he continues to serve as the editor-in-chief. Since 2006 he has been a member of the scientific board of the Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo. His research focuses on Italian political history of the late Middle Ages. His main publications include L’amministrazione della giustizia penale nella Repubblica fiorentina: aspetti e problemi (Firenze: Olschki: 1988); Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power, with co-editor William  J. Connell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Pratiques sociales et politiques judiciaires dans les villes de l’Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge, with co-editors Jacques Chiffoleau and Claude Gauvard (Roma: École française de Rome, 2007); Le signorie cittadine in Italia: secoli xiii–xv (Milano: Mondadori, 2010); Les Historiens et l’informatique: un métier à réinventer, with co-editor Jean Philippe Genet (Roma: École française de Rome, 2011). Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 235–266 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100775

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component of the population, which seem to have been present in both Italian and French contexts; these are the instances of young boys mangling the cadavers of those condemned to death or playing specific roles in lynchings. It is a case, as we shall see, of highly complex rituals with diverse meanings which can be read on various levels, connected with a sacred dimension of revelation of the divine, but also the expression of practices of thanatological mediation and expulsion of those perceived by the community as enemies. In this essay we shall focus on the experience of the Italian cities which practised — or more precisely, where the memory remains of — similar rituals of youthful violence. We shall thus see that in the cities of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — and in particular Florence, due to the wealth of documentary evidence — these practices were progressively disciplined by social custom and Church pedagogy until they died out in the course of the sixteenth century.

‘Ferocious’ Children Within the variegated world of youth in the late Middle Ages, contemporary Italian sources, for the most part written chronicles or historical memories, distinguished clearly from other age groups and forms of association the children indicated by the terms, for example, fanciulli, mammoli, zitielli, or putti (in the areas of Tuscany, Umbria, Lazio, and the Po valley respectively).1 The distinction was made above all on the basis of age, identified as the phase known as pueritia, that is to say, according to the seven-year spans marked off by Isidore of Seville, the years from 8 to 14.2 It is no coincidence that pueri is also the recurrent term in sources written in Latin. This age span generally ended with the fourteenth birthday, one that marks a threshold in many ways and has been considered since classical antiquity to be the presumed attainment of sexual maturity. This limit also marked, in most of the city statutes, the age when a person could be prosecuted by law; and similarly, it was the age when he could be counted as a bocca (mouth) in the tax rolls, as was the case, for example, in Florence.3 Albeit with local variations, from that point boys also became part of the companies of youths. Boys under fifteen years old, moreover, represented a quite large and easily identified component of the population. In Florence, for example, it has been calculated that in the early fifteenth century they amounted to more than 1 

Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 14–19. Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 6–10. 3  Gatti, L’imputabilità, pp. 84–85; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 10–14. 2 

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one-third of the inhabitants, the fanciulli category alone making up to 10 per cent.4 Above all, this age group is differentiated from the others because of the ritual roles that, as we shall see, were assigned to them by society, even though not formally or explicitly.5 One of the most particular traits, such that it characterized the boys’ identity, was in effect their disposition for violence. This was mainly a group violence, manifested in various ways, from the least intense to the most sanguinary. For example, in one vein, their custom of systematic begging, which in Florence was organized using the so-called stili (turnstiles), wooden poles placed across the road to impose a sort of toll on passersby, ‘especially young women’,6 and the merchants of the area; or their habit of forming an immediate and unruly gang when the public messengers or guards arrested someone, to the point that, again in Florence, a law was issued in 1474, called the ‘touch law’, which obligated any individual who was merely ‘touched’ by the judiciary official to consider himself taken into custody, ‘because it was not possible to take any arrested person into custody without arguments and disorder breaking out on the part of fanciulli or others [in an attempt] to let this person go’.7 On another plane (and we shall return to these points), the boys took part in the violent rock throwing and fights — not only in the ritual periods of carnival and Lent — between gangs organized according to their districts or patrician patronage, just as they also represented the executive arm of the violence instigated by the fiery words of preachers, by building bonfires of vanities, looting the property of Jews, and mounting gang attacks on women who had a fondness for personal adornment as well as gamblers and sodomites. In any case, these were forms of violence different from that perpetrated by other age groups — different, for example, from the formalized violence of the brigades of noble youths who organized festivities and games on horseback.8 4 

Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles, pp. 375–76; Klapisch-Zuber, ‘Childhood in Tuscany’, p. 98. 5  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp.  367–418; Crouzet Pavan, ‘Violence, société et pouvoir’, pp. 925–26; Taddei, Fanciulli e giovani, pp. 65–66. 6  ‘Maxime le donne novelle’: La vita del beato Ieronimo Savonarola, ed. by Conti, p. 123. 7  ‘Perché non si poteva menare niuno preso che non ci fusse quistione e romore di fanciulli e altri per farlo lasciare’: d’Anghiari, ‘I Giornali’, ed. by Newbigin, p. 179. See also Bonolis, ‘Sull’uso del “tocco” nelle esecuzioni personali’. 8  Cardini, ‘Simboli e rituali a Firenze’; Ventrone, ‘Cerimonialità e spettacolo’, pp. 42–45; Ricciardi, Col senno, col tesoro e colla lancia, pp. 71–83; Le temps revient, ed. by Ventrone, pp. 147–205; Taddei, Fanciulli e giovani, pp. 105–16.

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While in the mass of boys crowding the streets of the city there were undoubtedly foundlings, orphans, and beggars, it would be mistaken to say that these groups of violent boys were made up solely of drifters.9 The age of boyhood for many children coincided with their school years, when they went to abacus or grammar school. For almost all of them, this was their first entrance into public places, city life, and socializing with others their own age in school and in the streets.10 In Florence on a January morning in 1370, these very ‘boys coming out of school’ (while the coffins of some men from San Miniato, executed for rebelling against the Florentine government, were being taken for burial) ‘began to ask who they were; as they passed, nothing was said, but when the coffin of Messer Filippo Lazzarini [one of the leaders of the revolt] arrived, throwing rocks and shouting they chased away the men who were carrying it and took him out of the coffin, then they dragged him the length of Porta Rossa all the way to the Bombeni house. Neither the rectors nor anyone else could keep the boys from throwing him into the river’.11 The rampaging of boys was thus not the work of marginal elements, but the sudden manifestation of a latent function that late medieval urban societies — which characteristically identified the theatre of these rituals in the city fabric, in the streets and the town squares — attributed to the pueri as an age group gifted with specific powers of thanatological mediation and prophetic potential.

The Sacred Nature of Children’s Violence In the major cases, those that particularly offended the collectivity and the honour of the authorities, the communitas assigned to its youngest members the ritual function of mutilating the cadavers of executed, and sometimes even of directly killing its enemies and mangling their bodies. The spread of similar forms of violence and their consistence with the socially accepted context of norms and social practices, testified by contemporary documentary declarations, can be attributed to a number of motives. And too, one univocal reading or simplified explana9 

Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 227. Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, p. 351. 11  ‘I fanciulli che uscivano dalle scuole […] cominciarono a domandare chi erano li portati: ad uno ad uno passarono, che nulla fu detto; quando furono a messer Filippo Lazzarini, con boci e sassi cacciarono coloro che lo portavano, e ultimamente lo trassero della bara, e per tutta Porta rossa lo strascinarono infino alla uscita di Porta Possa da casa i Bombeni […]. Né i rettori, né altri non ebbono potere che i fanciulli non lo gittassero in Arno’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, pp. 272–73. 10 

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tion would impoverish the multiplicity of signs which characterize these ritual episodes. Two elements should be stressed on a first analysis. On one hand, the sacred nature of children’s violence, its function of revelation of the divine, and the value of prophetic justice assigned to these practices.12 On the other, their ritual function of physical expulsion of the communities’ enemies — evacuation of the infected body — which sometimes was mixed with the dethronement process.13 Both these aspects, the sacred and the expulsive, were founded on the attribution to little boys of the innocence that Christ blessed in children — making them therefore capable of explicating God’s truth14 — and of a purity that, as we shall see better later on, protected them from contamination in the processes of thanatological mediation. At the moment when earthly justice terminated its task and the ceremony of public revenge had been consummated, the rite of expulsion could sometimes be extended by consent, during which time the vituperative ritual of the mauling of the cadavers was allowed precisely because it was considered a manifestation of divine justice, along with a corporal purging that was a continuation, and sometimes a complete substitution, of the symbolic catharsis of the official ceremony. This is the case, for example, of the well-known disfigurement undergone by the body of Iacopo de’ Pazzi, one of the main instigators of the plot against the Medici in 1478, who was executed and then ‘buried along the walls, at the Gate of Justice’15 because he had been excommunicated and was thus unworthy of burial in a consecrated tomb and had to be excluded from the ‘sacred precinct’ of the city. The boys of Florence exhumed him by tying the ‘noose he had around his neck to a donkey, pulling until he had been dug up again; then they tied the noose to a stick and dragged the stripped body all over Florence’. ‘When they reached the door of his house, they put the noose in the door knocker and pulled it up, saying “Knock on the door”; and they carried out other mockeries of him all over the city; growing tired, finally, and not knowing what else to do to the cadaver, they took it to the Rubaconte bridge, where many boys, using the force of sticks and clubs, threw it into the Arno, with so many shouts that it seemed like thunder’; ‘and the bridges filled up to see it pass as it floated by’; ‘and when 12  Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, i, 80; Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 359–60; Grottanelli, ‘Bambini e divinazione’; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 30–39. 13  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 229. 14  Luke 18. 15–17; Matthew 19. 13–15. 15  ‘Sotterrato lungo le mura alla porta alla Giustizia’: d’Anghiari, ‘I Giornali’, ed. by Newbigin, p. 200.

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it reached the weirs at various spots in the Arno Valley it was taken out of the water by others who further derided it; and towards Brozzi the boys pulled it out of the water again, hung it from a willow tree, where they beat it with sticks, and then threw it back into the Arno. And it was said that [the body] was seen passing under the bridges of Pisa, and it was still floating’. Not content, in the days after this, the boys ‘recited a song with certain verses, one of which was: “Messer Jacopo is making his way down the river”’.16 An episode involving the boys of Piacenza a few weeks later was carried out in a fairly similar manner. The rain that continued to flagellate the city that summer of 1478, threatening to compromise the harvests and vintage, was at a certain point attributed to divine wrath, aroused, it was said (‘the rumour was going around’), by the Christian burial, including in the dress and cordon of the order, granted in the church of San Francesco to a ‘great cruel usurer hated by many’ who had died ‘without having returned the exorbitant usuries’. Therefore ‘almost all the boys in the city’ ran to the church, knocked the doors down, unearthed the body, and dragged it through the alleys, squares, and neighbourhoods, pulling it ‘by a big rope with which he was tied around the neck’. Then, once outside the city, the boys hung the corpse from a willow tree and finally threw it into the Po river: ‘and miraculously the rain suddenly stopped’.17 By maiming and then getting rid of the body, the boys reiterated ritually, in this case too, the desire to prevent a consecrated burial. Dragging, throwing into the river, and defaming the 16  ‘Capestro ch’avea alla gola […] a uno asino e così tirorono tanto che lo disotterrorono; e detto capestro legorono a uno bastone’; ‘strascinorolo per tutta Firenza ignudo nato’; ‘e, quando furono a l’uscio della casa sua, missono el capresto nella canpanella dell’uscio, lo tirorono su dicendo: picchia l’uscio, e così per tutta la città feciono molte diligioni; e di poi stracchi, non sapevano più che se ne fare […], lo condussono al ponte Rubaconte, e sendo grande numero di fanciugli […], feciono tanta forza colle canne e mazze che lo gettarono in Arno […], con tante grida, che pareva un tuono’; ‘e sì del vederlo andare a galla […] erano pieni e’ ponti a vederlo passare giù’; ‘e passando le pescaie in più luoghi pel Valdarno da più persone fu cavato dell’acqua e fattone dilegione, […] in verso Brozzi, e’ fanciugli lo ritrassono fuori dell’aqua, e inpiccorolo a un salcio, di poi lo bastonorono, di poi pure rigittato in Arno. E dissesi ch’era stato veduto passare tra’ponti di Pisa, ch’andava senpre a galla’; ‘levorono una canzona che diceva certi stranbotti, fra gli altri dicevano: Messer Iacopo giù per Arno se ne va’: Citations from Poliziano, ‘Breve cronaca della congiura dei Pazzi’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 94; Giovannini, ‘Breve cronica della congiura’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 109; Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, pp. 21–22. See also Martines, La congiura dei Pazzi, pp. 133–36. 17  ‘Fama in populo’; ‘maximus et crudelis usurarius a multis exosus’; ‘nulla facta uxurarum restituzione’; ‘pueri civitatis quasi omnes’; ‘cordono, quo cintus erat, appenso ad collum’; ‘et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit’: Cronica gestorum in partibus Lombardie, ed. by Bonazzi, p. 24.

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies 241

corpse of those who had aroused the hostility of the community was the specific function of young boys.18 To give another example, the day after the murder of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1476, it was the boys who carried out the rite of expulsion of the tyrant’s assassin, Giovanni di Andrea Lampugnani. [The] boys of Milan, gathered together in great number, tied a rope to the foot of Giovanni di Andrea’s cadaver and for three days they dragged it through the whole city and outlying areas, hitting it with knives, sticks, and stones. Then they threw it into the moat of the castle; then they took it and hung it up by the feet from the Broletto tower [the town hall)].

Finally, the body was fed to the pigs.19

The Role of Boys in Dethronement Rituals The ultimate purification of the community from foreign bodies who had sensationally betrayed its laws thus retraced some substantial elements of the ignominious ceremonial of the public justice, such as attention to the symbolic value of the places or the degree of dishonourable connotation corresponding to various types of punishment (in the custom, for example, of amputating parts of the body or hanging it upside down). Sometimes, however, the lynching led by the boys completely took the place of the official execution, in essence preventing it, as a sign of the manifestation of a higher, divine desire for justice.20 In Florence for example, on 16 January 1382, during one of the not infrequent attempts at conspiracy which took place in those years against the regime of the guilds, a conspirator, Simone di Biagio, ‘was taken by some people and followed by boys throwing rocks […] to the Sardinia gate, through which he tried to leave’. He was recognized, and they began striking him with an axe that cut him up to the mouth; and then a noose was put around his neck and he was dragged […] through Florence by the boys as far as the house of Messer Tommaso Strozzi, where they cut off his hands 18 

Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 227. ‘Pueri mediolanenses in maximo numero insimul adunati, ligaverunt ad pedem corporis dicti Iohannis Andree unam funem et ipsum triduo trhaxerunt per totam civitatem et contractas eius, ipsum cum cultellis, fustibus et lapidibus percutiendo. Exinde in foveis castri illud proiecerunt: postmodum extrhaxerunt et appensum fuit per pedem ad turrim Broveti’: Cronica gestorum in partibus Lombardie, ed. by Bonazzi, pp. 3–4. 20  Trexler, ‘De la ville à la Cour’, p.  170; Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 355–56; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 30–31. 19 

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and played ball with them […]. And the brigade that was dragging him took him in this way […] by the house of the Albizi, by Sant’Egidio, to the Canto di Balla […], and in the meantime his eldest son, who was named Filippo, was killed: they were placed together in a tomb and remained uncovered there for four days, because the boys would not allow that grave in Piazza San Giovanni to be covered up, so that they would be an example to their peers.21

In still other cases, the boys’ action could consistently be mixed with acts of collective violence which have recently been reconsidered, quite rightly, as real episodes of dethronement.22 In the crowd that savagely attacked those considered by the community to be usurpers a leading role was played by the pueri. In July 1343, for example, in the days of the fall of Walter VI of Brienne, duke of Athens and lord of Florence for little more than a year, a manhunt broke out with the duke’s officials as its object. In the vain attempt to mollify the crowd besieging the seat of government, Gualtieri gave them in pasto (fed them; we shall see that the expression is not at all metaphorical) some of his officials. Many of them did not escape lynching, and were cut ‘into little pieces’.23 One of the most corrupt officials, the tax notary ser Arrigo Fei, was recognized as he was trying to leave the city disguised as a friar, and immediately killed. ‘The boys of the city took him and, having torn his clothing off ’, dragged him ‘naked through the whole city, and then in the Piazza dei’ Priori hung him from his feet […], like a pig, and he was hung on a horse travois’.24 21 

‘Fu preso da genti, e co’ sassi da fanciulli seguito […] alla Porticciuola della Sardignia, che voleva uscire fuori per andarsene via’; ‘gli fu cominciato a dare d’una mannaia che ‘l fesse infino alla bocca; e poscia gli fu gittato un capresto in collo e strascinato […] per Firenze da’ fanciulli infino a casa messer Tomaso delli Stroççi e quivi gli furono moççe le mani e giucato alla palla chon esse […]. E la brigata che l’andavano istrascinando […] il menonno così […] da casa gli Albizi, da San Gilio, in fino al Canto di Balla […], e in questo mezo fu morto il suo figliuolo magiore che avea nome Filippo, e furono messi insieme in uno avello e stetero quatro dì schoperti, che mai e’ fanciulli non gli lasciarono ricoprire l’avello in sulla piaça di Sancto Giovanni: asenpro de’ suoi pari’: citations from the Diario d’anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, pp. 434–35; Alle bocche della piazza, ed. by Molho and Sznura, p. 18; Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 393. 22  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, pp. 212–13. 23  ‘A bocconi’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, r. 17 (iii, 338). 24  ‘Di che i fanciulli della città lo presero, e stracciatigli li panni’; ‘ignudo per tutta la città, e poi in sulla piazza de’ priori impeso per li piedi’; ‘a guisa di porco, fue apicato a uno travaglio di cavalli’: citations from: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.iii.280, Memorie di Francesco di Giovanni di Durante, fol. 22r; Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 208; Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, r. 17 (iii, 338); Storie pistoriesi, ed. by Adrasto Barbi, pp. 190–91.

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Some years later, a similar fate directly befell the tribunus augustus of Rome, Cola di Rienzo, against whom the same crowd rebelled which had supported and acclaimed him and was now exasperated above all by his oppressive tax policy. The terrifying pages devoted by the anonymous Roman writer in his Cronica to the episode of the killing of Cola are too well known to be repeated here in their entirety.25 Suffice it to point out the recurrence of some central elements in the rite of dethronement26: the ferocious killing, the dragging of the body through the city streets, and the hanging of the corpse in a public place. When Cola’s cadaver was hung up, it did not have its head. The thighs were left along the road where he had been dragged. He had so many wounds he seemed like a sieve. There was no part of his body without wounds. He was horribly fat, and white as blood-streaked milk.

It was then that the boys came into the game: the cadaver was left hanging for two days, during which ‘the boys threw rocks at it’.27 In these same words by the anonymous Roman, we can note the repetition of the ritual manner of the lynching in the two episodes of Cola di Rienzo and of the duke of Athens.28 The Roman Cronica also tells the story of the expulsion of the duke of Athens; about Arrigo Fei, the ‘sly tax collector’, the anonymous Roman reports that ‘he was big and fat worse than a terrible pig’ and ‘he was cut open and hung up by his feet’, recalling the violent practices of the boys: ‘the boys mercilessly attacked him, threw stones and mud and beat him with sticks’.29 The testimony of the chronicler does not so much manifest the operation of literary topoi as he observes, rather, the structural aspects of the rituals of urban violence.

25 

Cronica, ed. by Porta, pp. 193–94. On which, see Bertelli, Il corpo del re, pp. 215–16; see now Maire Vigueur, ‘Le Rivolte cittadine contro i “tiranni”’. 27  ‘Capo non aveva. Erano remase le cocce per la via donne era strascinato. Tante ferute aveva, pareva criviello. Non era luoco senza feruta. Le mazza de fòra grasse. Grasso era orribilemente, bianco como latte insanguinato’; ‘Li zitielli li iettavano le prete’: Cronica, ed. by Porta, pp. 197–98. 28  See Zorzi, ‘Rituali di violenza, cerimoniali penali’, pp. 395–96, 400, and 424–25. 29  ‘Lo sottile gabellieri […] era grasso e gruosso più che uno terribile puorco’; ‘fu sparato e fu appeso per li piedi’; ‘granne destrazio li zitielli facevano de lui, iettavanolli prete e loto e percoteanollo con bastoni’: Cronica, ed. by Porta, p. 73. 26 

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The Divining and Prophetic Value of Children’s Violence In the trilogy of gestures: drag-burn-stone, the action of the boys expressed the divine violence, the sacred vendetta that took the place of human action.30 Community recognition of their function stemmed from a conception of it as the ‘almost miraculous fruit of a higher will outside the boys who carry it out’.31 The purity of children, as we have said, seemed a divine revelation, a sign of innocence.32 A witness watching the procession for the feast of Florence’s patron saint in 1428, describing the ephemeral decorations set up by the Company of the Magi of San Marco, for example, thought he saw the divine image in one of the boys animating it: ‘God seemed to be in the body of that boy’.33 And the chronicler Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, witnessing an episode of mutilation of cadavers by boys, was able to trace it back precisely to a sort of ‘divine justice’, grasping the specific nature of their role: ‘since this operation is not the responsibility of anyone but boys’.34 Recognition of the divine in the violence of children explains also the participatory attitude of adults, who most often watched with pleasure. A pleasure they derived from their encounter with a sign from God, an irruption of the sacred, through which God guided them, by means of the acts of children, to an awareness of the violence of his law and the rigour of his wrath. Divine judgement cancelled out that of earthly tribunals; the procedures the boys carried out on the cadavers confirmed the unworthiness of the secular world and asserted the power of innocence over the fallibility of earthly power.35 Some documentary evidence from Florence enables us to examine this attitude. The above-mentioned execution of Simone di Biagio and his son by the Florentine boys was welcomed by the priors in office as a ‘fully just uprising of

30 

Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, i, 77. Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, p. 371; see also Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 35–36. 32  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 229; Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, i, 78–79, and 87–88; Grottanelli, ‘Bambini e divinazione’. 33  ‘Iddio pareva in quel corpo del fanciullo’: quoted in Hatfield, ‘The “Compagnia de’ Magi”’, p. 146. 34  ‘Giudicio divino’; ‘Perocché operazione di persona non fu che ciò si facesse se non de’ fanciulli’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 273. 35  Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, i, 82–83. 31 

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies 245

the people’.36 This does not mean that, even though recognized and tolerated by the authorities, especially when rebelling against adversaries and enemies of the regime, they did not fear the effects it could set in motion. In October 1391 Battista di San Miniato, a wartime traitor, for example, was escorted into the city ‘accompanied by two mace-bearers and four infantrymen of the Signori […] and the knight of the Podestà with a number of companions on horseback and many foot soldiers’ precisely ‘in order that the boys could not kill him’.37 Numerous other episodes are reported in which ‘only after great effort was the entourage and court of the rectors and priors able to keep them […] from being stoned, […] and many were in any case wounded by rocks’.38 The fact that during the official judiciary ceremonial the potential for intervention by the boys was always latent is testified by various other statements, such as one in 1503 by Simone di Raffaele Simoncino, who obtained the grazia (favour) of being hanged from the windows of the palace, ‘fearing that, in the short trip to the scaffold the people might have dragged him through Florence’;39 or by Giuliano, known as Chiarino, who in 1488 ended up ‘hanged like a thief ’, even though he was a ‘Knight of the Rocks’ — that is to say, one of the leaders of the brigades who clashed with each other in the rock-fights during carnival season — and that, ‘enjoying great credit among the boys’, he might have erroneously ‘believed they would save him’, in other words that they would pull him away from the forces of justice while he was being taken to the gallows.40 The figure of the executioner, in particular, often acted as a lightning rod for ritual tension and violence by the boys. As the one actually carrying out the public’s revenge, the hangman — usually a convict pardoned from capital punishment — was subject to close control by the community, which was ready to retaliate immediately, through the crowd watching the execution, if the executioner 36 

‘Iustissimum furorem populi’: quoted in Documenti di storia italiana, ed. by Deputazione sugli Studi di Storia Patria, vi (1876), 530. 37  ‘Achonpagnato da due maçieri e IIII fanti de’ Signiori […] e ‘l cavaliere del Podestà con più chonpagni a chavallo e molti fanti’; ‘perch’ e’ fanciulli nollo ucidessono’: Alle bocche della piazza, ed. by Molho and Sznura, p. 116. 38  ‘Fu grandissima fatica con tutta la gente e famiglia de’ rettori e de’ Priori a poterli salvare che […] non fussero allapidati, […] e tanti ne furono fediti di pietre’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 272. 39  ‘Avendo paura andando alle forche el popolo non l’havessi stracinato per Firenze’: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.iv.377, fol. 186v, 18 May 1503. 40  ‘Inpiccato per ladro’; ‘messere de’ Sassi’; ‘havendo gran credito tra fanciugli’; ‘credette che lo scanpassino’: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.i.138, fol. 79r, 20 March 1488.

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proved to be unskilled or inefficient.41 In February 1501 in Florence, for example, fearing riots, the knight himself leading the execution procession threatened the executioner who had broken ‘the brazier in which the pliers were being heated’. ‘Because there was not very much fire and no sparks flying out’, the cart carrying some conspirators to their execution was ordered to stop. The chronicler witnessing this episode tells that then the ‘hangman got off the cart and went to get charcoal from the boilermaker and fire from the […] baker, and took a pan to make a brazier, in which he lit a big fire’. Tension immediately rose among the crowd, to the point that the ‘knight kept shouting “Make them red-hot”; and thus all the people wanted to hurt them very badly, with no compassion’. The common sentiment was expressed by the boys, who ‘wanted to kill the hangman if he did not do his job properly’. The executioner managed to save his skin only because he succeeded in making the prisoners ‘scream a lot and in a terrible way’.42 Probably the same executioner suffered the fatal consequences of his incompetence a couple of years later when in May 1503 he turned the suffering of the condemned into interminable torment. When the hangman, ‘because of the breaking of a stake’ could not manage to cut off ‘on the first or second or third blow the head’ of a young flag-maker, Girolamo di Sandro di Berto, being executed for murder, the crowd, moved deeply by the suffering to which the ‘young fellow’ was subjected, began to rumble, ‘asking that his head be cut off ’ quickly. The executioner ‘not being able to do it with the club chopped it off with the axe’ under the threat of the ‘knight who was next to him [and] hit him twice with a stick’. Finally, when the ‘head and body [were placed] in the coffin’, there began ‘to rise a protest and […] shouts of “Come on, come on”, with a great fury of stones’ to the point that ‘almost everyone who was in the little field was hit by lots of stones […] and the knight and whoever was there managed to save themselves by throwing themselves to the ground next to the wall’. In search of any kind of refuge, the executioner ‘climbed into the coffin next to the dead man’, but ‘they immediately pulled him out of the coffin and the stone-throwing picked up again 41  See von Hentig, La pena, p. 84; Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering, pp. 13–14. See now Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, pp. 40–41; Zorzi, ‘Le esecuzioni delle condanne a morte’, pp. 42–43; Guerra, Una eterna condanna, pp. 162–63. 42  ‘El caldano dove affocava le tanaglie’; ‘Non v’essendo molto fuoco, che non isfavillava’; ‘Manigoldo scese del carro e andò pe’ carboni al calderaio, e per fuoco al […] fornaio, e tolse un paiuolo per caldano, onde fece grande fuoco’; ‘Cavaliere gridava sempre: falle roventi; e così tutto il popolo disiderava fare loro grande male sanza compassione’; ‘Volevano asassinare el manigoldo se non gli toccava bene’; ‘Molto gridare terribilissimamente’: Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 219.

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and someone hit him on the temple with a brick and killed him, and then […] he was dragged by the boys as far as Santa Croce’.43 This lynching led by the boys was interpreted as a divine punishment, since the same hangman had some years earlier been the executioner of Girolamo Savonarola and his confreres; one of the chroniclers reported that ‘some said that this happened to him because he had hung and burned those three friars’.44 The theophany for which the boys were the actors often took on a prophetic value. We have seen how the torture of the usurer from Piacenza ‘was miraculous’ 45 because it caused the rain to cease when people were believing rain was pouring down because of divine wrath. But belief in the divinatory and prophetic value of the boys’ behaviour was not limited just to violence on dead bodies.46 On the same level as other phenomena — for example, combat between flocks of birds or the passage of swarms of butterflies47 — divinatory properties were attributed to the stone fights in which the boys engaged during carnival season, as rites of the change of season,48 or the mock burlesque battles they would stage on other occasions.49 In Perugia in 1495, for example, two bands of boys squared off against each other, led by two little boys dressed up as the pope (at the time Alexander VI) and the king of France (Louis XII); the ‘king of France’ won, as did, in fact, really 43 

‘Per fallimento d’un cavigliuolo’; ‘El capo né al primo né al secondo né al terzo colpo’; ‘Giovanetto’; ‘Chiedendo fussi spiccato el capo’; ‘non potendo levare con ‘l mazzo lo seghò con la mannaia’; ‘cavaliere che gli era allato che gli dette dua bastonate’; ‘El corpo et il capo nella bara’; ‘a levare il romore et a […] gridare: dagli dagli, di modo che la furia de’ sassi fu tanta’; ‘quasi ognuno che era in sul pratello […] toccorno di molte sassate […], e ‘l cavaliere e chi v’era ebbe delle fatiche di scampare a gittarsi a terra del muro’; ‘Entrò nella bara a lato al morto’; ‘con prestezza lo cavorno della bara e di nuovo cominciorno e’ sassi et uno li dette d’un mattone in una tempia et l’amazzò, et di poi […] fu strascicato da li fanciulli per insino a Santa Croce’: citations from: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.iv.377, fols 186v–187r; Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.i.138, fol. 81v; Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, pp. 255–56; Lapini, Diario fiorentino, ed. by Odoardo Corazzini, p. 56. 44  ‘Alcuni vollono dire che gli era intervenuto perché gli impiccò e arse quei tre frati’: Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 256. 45  See n. 17 above. 46  Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu; Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 359–60; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 56–59. 47  Niccoli, Profeti e popolo nell’Italia, pp. 47–49. 48  Ginzburg, Storia notturna, pp. 173–74. 49  Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 356–60; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 41–55; Ginzburg, ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili’, pp. 172–73.

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happen a few years later, ‘since sometimes boys are able to predict’, as the chronicler noted.50 In Milan, meanwhile, in 1500, hard by the walls of the castle where the French troops occupying the city were quartered, two gangs of boys fought, headed by the burlesque figures of the king of France and the ‘deposed duke Ludovico’.51 The winner was the ‘army’ of this latter, who finished up by tying the boy impersonating Louis XII to a donkey with a rope and dragging him past the door of the castle, in the usual manner of the derisory and ignominious practices. The indignant reaction of the French was broken up by the violent rock fight with which the Milanese putti responded. Episodes like this were interpreted as ‘augury for the future’ and ‘signs of prophecy’, as the chronicles report concerning the ‘grand battles’ of mammoli and putti pitched also in other Italian cities — Forlì, Modena, and Venice, for example — during the period of the Italian wars.52

The Preachers’ Attempts at Imposing Discipline Just as the practice of violence in mock battles was progressively disciplined, through normative and judiciary measures, but above all by the demands of social order and culture — even more so when the ritual dimension was mixed with the mobilization of armed clientele groups for purposes of political conflict completely detached from any special date on the calendar, as in the case, for example, of communal Perugia or oligarchical and signorial Florence53 — so too ritual boys’ violence underwent a process of disciplining (disciplinamento) in the final centuries of the Middle Ages. This discipline, starting in the fifteenth century, was enacted to a great extent by education. Many preachers, as is known, took the initiative of trying to channel boys’ violence into the sphere of religious activities, directing it towards new objectives of Church activity. The most famous case is that of Savonarola, who gave boys a fairly extensive role in his reforms. As Richard Trexler has stressed, Savonarola proposed to transform the hordes of Florentine boys whose aggressiveness was still a cause for 50 

‘Ché qualche volta i mammoli sogliono profetizzare’: Cronache della città di Perugia, ed. by Fabretti, ii, 113. 51  ‘Duca Ludovico scalzato’: Diario ferrarese dall’anno 1409 al 1502, ed. by Pardi, p. 377. 52  ‘Augurio per lo avignire’; ‘signali di profezia’; ‘gran batagie’: quoted in Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 359–60; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 50–55. See also Grottanelli, ‘Bambini e divinazione’, pp. 57–63. 53  See Settia, ‘“Ut melius doceantur ad bellum”’, pp. 90–91; Maire Vigueur, ‘Un Jeu bien mal tempéré’; Zorzi, ‘Battagliole e giochi d’azzardo’; Settia, ‘La ‘‘battaglia’’’.

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‘terror and fright’54 into angelic hosts, the symbol of purity and innocence. By organizing them into institutionalized companies, with their own children’s magistracies — ‘for instance, knights, councilors and other officials’55 — who took part in processions and ceremonies in which the boys were the symbol of a purified Florence, the new Jerusalem, Savonarola tried to attribute a new ritual role to this age group.56 Children’s violence was thus channelled towards ‘uprooting the abuses and perverse customs of carnival, rock throwing, turnstiles, and lighting fires’, and to rising up as the executive arm of a new moral police whose aim was to ‘persecute sodomites, get rid of prostitutes, gamblers, tavern-keepers, and purge the entire city of vice’. The so-called vanities, for instance, luxury objects and books judged to be lewd, also ended up, as we know, in the bonfires.57 Deviated temporarily in other directions, the violence remained latent however, ready to turn against Savonarola himself when the public mood changed to hostility against him. Ritual interpreters of community sentiment, the boys unleashed, for example, a volley of stones against the door of the San Marco convent when Savonarola was arrested, and above all they stoned his body for a long time during the fire in which he was executed in May 1498.58 Savonarola remained the victim of the same elements he had tried to tame: of the violence of the boys, above all, but also of a mimetic nemesis, the capannucci (fires) in which he had invited the boys to burn the vanities, and which were used to prepare the pyre for his own burning. His remains were also the object of the reliquary ritual of the mangled corpse — in that it was the relic of the manifestation of divine justice. The chronicler recounts that, immediately after the burning of Savonarola and his confreres, the order was given to eliminate every thing and all the remains; then carts were ordered and all the ashes were taken to the river, so that nothing of them remained […]. And nonetheless, there were some who collected some of the floating coals, so much faith did some 54 

‘Terrore e spavento’: La vita del beato Ieronimo Savonarola, ed. by Conti, p. 124. See Trexler, ‘Rituale’, pp. 123–24. 55  ‘Cioè messeri, consiglieri e altri ufficiali’: ‘La vita di Giovanni da Empoli’, ed. by Gråberg da Hemsö, p. 22. 56  Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 370–79; Taddei, ‘L’Encadrement des jeunes’, pp. 127–30; Ricci, I giovani, i morti, pp. 39–54; Ventrone, ‘Politica e attualità nella sacra rappresentazione’, pp. 329–30. 57  ‘Extirpar l’abusioni et perverse consuetudine del carnovale, far a’ sassi, stili, et capannucci’; ‘Perseguitare i sodomiti, levare cantoniere, giucatori, tavernieri, et tutta la città da’ vitii purgare’: La vita del beato Ieronimo Savonarola, ed. by Conti, pp. 123, 126, and 129–32. 58  La vita del beato Ieronimo Savonarola, ed. by Conti, pp. 155–85.

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have […]; but in great secret and also fearfully, because nothing could be discussed or said about it, if not at the risk of one’s life, because they wanted to cancel out all trace of him.59

Even though a failure in the short run, Savonarola’s channelling of youthful violence represented the first consistent attempt at modifying the cultural values underlying such practices. Directing the explosive energy of young boys towards different purposes than the ritual traditions meant granting them a new, socially recognized meaning and beginning to regulate them. The formative action of the preachers was fundamental in this context. In the years around the turn of the sixteenth century, many were the pulpits from which preachers tried to reorganize the role of children into processions and social action: in Cesena, for example, or Orvieto, Padua, Ferrara, Modena, and other cities as well.60 On many occasions the boys were the interpreters of anti-Semitic feeling that some of the preachers, especially the Franciscans, stoked in their cycles of homilies, often in connection with the foundation of Monti di Pietà.61 Many Jewish moneylenders were subjected to violence and plunder; for example, in Florence in March 1488, Bernardino da Feltre stirred up the boys whom he had summoned to a sermon in the cathedral during which he inveighed against Jewish moneylenders, proposing to them to become his soldiers in his prayer to obtain the grace of setting up a Monte di Pietà and driving out the Jews. In reality, the boys, who were ‘as though out of their minds’ with enthusiasm for having been treated like a militia, preferred direct violent action to prayer. Hundreds flung themselves into plundering the stand of Manuelino di Buonaiuto and also tried to stone him. Only the resolute intervention of the police authorities was able to tame the violence and save the moneylender’s life.62 Several years later, in Modena, it was the turn of a Jew named Aronne, who had already taken refuge there from 59 

‘Consumare ogni cosa e ogni reliquia: dipoi feciono venire carrette e portare ad Arno ogni minima polvere, acciò non fussi trovato di loro niente […]. E non dimeno fu chi riprese di quei carboni ch’andavano a galla, tanta fede era in alcuni […]; ma molto segretamente e anche con paura, perché non se ne poteva ragionare né dire niente, sanza paura della vita, perché volevano spegnere ogni reliquia di lui’: Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 178. See also Cordero, Savonarola, iv: Agonista perdente, 1497–1498 (1988), pp. 661–62. 60  Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 362–63; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 63–70. 61  Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 363–64; Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 70–75. 62  ‘Usciti fuori come dalloro’: Ricordanze tratte da un libro originale di Tribaldo d’Amerigo de’ Rossi, ed. by di San Luigi, xxiii (1786), 238; Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 53.

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Trent because public rumour held that he was one of the tormentors of ‘Blessed Simon’, to undergo violence (he was mocked, stoned, and dragged) by a gang of boys instigated by the anti-Semitic preaching of Girolamo da Verona; in this case, too, it was the police officers who saved him from lynching.63

Between Discipline of the Society and Christian Pedagogy In the ritual plunder and violence unleashed in particular moment of ‘passage’ like feast days and especially important events, a major role was thus played by the boys in their guise as interpreters of the latent tensions in the urban communities, ready to be set off against their enemies.64 At the same time, however, intervention by the authorities expressed a growing concern, in regimes in which increasing attention was being paid to social consensus, aroused by the tumult set in motion by the boys. Contemporary witnesses report interventions aimed at containing, if not halting, the excesses of the mutilations the boys enacted in their rituals. In Florence, for example, as early as 1382, some particularly ignominious phases of the above-mentioned lynching of the conspirator Simone di Biagio had been impeded by the authorities; the unlucky man had been dragged ‘as far as the house of Messer Tommaso Strozzi and here’ — it should be noted — ‘the boys would have hung him, but they were not allowed to do it. They took him, dragging him, as far as the house of the Albizi, and wanted to set fire to him in front of Piero di Filippo’s house. They were not allowed to do it’.65 In the sixteenth century, the room for action and tolerance for their rituals began to contract. Increasing control was exercised by society on the overall complex of children’s behaviour. Donato Giannotti lucidly observed that it is necessary, therefore, to prohibit with all diligence all those things that inure men to feeling pleasure in causing harm; just as […] boys, as soon as they learn to stand, have other delights than the games in which praise goes to the one who hurts his playmate the most; as in the play of battles and rocks: and growing up with this

63 

See de’ Bianchi, Cronaca modenese, ed. by Borghi, i, 240. Ginzburg, ‘Saccheggi rituali’; Torri, ‘“Allegrezze” e feste pubbliche’. 65  Diario d’anonimo fiorentino, ed. by Gherardi, pp. 434–35; Alle bocche della piazza, ed. by Molho and Sznura, p. 18; Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 393 (‘Infino a casa messer Tomaso delli Stroççi e quivi’; ‘l’avrebono e’ fanciulli inpichato così morto, ma non furono lasciati. Menorolo strascinando per la terra infino a casa gli Albizi, e vololo ardere dinançi a casa di Piero di Filippo. Non furono lasciati’). 64 

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license, one should not then marvel if they have no reverence for their elders, and little fear of the magistrates’ orders.66

In particular, it was the spread of Christian doctrine schools after the Council of Trent that gave rise to prevention by education. As Ottavia Niccoli has pointed out, training children to faith and a new global model of Christian civilization grew up right here in repudiation of the street as an uncontrolled space of ritual riotousness and in its contraction to a place for quick passage from home to church and school.67 The same schools from which, as we have seen, the boys came out ready to tear apart the corpses of executed. On the other hand, children were trained to become inured to violence by the adults themselves. It is known, for example, that their fathers took them to watch executions, as did the Florentine Tribaldo de’ Rossi, who reports that in February 1494 ‘I took my son Ghurrieri’, who was eight years old at the time, to see the hanging of a thief in Santa Maria Novella;68 or that the promise of watching an execution could be a valid pretext for luring a young boy, as is documented, once again in Florence, in a court case of 1311.69 The combined action of the Christian schools and the increasingly intense and culturally recognized work of the confraternities in giving assistance to condemned thus tried to inure the boys to close contact with death, a death ceremonially administered by the judiciary representatives of the community, and on the consequent natural propensity to take on roles of thanatological mediation. Above all, the schools fed the process of the loss of the adult community’s assent: that is to say, the diminishing acknowledgement of the prophetic value of the boys and their ties with the supernatural. Also acting in this sphere were the embryos of a regulation of the rituals of violence that would find in the protection of the body of the convict and in the works of comfort done by the confraternities the terrain of competition with the boys’ practice of mutilating the corpses. 66  ‘Bisogna, adunque, proibire con ogni diligenza tutte quelle cose che assuefanno gli uomini al pigliare piacere del male operare; si come […] i fanciulli, tosto che cominciano a stare in piè, non pigliano altri diletti ch’esercitare quelli giuochi ne’ quali quello è tra loro lodato che peggio fa al compagno; come è il gioco delle pugna e de’ sassi: e crescendo con questa licenza, non è poi da maravigliarsi se non hanno reverenza a’ vecchi, e poco temono i comandamenti de’ magistrati’: Giannotti, Della repubblica fiorentina, ed. by Polidori, i, 228–29. 67  Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, pp. 372–73. 68  ‘Menavi Ghurrieri mio figliuolo’: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.ii.357, Ricordanze di Tribaldo di Amerigo de’ Rossi, fol. 118v. 69  Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, iv, 616.

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Boys’ Powers of Thanatological Mediation The most profound ritual role attributed to the boys was that of mediation with the dead: they were endowed with the power to handle corpses, their purity granting them an ‘incontaminability’ that protected them from the negative magical influences of those who had died in disgrace. This was a ritual function that their contemporaries could have some difficulty in understanding logically. Some Florentine chroniclers, for example, failed to grasp the explanation of the reason why these very ‘boys 14 years and under’ who ‘usually are afraid of the dead’ performed these ferocious actions; Luca Landucci reported that this behaviour was held to be a ‘great miracle’,70 and Carlo Giovannini thought it was an ‘amazing thing’.71 But if the witnesses of these practices were not fully aware of the deep roots of this ritual behaviour reserved to such a young age group, it is equally true that in the pre-industrial age, as recent research has discovered, young people were felt to have specific thanatological powers. The privileged tie between the world of the dead and this age group gave it the power to mediate relations with the community of the deceased, and in particular to placate the restless souls of the disgraced dead,72 such as victims of lynching or executed. In some societies, such as sixteenth-century France, this link has been found in a whole series of manifestations like, as one example among many, the task of ringing the bells for the ancestors on All Saints’ Day.73 Carlo Ginzburg has shown how, through perception of the multiform folk myth of wild hunting, ‘the anguished terror of being sucked into the whirlpool of the non-living was formulated and to a certain degree mastered’.74 In the mocking violence of the boys centring around manhandling the corpses of executed, we can thus recognize also a real expression of these apotropaic rituals, rather than oneiric, as in the case of the benandanti (good walkers) of the night battles against the hosts of wandering dead.75 The deeper ritual identity of the bands of boys who wreaked havoc on the corpses of the potentially unappeased dead, besides 70 

‘Fanciugli tutti da 14 anni in giù’; ‘sogliono avere paura de’ morti’; ‘Grande miracolo’: Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 22. 71  ‘Cosa maravigliosa’: Giovannini, ‘Breve cronica della congiura’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 109. 72  Ginzburg, ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili’, pp. 172–75. 73  Davis, ‘I riti della violenza’, p. 237. 74  Ginzburg, ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili’, p. 174. 75  Ginzburg, ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili’, p. 172; see also Ginzburg, I benandanti.

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the sacred and divinatory dimension already illustrated, must thus be connected also with this context of mediation in which the gangs, precisely because they were immune from the danger of their possible return, put into practice their power of final expulsion of the members punished by the communitas.76 Confirmation of this hypothesis comes from frequent documentary references to the interrupted, impeded, or parodied funeral function and the burials profaned or improvised by the boys, as well as to the boys’ naturalness in mangling the bodies of the condemned or the lynched executioners and in carrying out the most ferocious kinds of wanton behaviour. When they exhumed the corpse of Iacopo de’ Pazzi, some chroniclers were amazed ‘that so much cruelty reigned among the boys’, especially ‘since the body already emanated such a stench […] that it stank so badly no one could go near it […] and they even had to touch it with their hands to throw it in the river’, ‘but the most amazing thing [was] that the body, dead some twenty days, was preserved entire and solid enough to sustain all this torture’.77 The power to handle bodies, not coincidentally, the one that the executioner enjoyed in this dual function of mediator of the rite of expulsion and of marginal in performing one of the disgraceful occupations par excellence78: those that in one way or another had to do with the taboo of blood, impurity, and filth (barbers, butchers, soldiers, skinners, dyers, cooks, scourers, and so on).79 A mediator between contamination and purity, life and death, the executioner saw value given to his ritual role of removing impurities, handling organic waste, and ‘laying hands (mani) on’ — as the root of the word manigoldo suggests80 — the executed and his corpse without suffering the negative influences.81 If moreover it is possible that the practice of exhuming buried bodies could have been influenced by the public memory of exhuming the remains of heretics 76 

Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 229. Citations from Poliziano, ‘Breve cronaca della congiura dei Pazzi’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 94; Giovannini, ‘Breve cronica della congiura’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 109; Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, pp. 21–22 (‘Che ne’ fanciulli regnasse tanta crudeltà’; ‘dando el corpo già gran fetore […] che putiva che non se gli poteva apressare […]; E bisognò che insino colle mani lo toccassino a gittarlo in Arno’; ‘ma cosa più maravigliosa fu che ‘l corpo già stato morto venti giorni si preservasse intero e saldo in modo sostenesse tanto strazio’). 78  von Hentig, La pena, pp. 141–49. 79  Le Goff, ‘Mestieri leciti e mestieri illeciti’, pp. 55–56; Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, pp. 45–46. 80  See ad vocem ‘Manigoldo’ in Tommaseo and Bellini, Dizionario della lingua italiana, iii, pt 1, p. 84. 81  See Douglas, Purezze e pericolo, pp. 27–73; Klemettilä, Epitomes of Evil, pp. 46–48. 77 

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ordered by the Inquisition and of the profaning the tombs of political adversaries (usually Ghibellines, perceived as the ultimate enemy, who had to be subjected to a cathartic annihilation), both of these already foreshadowed at the height of the thirteenth century82 — in Florence, for example, from the thirteenth century it was the custom for families to stand guard over the bodies of their relatives to prevent this profanation83 — it is certain that the ritual mediation with the community of the dead entrusted to the boys ended up being increasingly opposed by the Church — in that it was also based on a concept of death foreign to Christianity84 — through competition, starting in the middle of the fourteenth century, from the confraternities called della buona morte (of the good death) in the work of burying the bodies of executed. This act of mercy, in effect, had trouble in the beginning finding faithful who were willing to perform it, because of this widespread conviction that the corpses of executed gave off negative energy and threatened to take revenge on the living who had touched them.85 Only the concession of sizeable papal indulgences to anyone associated with the activities of the confraternities helped this practice to spread.86

Mangling the Body The figure of the condemned above all, and in particular those sentenced to death, underwent the greatest cultural change in the process of disciplining the ritual practices of the boys. At least until the middle of the fourteenth century, a person sentenced to death was deprived of all material and spiritual assistance. As the physical object of mutilation, his suffering was an essential element of the execution. To this end, the body of the convict underwent a series of acts of violence, from simple public exposure to the range of tortures associated with the various types of punishment, with the havoc of his body and then of his corpse which often followed the execution.87 Not to mention its handling for anatomical purposes, a use that found in the bodies of executed criminals increasing occasion, 82  Davidsohn, Storia di Firenze, ii, 422 and 859; iii, 378; v, 609. See also, Landucci, Diario fiorentino, ed. by del Badia, p. 190. 83  Del Lungo, ‘Una vendetta in Firenze’, pp. 387–88. 84  Ginzburg, ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili’, p. 174. 85  See von Hentig, La pena, pp. 161–66; Ström, On the Sacral Origin of the Germanic Death Penalties, pp. 242–61. 86  Prosperi, ‘Il sangue e l’anima’, pp. 962 and 964. 87  Scarry, La sofferenza del corpo; Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel, pp. 101–57.

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from the fifteenth century onwards, for justification of a practice long opposed by the Church.88 Besides, in the early Middle Ages, as George Duby has indicated, even physical pain itself was despised because it implied a sense of decay and servitude that was prevalently seen as a sign of sin.89 Sometimes the corpse of an executed or enemy of the community was degraded to the rank of an animal’s body. Sergio Bertelli has pointed out that in dethronement practices the body was reduced ‘to the level of a butchered animal’.90 Certain episodes, such as the one cited above of the lynching in Florence in 1343 of ser Arrigo Fei, indicate that his body was quartered according to the butcher’s technique; the body ‘in the Square of the Priors hung from the feet […] like a pig, was hung from a travois for horses’, and ‘a boy slit it open […] as though it were a pig, […] and after taking his heart out of the body [it] was carried on the tips of the lances all over Florence’.91 The well-known physical and cultural proximity of pigs to human beings in medieval life enabled more than anything else the concept of expulsion stressed by the victim’s degradation to the status of an animal.92 The anonymous Roman chronicler noted that the body of Cola di Rienzo, left hanging in public for two days, ‘was so fat that he seemed like a huge buffalo or a butchered cow’.93 The reduction of the body to a low item for butchery was often accompanied by the distribution of the remains to carnivorous animals. As we have seen, the corpse of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza’s assassin, for example, was fed by the crowd to the pigs;94 the heart of the conspirator against Duke Cosimo I, Giuliano Buonaccorsi, was thrown to the lions kept behind Palazzo della Signoria as a symbol of power — describing this mutilation, the chronicler noted that ‘passing in 88 

Pouchelle, Corps et chirurgie, pp. 125–29; Edgerton, Pictures and Punishment, pp. 210–11; Carlino, La fabbrica del corpo, pp. 97–105. 89  Duby, ‘Riflessioni sul dolore fisico nel Medioevo’, pp. 193–94. For the late Middle Ages, see Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel. 90  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, pp. 214–15 and 221 (‘A livello di animale macellato’). 91  Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale ii.iii.280, Memorie di Francesco di Giovanni di Durante, fol. 22r; Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 208; Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, r. 17 (iii, 338); Storie pistoriesi, ed. by Adrasto Barbi, pp. 190–91 (‘In sulla piazza de’ priori impeso per li piedi’; ‘a guisa di porco, fue apicato a uno travaglio di cavalla’; ‘uno fanciulo lo sparò […] come porco’; ‘e trattoli lo cuore del corpo fu portato sulle punte delle lance per tutta Firenze’). 92  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 225. 93  ‘Tanta era la soa grassezza, che pareva uno esmesurato bufalo overo vacca a maciello’: Cronica, ed. by Porta, p. 197. 94  Cronica gestorum in partibus Lombardie, ed. by Bonazzi, pp. 3 and 4.

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front of the lions’ cage, they tore out his innards and gave them the heart’;95 and a century later, after the famous lynching of Concino Concini in Paris on 24 April 1617, the remains were given ‘to the dogs to eat’.96 No less infrequent, and more often than not associated with the ‘butchery’ practices used during lynchings, were the cases of anthropophagy of the bodies of the victims. This sanguinary ritual accelerated the enemy’s destruction and expulsion from the social body.97 The tyrant of Todi Altobello dei Chiaravalle, for example, was horrendously annihilated in 1500. The chronicler Francesco Maturanzio’s description of the episode is staggering: every man ran to take some of his flesh, and they ate it raw, like dogs and pigs, until nothing was left of his miserable beggarly body, and if he had been a giant, it would not have been enough to feed his enemies; and if anyone had wanted to sell an ounce of that flesh, there would have been someone who would have paid one gold ducat for it; but there was none left.98

The bodies of Girolamo Riario’s assasins met the same end in 1488 in Forlì,99 just as we know that Concini’s corpse was the object of a proper macabre banquet and someone managed to take possession of the heart ‘and to cook it over coals and eat in publicly with vinegar’,100 on the same level as those ‘so cruel, and with bestial fury and so spiteful, that they ate raw and cooked that flesh’ of some of the officials whom the duke of Athens literally gave in pasto alla folla (fed to the crowd) in his attempt to cover his flight from Florence in 1343.101 95 

‘Capitando da lioni lo sbudelorno e diedero il cuore dentro de lioni’: Firenze, BNCF, Fondo Nazionale xxv, 660, Magliabechiano, Cronica di anonimo, fol. 9r–v. 96  ‘Manger aux chiens’: quoted in Bertelli, Il corpo del re, pp. 219–21. 97  Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p.  226; Montanari, ‘Mangiare il nemico’. See Pagden, ‘Cannibalismo e contagio’; Muir, ‘The Cannibals of Renaissance Italy’; Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu, i, 329–31; Martines, La congiura dei Pazzi, pp. 149–53. More in general, see Price, Consuming Passions. 98  ‘Ognie homo corseva a pigliare de sua carne, e mangiavanla così cruda, commo cani e porci, in tanto che non ne avanzò niente del suo misero e mendico corpo, e si fusse stato commo uno gigante, non serìa basta per mangiare a suoi inimici; e chi avesse voluta dare una oncia de quella carne, serìa stata persona che arìa comprata uno ducato d’oro; ma più non se ne trovava’: Matarazzo, ‘Cronaca della città di Perugia’, ed. by Fabretti, p. 150. 99  Cronache forlivesi di Leone Cobelli, ed. by Carducci and Frati, p. 337. 100  ‘Et l’aller cuire sur les charbons et manger publiquement avec du vinaigre’: quoted in Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 219. 101  ‘De’ sì crudeli, e con furia bestiale e tanto animosa, che mangiaro delle loro carni cruda e cotta’: Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. by Porta, bk xiii, r. 17 (iii, 339).

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Participating in these rites were the boys, too. In Pistoia, for example, in 1501, in yet another clash between the two factions, the Panciatichi side defeated the Cancellieri group, and ‘it was said that there was someone whose heart they took out; and with their mouth they bit it and tore it to pieces; and many little boys did the same’.102 As has been noted, the community meal ‘constituted at the same time their apprenticeship in the forms of urban violence and their initiation to partisan fighting’.103 While some witnesses to these rituals manifested their repugnance, highlighting a conscious and growing cultural difference — Stefani, for example, commented concerning the lynchings in Florence in 1343, when ‘the people, brutishly mauling and cutting him, someone with one piece, another with another piece, went their way, and some were eating and some were biting it’, that ‘according to what we read, in hell a soul is not treated worse than this, and the thing was very disgraceful to see’,104 while Fontana wrote that the meal that was made of the heart of Andrea Lampugnani, assassin of Duke Sforza in 1476, was ‘a horrendous thing to report’105 — it is also true that the rite of eating the enemy’s body meant imposing on him the worst insult possible, and by tearing apart his limbs and preventing their burial,106 the rite of expulsion was taken to its furthest extreme.

The Disciplining Role of the Companies of Justice This very work of recomposing and burying the corpse, and the more general one of assisting and comforting those condemned to death — carried out from the middle of the fourteenth century by confraternities of flagellants — was the terrain on which the Church set up its opposition to these ritual practices of violence, and at the same time was able to impose a specific role for itself in the progressive elaboration of a penal ceremonial that was taking shape in that period. When the members of the confraternity managed to defend the corpse of the 102 

‘Dissesi che vi fu a chi cavorno il cuore; e colla loro bocca lo mordevano e facevano a pezzi; e molti fanciulli piccioli feciono el simile’: Vaglienti, Storia dei suoi tempi, pp. 135–36. 103  Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, p. 352; see also Niccoli, Il seme della violenza, pp. 24–30. 104  ‘Il popolo bestialmente straziando, e tagliando questi, chi con un pezzo, e chi con un altro n’andava via, e chi ne mangiava, e chi ne mordea’; ‘secondoché si legge, in inferno non si fa peggio di un’anima; ed assai vituperevole cosa era a vedere’: Stefani, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Rodolico, p. 209. 105  ‘Res est horrenda relatu’: quoted in Bertelli, Il corpo del re, p. 217. 106  See Niccoli, ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia’, p. 352.

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies 259

executed from attempts to profane it, they demonstrated the possibility of social reconciliation and of ‘placing between that dead person and the living the protection of a Christian tomb’.107 The emergence of the role of confraternities was favoured also by developments in devotional practices during that period, which were focusing more and more on the figure of Christ and his incarnation, thus on the physical suffering he endured, which finally gave corporal pain a positive connotation of redemption.108 From the Bolognese confraternity of Santa Maria della Morte, started in 1336, to those that soon followed — in Florence, Verona, Ferrara, Padua, Vicenza, Venice, Pisa, and so on in more or less all the major political centres in communal and signorial Italy, among them also Siena, Genoa, Perugia, Rome, and Naples in the course of the fifteenth century109 — the confraternities of justice began in the central decades of the fourteenth century to gather at capital executions in order to ensure burial for the executed. Belonging to the branch that adhered to the practice of discipline, most of them initiated their office in the same period when the number of corporal works of mercy was being defined, and among these, besides visiting the imprisoned and comforting the sick and dying, was the precept to bury the dead.110 With this as their starting point, the confraternities soon developed the function of comforting the condemned, making this form of solidarity the specialization that would distinguish them in the larger sphere of collective religiosity typical of late medieval Italian society.111 Burial of the executed generally marked the conclusion of the office of assistance. The Florentine confraternity of Santa Maria della Croce al Tempio, for example, buried citizens in their respective parish cemeteries inside the city walls, while their own burial grounds, created along the outside of the walls near the socalled pratello della giustizia (field of justice), where executions were carried out, was used to bury the corpses of foreign-born condemned or those who had died without taking Communion.112 Exclusion from consecrated ground, from the 107 

Prosperi, ‘Esecuzioni capitali e controllo sociale’, p. 168. See Duby, ‘Riflessioni sul dolore fisico nel Medioevo’, p.  196; Ginzburg, ‘Folklore, magia, religione’, pp. 621–22. 109  See Prosperi, ‘Il sangue e l’anima’, pp. 964–66. 110  See Rusconi, ‘Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni’, pp. 479–80; Prosperi, ‘Il sangue e l’anima’, pp. 962, 964–65. 111  Rusconi, ‘Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni’, pp. 471–80, esp. pp. 479–480. See now Misericordie, ed. by Prosperi; The Art of Executing Well, ed. by Terpstra. 112  Zorzi, ‘Le esecuzioni delle condanne a morte’, pp. 191–93. 108 

260 Andrea Zorzi

‘sacred precinct’ of the city, thus continued even after death for those executed persons who had not been part of the community or had been expelled from it. This was the case also of the excommunicated, the most famous of whom, Iacopo de’ Pazzi, was even exhumed twice; the first time from the church of Santa Croce, ‘because they said he had died without hope, and they said they heard there at night many noises, and since long heavy rains were falling, they maintained that it was because that body was buried in a sacred place’;113 the second, after having been ‘interred [sotterrato, it should be noted, not buried (seppellito) in a Christian manner] along the walls at the gate of Justice’,114 at the hands of the boys who, as we have seen, by defacing and dispersing the corpse reiterated ritually the desire to prevent even its mere burial. The activity of the companies of justice was aimed not only at dealing with the return of the unappeased dead or reaffirming the bond of solidarity between the community of the living and the world of the dead — that is to say, the intent to channel the emotions and fears of the community by means of specific sacred functions of mediation — but also, more concretely, at performing a political role of civil pacification. By working alongside the sword of official justice, the confraternities offered a Christian mitigation of the atrocities and cruelty of justice each time that the public model of Christian virtue embodied in the condemned convict succeeded in its purpose of enacting ritually, like a sacrificial lamb, the general edification of the city.115 The action of the confraternities thus contributed in a crucial way to the process of achieving a definitive structure of the ceremonial of capital executions that by the second half of the fifteenth century appeared to be a mature and specific tool at the service of the new signorial powers.116 Recomposition and Christian burial of the bodies of the executed thus represented one of the aspects of the discipline pursued against the profanatory violence perpetrated by the bands of youngsters. The spread of the work of the confraternities made the boys’ ritual power of thanatological mediation less and 113  ‘Perché dicevano essere morto disperato, e dicevano sentire in quel luogo la notte romori assai, ed essendo grandi e lunghe piogge, volevano dire essere perché tal corpo era in sacrato seppellito’: Giovannini, ‘Breve cronica della congiura’, trans. by Bonucci, p. 108. 114  ‘Sotterrato lungo le mura alla porta alla Giustizia’: Firenze, Bibl. Nazionale Centrale, Fondo Nazionale ii.ii.127, Memorie e ricordi di ser Giusto di Giovanni Giusti d’Anghiari, fol. 124r. 115  See Prosperi, ‘Il sangue e l’anima’, pp.  979–80; Prosperi, ‘Mediatori di emozioni’, pp. 279–81 and pp. 283–84. 116  See Prosperi, ‘Mediatori di emozioni’; Zorzi, ‘Le esecuzioni delle condanne a morte’, pp. 193–94.

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less recognized by the community, contributing to the progressive extinction of these practices in the course of the sixteenth century, in the post-Tridentine social and pedagogical climate which, as we have seen, could no longer tolerate violence on the part of children. The comforters’ acts were directed towards salvation of the executed person’s soul. The efforts of the brothers thus focused on preparing the condemned to die a buona morte, that is to say, edifying in Christian terms, an aim that was furthered also by the circulation, from the middle of the fifteenth century, of the manuals of istruzioni, drawn up by theologians and preachers, and internal memorie of the confraternities that went on to make up a specific current of literature devoted to the ars bene moriendi, which flourished especially in that century.117 Violence on the part of children did not constitute a barbarous survival of more ancient and profound rituals, but rather a living practice potentially recognized in every cultural context, which as such could not manifest itself without the consent of the community.

117 

See Prosperi, ‘Il sangue e l’anima’, pp. 971–72; Ginzburg, ‘Folklore, magia, religione’, pp. 634–35; and Tenenti, Il senso della morte e l’amore della vita, pp. 80–107.

262 Andrea Zorzi

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Fondo Nazionale ii.i.138 —— , Fondo Nazionale ii.ii.127 (Memorie e ricordi di ser Giusto di Giovanni Giusti d’Anghiari) —— , Fondo Nazionale ii.ii.357 (Ricordanze di tribaldo di Amerigo de’ Rossi) —— , Fondo Nazionale ii.iii.280 (Memorie di Francesco di Giovanni di Durante) —— , Fondo Nazionale ii.iv.377 —— , Fondo Nazionale xxv, 660 (Magliabechiano: cronica di anonimo)

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Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies 263 Poliziano, Agnolo, ‘Breve cronaca della congiura dei Pazzi’, in Congiura de’ Pazzi, trans. by Anicio Bonucci (Firenze: Monnier, 1856), pp. 91–94 Ricordanze tratte da un libro originale di Tribaldo d’Amerigo de’ Rossi, in Delizie degli eruditi toscani, ed. by Ildefonso di San Luigi, 25 vols (Firenze: Cambiagi, 1770–89), xxiii (1786) Stefani, Marchionne di Coppo, Cronaca fiorentina, ed. by Niccolò Rodolico, 2nd edn (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1955) Storie pistoriesi, ed. by Silvio Adrasto Barbi (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1907) Vaglienti, Piero, Storia dei suoi tempi, 1492–1514, ed. by Giuliana Berti, Michele Luzzati, and Ezio Tongiorgi (Pisa: Nistri-Lischi e Pacini, 1982) Villani, Giovanni, Nuova cronica, ed. by Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols (Parma: Guanda, 1990–91) ‘La vita di Giovanni da Empoli, da che nacque a che morì, scritta da Gerolamo da Empoli suo zio’, ed. by J. Gråberg da Hemsö, Archivio storico italiano, 3 (1846), 19–33

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Gatti, Tancredi, L’imputabilità, i moventi del reato e la prevenzione criminale negli statuti italiani dei secoli xii–xvi (Padova: CEDAM, 1933) Ginzburg, Carlo, I benandanti: ricerche sulla stregoneria e sui culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento (Torino: Einaudi, 1966) —— , ‘Charivari, associazioni giovanili, caccia selvaggia’, Quaderni storici, 49 (1982), 164–77 —— , ‘Folklore, magia, religione’, in Storia d’Italia, ed. by Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti, 9 vols (Torino, Einaudi, 1972–86), i: I caratteri originali, ed. by Carlo Ginzberg (1972), pp. 603–76 —— , ‘Saccheggi rituali: premesse a una ricerca in corso’, Quaderni storici, 65 (1987), 615–36 —— , Storia notturna: una decifrazione del sabba (Torino: Einaudi, 1989) Grottanelli, Cristiano, ‘Bambini e divinazione’, in Infanzie: funzioni di un gruppo liminale dal mondo classico all’età moderna, ed. by Ottavia Niccoli (Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1993), pp. 23–72 Guerra, Enrica, Una eterna condanna: la figura del carnefice nella società tardo medievale (Milano: Angeli, 2003) Hatfield, Rab, ‘The “Compagnia de’ Magi”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Insti­ tutes, 33 (1970), 107–71 Hentig, Hans von, La pena: origine scopo psicologia, trans. by Michelangelo Piacentini (Milano: Bocca, 1942) Herlihy, David, and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles: une étude du catasto florentin de 1427 (Paris: Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques et École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1978) Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, ‘Childhood in Tuscany at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century’, in Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 94–116 Klemettilä, Hannele, Epitomes of Evil: Representations of Executioners in Northern France and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages, Studies in European Urban History (1100–1800), 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006) Le Goff, Jacques, ‘Mestieri leciti e mestieri illeciti nell’Occidente medievale’, in Tempo della chiesa e tempo del mercante e altri saggi sul lavoro e la cultura nel medioevo, trans. by Mariolina Romano (Torino: Einaudi, 1977), pp. 53–71 Maire Vigueur, Jean-Claude, ‘Un Jeu bien mal tempéré: le “ludus battaglie” de Pérouse’, in Histoire et société: mélanges offerts à Georges Duby, 4 vols (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, 1992), ii: Le Tenancier, le fidèle et le citoyen, pp. 195–208 —— , ‘Le rivolte cittadine contro i “tiranni”’, in Rivolte urbane e rivolte contadine nell’Europa del Trecento: un confronto, ed. by Monique Bourin, Giovanni Cherubini, and Giuliano Pinto (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2008), pp. 351–80 Martines, Lauro, La congiura dei Pazzi: intrighi politici, sangue e vendetta nella Firenze dei Medici (Milano: Mondadori, 2004) Merback, Mitchell B., The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Rituals of Youthful Violence in Late Medieval Italian Urban Societies 265 Montanari, Angelica A., ‘Mangiare il nemico: pratiche e discorsi di antropofagia nelle città italiane del tardo medioevo’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 111 (2009), 253–73 Muir, Edward, ‘The Cannibals of Renaissance Italy’, Syracuse Scholar, 5 (1984), 5–14 Niccoli, Otaria, Profeti e popolo nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Roma: Laterza, 1987) —— , ‘Compagnie di bambini nell’Italia del Rinascimento’, Rivista storica italiana, 101 (1989), 346–74 —— , Il seme della violenza: putti, fanciulli e mammoli nell’Italia tra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Laterza, 1995) Pagden, Anthony, ‘Cannibalismo e contagio: sull’importanza dell’antropofagia nell’Europa preindustriale’, Quaderni storici, 50 (1982), 533–50 Pouchelle, Marie-Christine, Corps et chirurgie à l’apogée du Moyen Âge: savoir et imaginaire du corps chez Henri de Mondeville, chirurgien de Philippe le Bel (Paris: Flammarion, 1983) Price, Merrall L., Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (New York: Routledge, 2003) Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Esecuzioni capitali e controllo sociale nella prima età moderna’, Politica del diritto, 14 (1983), 165–82 —— , ‘Mediatori di emozioni: la compagnia ferrarese di giustizia e l’uso delle immagini’, in L’impresa di Alfonso II, ed. by Jadranka Bentini and Luigi Spezzaferro (Ferrara: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1986), pp. 279–92 —— , ‘Il sangue e l’anima: ricerche sulle compagnie di giustizia in Italia’, Quaderni storici, 51 (1982), 959–99 —— , ed., Misericordie: conversioni sotto il patibolo tra medioevo ed età moderna (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007) Ricci, Giovanni, I giovani, i morti: sfide al Rinascimento (Bologna: Mulino, 2007) Ricciardi, Lucia, Col senno, col tesoro e colla lancia: riti e giochi cavallereschi nella Firenze del Magnifico Lorenzo (Firenze:Lettere, 1992) Rusconi, Roberto, ‘Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni’, in Storia d’Italia, ed. by Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti, 9 vols (Torino, Einaudi, 1972–86), ix: La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli (1986), pp. 467–506 Scarry, Elaine, La sofferenza del corpo: la distruzione e la costruzione del mondo (Bologna: Mulino, 1990) Settia, Aldo A., ‘La ‘‘battaglia’’: un gioco violento fra permissività e interdizione’, in Gioco e giustizia nell’Italia di Comune, ed. by Gherardo Ortalli, Ludica: collana di storia del gioco, 1 (Roma: Viella, 1993), pp. 121–32 —— , ‘“Ut melius doceantur ad bellum”: i giochi di guerra e l’addestramento delle fanterie comunali’, in La civiltà del torneo (sec. xii–xvii): giostre e tornei tra medioevo ed età moderna, ed. by Maria Vittoria Baruti Ceccopieri (Narni: Centro studi storici di Narni, 1990), pp. 79–105 Spierenburg, Pieter, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression. From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)

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Part IV Civic and Power Rituals

Papal Sovereignty and Civic Rituals in the Early Modern Age Maria Antonietta Visceglia* Introduction: A Polycentric Urban Space In the period between 1447 and 1527 which appears to be the phase in which

Rome was being refitted not only to be a capital, but also a ‘centre of a system of relations that multiplied and consolidated’ through Italy and Europe,1 the aims and contradictions of papal building policy seemed to materialize in the grandeur and incongruity of urban renewal projects. The profound transformations that *  I have modified and updated the text of the paper which I gave at the URBS conference,

Concepts and Realities of Public Space/Concetti e realità dello spazio pubblico, held at the Dutch Institute in Rome on 2–4 April 2003, which marked the centenary of that Institute’s foundation. An early version of the paper was published in Dimensioni e problemi di ricerca storica, 2 (2005). 1  Chittolini, ‘Alcune ragioni per un convegno’, p. 2.

Maria Antonietta Visceglia ([email protected]) is Professor of Modern History at the Uni­ versità di Roma—La Sapienza. Up to the end of the 1980s her main area of research and publication was the economic and social history of southern Italy during the early modern and modern periods, specializing in the history of the feudal structures and systems of production and consumption. At the same time her scholarly interests have expanded to the behaviour of the aristocracy with regard inheritance and dowries. Since the early 1990s she has concentrated on the organization of the papal court and on the role of ceremonies and rites in this context. Her approach in this field has been a comparative one with a European perspective. She is co-editor with G. Signorotto of Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and with J. Martínez Millán of La Monarquía de Felipe III, 4 vols (Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2008). She is the author of La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna (Roma: Viella, 2002), Riti di corte e simboli della regalità (Roma: Salerno, 2009), and Roma papale e Spagna: diplomatici, nobili e religiosi tra due corti (Roma: Bulzoni, 2010). She is a coordinator of the national research programme, The Papacy and Inter­ national Politics in the Early Modern Era. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 269–296 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100776

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occurred at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to an expansion of the city’s urban space but also, and most importantly, to a redesignation of public space according to directives that were both religious and economic, and whose effect was to concentrate the fabric of the city around a few poles. First of all the Lateran area, in which the first papal palace had been built (thus becoming together with the imperial palace of Constantinople, the archetype of the Sacrum palatium),2 diminished in importance during the medieval and early modern age compared with the district comprising Castel Sant’Angelo, Borgo Pio, San Pietro. The pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Peter, Boniface VIII’s jubilee proclamation (issued from the Vatican itself ), and the urban plan of Nicholas V had each transformed that zone into one of the symbolic centres of the city. It was an area that also appeared rich in potential for accommodating craftsmen, moneychangers, and bakers.3 However, though the Vatican became the residence of the pope as head of the Universal Church, the Lateran remained the Cathedral church of the city, seat of the pope as Bishop of Rome and the destination of the rite of possesso, the inaugural procession with which each new pope leaving the Vatican and following the via papalis formally took possession of the city accompanied by the clergy, the curial officials, the city magistrates, and the nobility. This dualism between the Lateran and the Vatican was not the only factor in the development of the papal city. The family palaces of both Roman popes, such as Martin V (Oddone Colonna) and later Paul III (Alessandro Farnese), and Florentine popes (Leo X and Clement VII Medici)4 became focal points in the growth of housing and accommodation for courtiers and staging points for ceremonial processions. Thus, it appears that Roman public space was originally characterized by a dissymmetry in its political topography that continued to widen during the course of the Middle Ages and the early modern age alongside the changing role that was being given to the Capitoline hill according to a rationale of diversification of urban space. This did not by any means lead to a downgrading of the area, which in the ‘portraits’ of the city continued to be represented as its central point, the

2 

Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio, p. 21. Spagnesi, Roma, la Basilica di San Pietro, pp.  29–46. On the relationship between the jubilee and intervention in the city, see Visceglia, ‘Roma e il giubileo’. On the choice of Nicholas V to intervene with an urban plan for only the area around the Vatican, see Westfall, The Most Perfect Paradise; Burroughs, ‘Below the Angel’. 4  Regarding the Palazzo Colonna see Ghersi, ‘Le residenze dei Colonna ai santi Apostoli’, p. 70; on the Farnese, see Le Palais Farnèse; on the Medici in Rome, Ait, ‘I fiorentini a Roma’. 3 

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umbilicus urbis of ancient Rome.5 The Capitoline remained the seat of a marketplace that was, however, gradually losing importance,6 and, more than anything, it remained the seat of Rome’s municipal government, even if the long, slow process of transforming its political function had already begun, a process that would enrich it with symbolic valences, while at the same time impoverish its power.7 If the pope was, as Niccolò Signorili wrote at the start of the fifteenth century, ‘father and spouse of the city of Rome’ (‘huius inclitae urbis pater et sponsus verissimus’)8 the space and the institutions composing the Capitol were the effective and legal centre where this bond became apparent. Many popes were attracted by the central location and symbolic power of the Capitol. Paul II in 1464 enlarged the palace in the Piazza San Marco, which he had built for himself in 1454 when he was a cardinal, and selected an area for the papal residence that was immediately adjacent to the Capitol, moving the centre of his court there. This was not a temporary move, since the popes continued to reside on this site for the entire first half of the sixteenth century.9 In 1469 Paul II gave the city a new municipal statuto. In the words of Paola Pavan, the statuti emptied ‘the role of senator of any political or decision making power, reducing it almost exclusively to the legal questions, while increasing the power of the conservatori, and codifying the duties of their direct collaborators the caporioni,10 key figures in the social, economic and military organization of Rome’s rioni’.11 The statuti also codified the papal decision made in 1466 to move the horse and the foot races of Roman carnival from Testaccio to the via Lata — that is, to the street directly adjacent to the papal palace.12 Anna Esposito has drawn attention to the new character the carnival now took on — courtly and spectacular. In 5 

Calvo, Antiquae Urbis Romae (dedicated to Clement VII). On the imago urbis, see Nuti, Ritratti di città, pp. 43–47. 6  Modigliani, Mercati, botteghe e spazi, pp. 145–209. 7  On the revival of the senatus in 1143–44 and the relocation of the municipal government on the Capitoline hill, see Pavan, ‘Dalla renovatio senatus all’unità d’Italia’. 8  Signorili, ‘Descriptio urbis Romae’, ed. by Valentini and Zucchetti, pp. 162–65. Niccolò Signorili, caporione of the rione Monti (1425), was scribasenatus of the Capitol. 9  Insolera, Roma: immagini e realtà, p. 31; Antinori, La magnificenza e l’utile, pp. 35–36. 10  Pavan, ‘I fondamenti del potere’, in particular p.  326. On the conservatori, see Franceschini, ‘I Conservatori dell Camera Urbis’. 11  On the loss of political rights by the craftsman’s guilds to neighbourhood organizations during the second half of the fourteenth century, see Maire Vigueur, ‘Arti o rioni?’. 12  Premoli, Ludus carnelevarii, p. 62.

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the Middle Ages it had been a popular festival par excellence, in which the entire city filed before the pontiff and civic officials, divided in its various orders, and exhibited themselves in rituals of violent competition. It was also an occasion for some towns in Latium such as Tivoli, Velletri, and Cori13 to reaffirm their subject status to the Commune of Rome. In the Middle Ages the celebration was held in a place outside the city — an elevated field that could not be sown — in Testaccio which was a part of the Aventine area,14 considered one of the mythical sites associated with the founding of Rome: it was an isolated area, located far from the routes of the papal itineraries. The move also officially endorsed the inclusion of the ludi into the heart of the city’s public space through a project of appropriation by the papal authorities. We would do well to emphasize the complexity of this urban organization, which presented analogies and tendencies that were common to other Italian princely states of the period, but which neither was, nor could be, monocentric, since it had developed over time, as a function of the policies and ambitions of different pontiffs’ families, but also in response to the economic aims of the financial and mercantile classes who backed the individual popes.15 This spatial organization was marked by discontinuities, as may be seen by the abandonment of many projects between one pontificate and another, but also by a sense of coherence with the city’s overall economic system, as is shown by the reconstruction of the street system not only in relation to ceremony but also in terms of links to the ports of Rome (Ripa e Ripetta).16 In no way was the Capitoline area marginalized by this process, rather, it came to be better connected to Trastevere and the city’s system of ports. In addition, responsibility for administering this great construction site that was Rome was shared between curial and municipal government, whose control over squares, markets, and 13 

Esposito, ‘Der römische Karneval’. On the Roman carnival, see Martine Boiteux including: Boiteux, ‘Carnaval annexé’ and recently Boiteux, ‘Violences rituelles’. On the commune’s jurisdiction over its surrounding territory and on the chronology of the expansion of the districtus urbis, see Caciorgna, ‘Il districtus Urbis’. 14  ‘Dove già da Evandro sacrato fu il primo altare ad Hercule’ (Franzini, Le cose meravigliose della città di Roma). But the Aventine hill was already identified as the place where Remus had received the auspices and where the fratricide took place: Gallavotti-Cavallero, Rione xxi. 15  Luciano Palermo insists on this latter point: Palermo, ‘Sviluppo economico e organizzazione degli spazi urbani’, p. 414. A recent work by Aloiso Antinori adopts an approach that considers not just the actions of the popes in the renewal of Rome’s urban space, but also that ‘of the leading players on the urban stage’: Antinori, La magnificenza e l’utile, p. 30. 16  Palermo, Il porto di Roma nel xiv e xv secolo.

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roads was the most salient aspect of its jurisdiction (the office of the ‘magistri aedificiorum et viarum, iuxta illius antiquam institutionem’ had been re-established in 1425)17 even if it was destined to be increasingly contested.18 How did the municipal government defend its spaces of power, how did it adapt to the abrupt changes that came with the papal version of absolutism? Were civic rites completely sidelined by the pageantry of the great papal ceremonies, or did they nevertheless contribute to fashioning the image of modern Rome?

Civic Rites, Papal Rites, and romanitas The most recent research has preferred to devote attention to the study of papal ceremonies. Scholars have remarked on how during these ceremonies ‘representatives of the Capitoline magistracy were generally inferior’. In the most important rites such as the possesso they were viewed and represented as ‘elements of riot and disorder’.19 This is certainly true. But the commune also played a central role in its own specific rituals that involved individual officials such as the Senator of Rome. During the Avignon hiatus, the senator had been given the high ceremonial duty, along with representatives of the Populus romanus who bore the city’s standard, of receiving the emperor, kings, and apostolic legates.20 There were two figures of reference in the senator’s investiture ceremony: the conservatori and the pope. As explicitly required by the municipal statuti, the new magistrate swore an oath in the hands of the conservatori, pledging through the solemn formula to perform his judicial duties before the representatives of the Roman people. Then, wearing a long gown of smooth silk, and preceded by a page carrying a swordstick and a

17 

See Ait, ‘Strade cittadine’; Verdi, ‘Da ufficiali capitolini a commissari apostolici’. The overlapping of the Camerlengo with Maestri di Strade has been documented. Later in 1562 a reference appears to ‘chierico di Camera presidente delle Strade’, and again during the pontificate of Pius V ‘the Roman People affirm their right to the principle of auditing the activities of tax collection performed by the maestri’: two patricians sent documentation of their examination to the conservatori for ‘the public archive of the Roman People’: see Verdi, ‘Da ufficiali capitolini a commissari apostolici’, in particular p. 59. 19  Fosi, ‘“Parcere subiectis, debellare superbos”’, p. 95; Boiteux, ‘Parcours rituels romains’; Visceglia, La città rituale. 20  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 130, fol. 148r (Ordine e pompa con la quale i Senatori di Roma cavalcavano e andavano a ricevere l’Imperatore o Re o Legati Apostolici mentre la Sede Apostolica stava in Avignone). 18 

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cap, symbols of the arbitral power of justice,21 the senator, in the company of the Capitoline officials, rode to the papal palace to swear an oath of loyalty to the pope and receive from him the sceptre and the ritual formula.22 Thereafter, he returned to the Capitoline hill and only at this point took possession of his office. The senatorial ride moved in precisely the opposite direction as the route of the pope’s investiture procession. During the course of the early Modern Age the rite became repetitive but it never lost importance, as may be seen from prints of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries depicting the ceremony. In those decades of decline for the Roman magistracy, it appeared as if the senator was reacquiring a heightened symbolic importance, at a time when the Capitol was coming to be revered as a place of memory and antiquity.23 The route of the procession, when the popes were residing on the Quirinal hill had by then changed, and it now moved from the Quattro Fontane, Madonna di Costantinopoli, Piazza di Spagna, via dei Condotti, San Lorenzo in Lucina, San Marco. There were also periods in the life of the city when the municipality would become protagonists on the urban stage and masters of its space. This was, in fact, what happened for the entire duration of the Vacant See.24 The recurring interregnum when the city took back its powers, was marked by a series of events: the emptying of the Capitoline prisons by the Caporioni of Campitelli and Regola, the Handover of the Banner to the Captain of the Roman People for the ritual blessing in the church of the Ara Coeli, the raising of the City Standard in the Capitol, which was then handed over by the gonfaloniere to the conservatori,25 the removal of the first conservatore, in solemn garb, to the Vatican — ‘for the duty of attending the Conclave’ — where the community of the Jews prepared lodgings for him at their own expense.26 Each of these actions, through their codified 21 

On the symbolic significance of the senator’s ‘ornamenti’, see Altieri, Li Nuptiali, p. 121. On the senator’s jurisdiction in relation to other Roman courts, see Fosi, La giustizia del papa. 22  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. vi, t. 54, fol. 436r (Ritus quo novus almae Urbis Senator Possessionem suae Dignitatis capit ex Apostolicis commentariis sive Diariis excerptus). A precise description of this rite may be found in Franceschini, ‘Il tribunale del Senatore’. 23  See, for example, Il Campidoglio trionfante and Frangipani, Distinta relazione della solenne cavalcata. 24  Nussdorfer, ‘The Vacant See’. 25  During the pontificate of Julius III a dispute over precedence broke out between Giulio Cesarini, the gonfaloniere and the prior of the caporioni which was settled by the pope in favour of the gonfaloniere (Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 130, fol. 245r). 26  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 54, fol. 76r.

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ritual gestures, was expected to draw attention to the key role of the municipal magistracy and the organization of the people into rioni in the absence of papal power. The idea was to reaffirm, also through the use of rituals, an expression of urban power that was parallel to, and no less legitimate than that of the popes. It was also intended to send out a message of order and legality to the city, a message which took on even greater importance, given that the period between the death of one pope and the coronation of his successor might be accompanied by outbreaks of violence and looting. The Vacant See meant the full rehabilitation of Capitoline authority: it was a time when the city could advance its proposals and it became an occasion for political renegotiation between the municipal government and the College of Cardinals. The Vacant See also represented a phase of militarization for the city, when control was taken of strategic nodes in the urban space. Not only were officials, even minor ones, authorized ‘to bear arms’,27 but the people in assuming the defence of the urban territory, elected 40 deputies to assist the magistrate should the need arise; drew up the list of all those who had been admitted to Roman citizenship since the last Vacant See; took over guard duty of the city gates, 28 whose keys were entrusted to capotori from the different districts, as well as the surveillance of all the bridges. The 1625 census29 of all the city’s ‘artists’ provides a precise indication in terms of numbers: the militia of the Populus romanus’s fourteen rioni consisted of three hundred foot soldiers who were recruited on the basis of their profession, while those exempted were warehouse merchants, copyists, notaries, bakers, brokers, the wine merchants in Ripa, and wood merchants in Ripa and Ripetta. If during the Vacant See — with the Pope dead — the body of the city populace was free to express the jurisdiction and prerogatives of the Populus romanus through the performance of rituals, the same was true for the carnival games that represented an annual ritual occasion to give voice to — ‘a fierce and truculent 27 

Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 54, fol. 252r (Lista delli officiali del Popolo Romano e uomini della Casa degli signori Conservatori soliti a portar Armi ). 28  Porta del Popolo to the capotoro of Campo Marzio, Porta Pia to the capotori of Monti and Trevi, Porta Pinciana to the capotori of Colonna and Trevi, Porta S.  Lorenzo, Porta Maggiore, Porta S. Giovanni to the capotoro of Monti, Porta S. Sebastiano and Porta S. Paolo to the capotoro of Ripa, Porta Portese and Porta San Pancrazio to the capotoro of Trastevere, Porta Cavalleggeri and Porta Angelica to the capotoro of Borgo (Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 54, Istruttione in occasione di Sede Vacante, fols 71r–83v, not dated). 29  BAV, MS Barb. Lat. 4835 and BAV, MS Barb. Lat. 4840. On the dating of these documents, see Ago, Economia barocca, pp. 5–6.

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fervour against enemies’ in a spirit of ‘universal merriment’ — the quote here is from Marco Antonio Altieri, a reliable interpreter of ‘municipal ideology’. 30 Hence, the games could be considered as if they ‘had been ordered for the universal exercise of anyone who, either on foot or on horseback, with arms, had freely enrolled in the militia’.31 It was a military exercise, in other words a parade involving different segments of the city body in which, as in every parade or procession, the question of precedence among the rioni became a problem of crucial importance.32 In the mid-fifteenth century (1454) the ‘tabula precedentiae officialium reformata in Consilio’ still distinguished between the ordo of the pedites, with its marshals, caporioni and constables, armati more solito, rione after rione and the ordo of the equites, who carried the banner of Justice and brought out the senatorial magistracy.33 The table of the 1520 ludi, which was still written in Latin, by and large made the same distinction.34 However, in 1539 the reference to the ordines of pedites and equites has disappeared and the source now divides the squads of participants into the two categories of rioni and arti: the document makes it clear that ‘all the arts, with their insignia and drums’ must ‘send a man from every shop to present himself in the square of the Capitol’. In addition, every rione presented a bull on the square of the Capitol: the thirteen bulls would be released from the Monte Testaccio behind six wagons which had been rolled down the slope, each of which was carrying a victory pennant and a pig (an animal known to recur frequently in carnival rituals35). The climax of the festival was the parade in which ‘according to their precedence’ marched ‘the Constables of the rioni, together in rows of three, beginning with Trastevere, Ripa, S. Angelo and continuing thus’, the caporioni three abreast, then the conservatori and the Prior of the Caporioni, the players representing the rioni, the wagons, the mayors of the people dressed in white, the marshalls, the chancellors of the people in a double row, among whom the gonfaloniere, clearly stood out, bearing the standards of the Roman people.36 30 

Altieri, Li Nuptiali, p. 121. Altieri, Li Nuptiali, p. 120. On the carnival as a rite of war: Muir, Mad Blood Stirring; Lazzerini, ‘La Festa d’inverno’, pp. 185–89. 32  Signorili, ‘Descriptio urbis Romae’, ed. by Valentini and Zucchetti, p. 167. For an earlier chronological reference, see ‘De nominibus regionum Urbis Romae’, ed. by Valentini and Zucchetti. 33  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 105, fols 141v–143r. 34  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 105, fols 130–131. 35  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 105, fol. 134r. 36  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 105, fol. 135r. 31 

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While the organization of the festival continued to be corporative and the structure based on the rioni, important changes had occurred in the intervening time: as I mentioned above, 1466 was not only the year in which the carnival space was expanded, but it was also the year when the allegorical floats were introduced. In 1519 Marin Sanuto described the Roman carnival of Testaccio and via Lata ‘with different contests on different days’. On exhibition were ‘Jews, children (mamoli), young and old men, whores both naked or wearing blouses’, but when Sanuto came to describe the festival in Agone he wrote: ‘It is the representation of a triumph’.37 In fact, between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries the festival underwent a transformation, adopting theatrical forms that were derived from classical culture and radically transforming the ancient ‘popular’ rite which had been based on a violent, military style competition.38 It was a major cultural turning point which affected not only the carnival itself, but all of Rome’s municipal traditions and which breathed new life into the classical concept of romanitas as a distinguishing feature of the municipal government and a value over which the city populace became the jealous and vigilant custodian.39 The defence of romanitas manifested itself under a variety of aspects, a few of which appear crucial to us for a definition of Rome’s urban identity during the early modern age. One of these was undoubtedly the question of who had jurisdiction over the urbs’ antiquities. This prerogative was one that the Capitoline magistracy had long exercised: according to the 1363 Statutes, jurisdiction over de antiquis edificiis non diruendis was attributed to the senator, while according to the Statutes of 1519–23 containing Pius II’s Bull of 1462 (‘quod antiqua edificia Urbis et eius districtus non diruantur’), it went to the conservatori.40 When in 1527 Cardinal Trivulzio ordered the freeing of a man who had been imprisoned for destroying with the aid of accomplices the so-called Arch of Noah in the forum of Nerva, the first conservatore, Francesco De Brancis issued a solemn warning to the burgesses to watch over edificia et antiquitates, the tangible record of their past: ‘because nothing else of the memory of our ancestors remains in the city besides the ruins of their buildings which adorn it’.41 37 

Cited in Premoli, Ludus carnelevarii, p. 93. Cruciani, Teatro nel rinascimento Roma, p. 116. 39  On the theme of romanitas see Pavan, ‘I fondamenti del potere’, p. 321. 40  Franceschini, ‘La Magistratura Capitolina’, in particular pp. 142–43. The statuti of 1580 confirmed for the conservatori and the caporioni custodianship of the antiquities. 41  ‘et nil aliud remansisse de avitorum memoria in Urbe nisi permanentia edificia que Urbe illorum memoria decorant’; (document quoted by Franceschini, ‘La Magistratura Capitolina’, p. 145). 38 

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If Rome’s antiquities belonged to the Populus romanus, the power to confer citizenship also remained its exclusive right. In looking through the letters patent that refer to ‘Roman citizens created’ between 1516 and 1532 one notices the lofty register of language used in the formula bestowing Roman civilitas: the Roman people, in consideration of — in the words of the formula — the qualities of the person, but also the ‘merits’ of Rome — note the text does not use the term civitas — but the archetypal urbs, that is, Urbs caput orbis.42 We know that the Roman municipal government was very liberal in conferring citizenship — a average of 12.5 novi cives annually during the pontificate of Clement VII for a total 75 individuals, an average of 37. 3 annually during the pontificate of Paul III for a total of 522 and an average of 53. 8 under Julius III for a total of 269 persons.43 What is particularly interesting is the message that the formulae were intended to convey: the intention on the part of the new citizen consciously to assume the prestige and burden of the legacy of romanitas. In this sense, an event full of high symbolic meaning was the granting of the privilege of Roman civilitas on 12–14 September 1513 to Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici. The occasion was solemnized with a theatrical ceremony held on the Capitoline hill, choreographed in great detail by the municipal government and the pontiff and about which we have an excellent study by Fabrizio Cruciani.44 The event had profound implications for the policy of the Medici of those years. Their idea was to present Florence as a new Rome, and, in any case, to stress the importance of a Roman-Florentine axis which represented a revival of the ancient story between Rome and the Etruscans.45 For the papal family the ceremony had an unquestionably dynastic importance. From the municipal and Roman perspective it was an opportunity for the humanists engaged in planning and organizing the celebration to make their dreams come true. The civic nobility used the occasion to repeat their adherence to the cultural programme of the Accademia romana whose main achievement was associated with the founding of Rome. In fact, in the Avviso a Renzo di Cere, a brief but effective description of the ceremony, 46 42 

Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. vi, t. 49 (Registro di patenti di cittadinini romani creati 1516–1532). 43  Camerano, ‘La restaurazione cinquecentesca’, p. 56. 44  Cruciani, Teatro nel rinascimento Roma, with Arnaldo Bruschi’s reconstruction of the theatre (Il teatro del Campidoglio, ed. by Cruciani). 45  Casini, I gesti del principe, pp. 128–37. 46  Altieri, ‘Avviso […] dato all’Illustre Signor Renzo’, in particular p. 6.

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Altieri makes special reference to the Palilie (Rome’s ‘Birthday’, a celebration which the Accademia romana had inaugurated in 1483 and which the commune appropriated for itself ).47 In addition, a magnificent Renaissance theatre was erected out of wood on the Piazza di Campidoglio, which at the time still retained its ‘medieval’ character.48 The structure’s external façade was divided into arches, the central one taking the form of a triumphal arch.49 It was a preview of the real metamorphosis the square would undergo in the not too distant future. Romanitas and antiquity were seen as models that could be appropriated, and in the early sixteenth century it was around these symbolic and cultural values that the dialogue between municipal government and pontificates revolved. With the election of Alessandro Farnese (Paul III) the project of reviving romanitas found a fervent supporter, a man lucidly aware of how the language of classical antiquity could be used to exalt both his own princely family and the universal power of the papacy. This awareness provided the impetus for a programme of ‘urban renewal’ that concerned not only the Capitoline hill, whose renovation was entrusted by Paul III to Michelangelo, but also the via del Corso which was straightened from the Piazza del Popolo to the Capitol, the square of the Pantheon,50 the construction of the Palazzo Farnese, terminus point of an axis of routes Ripetta (via Leonina) — Navona — Campo dei Fiori and along which a series of secular and religious buildings belonging to the great families and powers external to the city had aligned.51 It also found expression in an extraordinary series of festivals that were held for the entire duration of the pontificate. These events need to be studied systematically through approaches that take into account the political substance behind them as well as their value as spectacle. Charles V’s entry into the city after the conquest of Tunis was the ‘exceptional’ occasion for the impressive celebration of antiquity that was served up to the emperor as a backdrop to his triumph. Here the ephemeral devices employed in other cities that had welcomed and honoured him were not required, for the stage was already set with real triumphal arches that bore witness to the eternal triumph of Rome.52

47 

Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 13. Pietrangeli, ‘I palazzi capitolini nel Medioevo’; Pecchiai, Il Campidoglio nel Cinquecento. 49  Stinger, ‘The Campidoglio as the Locus of “Renovatio Imperii”’. 50  Spagnesi, Roma, la Basilica di San Pietro, p. 86. 51  Insolera, Roma: immagini e realtà, p. 99. 52  Visceglia, La città rituale, pp. 191–201. 48 

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But even ordinary, regularly recurring rituals were skilfully used to convey messages of propaganda that exalted the pope at the same time as his city, and it is no coincidence that the carnival games were regarded as the most appropriate venue for this purpose. An account of the carnival games of 1539 ‘celebrated in Agone and in Saint Peter’s Square’ contains a brief note referring to the order of the rioni as well as a description of the triumphal chariots of each rione. First to be mentioned is Ripa, the thirteenth regio whose float transported the statues of the seven emperors of the house of Austria and that of Charles V’s daughter, Margherita. It represented the mythical Roman origins of the Hapsburg dynasty that traced its roots back to the noble Pierleoni whose dwelling was in capite Fori romani. The float of Rione Regola where the Farnese resided, depicted Mucius Scaevola’s and Horatius Cocles’s defence of Rome against the Etruscan king Lars Porsenna, and a great Sun ‘qui est luminare maius et Pontificem significat’. But the float of the Rione Ponte depicting a great ostrich also acclaimed the pontiff since, in the words of the document, ‘Ponte was almost entirely in the areas of Castello, Borgo, and Palazzo which belonged to the pontiff ’. The ostrich that can swallow and assimilate everything including stones and iron is — the document adds — a representation of the force of the ‘Pope’s neutrality who has been and is a good father to all, and does not depend more on one prince than on another’. The float of the Rione Campitelli — the area of the Capitol — depicted the Senator Popilius sent by the Roman Senate to deliver an ultimatum to Antiochus, king of ancient Syria. ‘Rex Syriae’— the document explains — ‘hodie est Turcorum Tyrannus’.53 The carnival pageant became a political manifesto that, in the language of antiquity, sent out precise messages about contemporary events. In the case of the 1539 edition, a reference was made to the pope’s peace mission to Nice in 1538, which had already been celebrated in a solemn reception held in his honour by the municipal government: on 24 July of that year, the senator and his curia, the conservatori, the caporioni, the Marshalls of the People, and forty Roman youths had received the pope at the Ponte Miglio, and given him a triumph in the ancient style.54 The allusion, during the 1539 celebrations in Agone, to the fable of the Hapsburgs’ Roman origins (which imperial chroniclers of the early sixteenth century compared to other mythological accounts of the Spanish origins of Rome),55 the emphasis on the pope’s neutrality as a universal power in European conflicts, the exaltation of the Farnese as Romans and defenders of 53 

Torello, Ordine delle festa celebrate in Roma. Forcella, Tornei e giostre e feste carnevalesche, pp. 52–62. 55  The reference is to Ocampo and Morales, La cronica de España. 54 

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Roman liberty, the representation of the struggle against the Turk as a task inherent to Rome’s global mission56 were all images taken from a single sequence in which the social specificity of the rioni disappeared. Rome’s civic identity, which nonetheless persisted, was offered as a common element in European history, an original link between the two supreme powers of Christianity. This curialization of a festival whose original character, more than any other, had been a popular one is indicative of profound processes of transformation underway and of an attitude that cannot merely be reduced to the commonplace of an enfeebled civic spirit. Historiography, in attributing to the papal court of the Renaissance properties of absolutism that were ahead of their time, has interpreted events and aspects of the early sixteenth century dichotomously, polarizing the contrast between an ever-stronger sovereign-pontiff and an everweaker municipal government. While the impact of the changes introduced by the expansion of curial offices is undeniable, it is important to bear in mind how the ideology of romanitas provided an original and unique means of conjoining papal universalism with a valorization of the city. This play of ambiguity, which involved an appropriation by the pope of the language and motifs of classical antiquity, while the city, in its subordinate role, remained a depository of a civic ideology and ‘local’ power, became increasingly difficult to maintain during the Counter-Reformation, when the Church proclaimed itself sole interpreter and heir to a different idea of romanitas.

The Symbolic Offensive of the Counter-Reformation and the ‘Majesty of Rome’ The Counter-Reformation had an immediate impact on the city’s profane rituals which had been forms of public display that were shared by the pontiff and the Roman people. As we know, it took on form of an attack against the profane vestiges of the festival that however survived on into the baroque age. One of the most noticeable aspects of this process was that public space was slowly but inexorably withdrawn from the carnival, which came to be seen as an occasion not only of licentiousness, but one of disorder, when extortion and crime were rife.57 On 19 February 1567 it was no less than the Consiglio pubblico itself that 56  On the symbols of the crusade in Roman ceremonies, see Nanni, ‘Des cérémonies pour la “guerre juste”’. 57  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t.  30, fol.  313r (Relazione in Consiglio Segreto delle estorsioni che si commettono in occasione dei palii).

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issued a decree approving the decision that the horse races in the future should no longer be held in Borgo, ‘it being the residence of the Pope’.58 The provision was clearly aimed at gradually hemming in the area of festivities to the zone of San Marco and the Corso. The games in Testaccio, which were still being held in the early sixteenth century, though only sporadically, ceased completely. One result of this cancellation was that later, in the second half of the seventeenth century (1669), the conservatori decided to ‘permit the planting of a vineyard on the flats of Monte Testaccio’59 a resolution that was enacted through the acquisition of emphyteusis rights over the land.60 The symbolism of this peripheral and isolated site, which according to myth had been the cradle of pre-Christian Rome, was cancelled. Between the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries a process was underway that was substantially the inverse of what had occurred between fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During the latter period the profane area had extended towards the centre of the city, reaching even Saint Peter’s square. With the Counter-Reformation, this space now ebbed back to the Corso, withdrawing as far as the Porta del Popolo.61 In reality, this was no more than a single episode, and not the most important one at that, in the profound transformation of urban space during the CounterReformation. A number of scholarly studies, especially in the area of art history, have effectively highlighted the importance of papal innovations in the configuration of urban space during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Most important was the expansion of the urbanized area which spread outward and linked up with new routes also in relation to the surrounding territory, as may be seen from the renovations of the gates during the reign of Pius IV: Porta Angelica, Porta del Popolo, Porta San Giovanni. This was followed by the structural rationalization of entire districts, such as the enlargement of the Borgo ‘through a meshwork of orthogonal streets’,62 undertaken by Pius IV and completed by Gregory XIII. However, the most important project of urban intervention in those years was the opening of a new thoroughfare, the via Pia (1561), today via XX Settembre, linking the Porta Pia to the open area in front of the Villa Carafa, later to become 58 

Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 23, fol. 33r. Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 99, fol. 90r. 60  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 30, fol. 190r. 61  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. vii, t. 57, fol. 200r. On 26 February 1710 a chirograph of Clement XI approved the resolution taken by the conservatori to change ‘the ancient place’ of the starting point (mossa) of the horse race ‘and have it begin from the Piazza del Popolo’. 62  Spagnesi, Roma, la Basilica di San Pietro, p. 126. 59 

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the Piazza del Quirinale. This was also associated with another event: the decision by Gregory XIII to acquire as his private residence the Villa Carafa, which had long been rented out to the Este family. Sixtus V initiated the project, opening a vast construction site that included renovations of the area surrounding the villa and the construction of an aqueduct (the Acqua Felice). As Antonio Minniti Ippolito has written, it is not easy to grasp just what Pope Peretti’s real intentions were with regard to the use of this residence, engaged as he was simultaneously in the works at the Vatican complex, in the reconstruction of the Palazzo Laterano and Villa Montalto. But it was Paul V in 1606 who ‘expressed the firm resolve to terminate the work’ and to locate a papal residence there, along the side of which would rise the palace of the cardinal-nephew, the offices of the Dataria (1609), and the courts of the Rota and Apostolic Camera.63 The localization of a papal residence led to a new range of urban interventions in the north-east area of the city and it became both the initial and final stage of a new set of ceremonial itineraries, further adding to the city’s processional and parade routes. It now appeared even more difficult to determine where the centre of Rome lay than it had been in the Renaissance. Under Sixtus V the city’s polycentrism took on the shape of an integral plan, a completed form both functionally and symbolically.64 The city’s general structure, in syderis forma, expressed a complex but clear symbolism. Each of the great basilicas was an autonomous devotional centre, but all were interconnected by processional routes that were used during jubilees and by new religious rites of prayer and penitence, such as the visit of the Seven Churches,65 inaugurated by St Filippo Neri.66 Saint Mary Major, the Basilica of the Marian cult and not far from Villa Peretti on the Esquiline (1576–81), became the symbolic centre of this stellar map. In the expanding city, which visually and symbolically declared that it was the capital of Catholic Europe, the relationship between space and monument was no less crucial in defining the city’s image and the new shape of papal power: religious symbols were superimposed over pagan ones rendering them sacred,67 such as the crosses that were placed at the tops of obelisks which declared the triumphs of the past to be ephemeral compared to the triumphs of Christian Rome. 63 

Menniti Ippolito, I papi al Quirinale, pp. 46–60, in particular p. 53. Fagiolo, ‘La Roma di Sisto V’, quoted in Boiteux, ‘Parcours rituels romains’, p. 66. 65  Saint Peter’s, Saint Paul’s, Saint Sebastian’s, Saint John in Lateran, the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem Saint Lawrence, Saint Mary Major. 66  Labrot, Roma, ‘caput mundi’, p. 245. See also Boiteux, ‘Parcours rituels romains’, p. 66. 67  See for example Jodati, Dialogo che ha fatto il cerchio di Nerone. 64 

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While during the early sixteenth century the language of romanitas had provided a shared register for popes and municipality, by now the gap between the two was much wider. Luigi Spezzaferro has shown how the political conflicts between Sixtus V — the pope who gave the Curia its current structure of congregations — and the municipal government also found a symbolic expression. According to Spezzaferro, the choice of Sicilian Tomaso Laureti to paint the frescoes in the hall of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, known as the Sala dei Capitani, was intended to be an inoffensive but clear message to the pontiff. Laureti was not liked by Sixtus V and the subjects of the frescoes, executed between 1586 and 1591, were highly significant: episodes from Rome’s republican history, The Justice of Brutus and Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna which showed how important Rome’s republican heritage still was to the municipal government.68 Another highly significant event concerns the placing of papal statues in the Capitol.69 Erecting a bust or statue to one’s prince was a conventional gesture of the time with symbolic spatial connotations expressed through a monument: it was meant to be a token of loyalty and gratitude. Even in Rome during the Renaissance, the city had put up statues of its prince, the pope, especially when the latter sought to entertain good relations with the municipal government. Accordingly, a statue of Leo X had been erected in the Capitol and a solemn prayer was recited in the Medici pope’s honour in 1521. Even the ‘Roman’ Paul III had a statue dedicated to him by the municipal government,70 while a more troubled story surrounds the statue of the austere and warlike Paul IV.71 In November 1585 the Popolus romanus and the senator decided to erect a statue for Sixtus V in the Salone dei Conservatori which was to be placed in front of the statue of Leo X as a substitute of an image of Hercules: the pontiff was to appear seated on a chair adorned by two lions holding two pears in their paws. The lion was the ancient symbol of the Roman people’s majesty, but the lion with a pear 68  Spezzaferro, ‘Sisto V e il Popolo Romano’, pp. 15–20; Tittoni, ‘Gli affreschi del periodo sistino’. Laureti was a pupil of Sebastiano del Piombo and had worked in Bologna. 69  On this topic an indispensable reference is Hager, Die Ehrenstatuen der Päpste; see also Butzek, Die kommunalen Reprasentationsstatuen der Päpste. For papal statutes in other cities of the Church state, see Preimesberger, ‘Visual Ideas of Papal Authority’. 70  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. vi, t. 59, fol. 122r (Memoria dello scultore che fece la statua di Paolo III). 71  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 20 fol. 27r–v (Proposta fatta dal Consiglio per terminare la Statua di Paolo IV, 5 November 1558) and Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 6, fol. 27(Decreto del Consiglio in Sede Vacante per la rimozione della statua dal Campidoglio, 10 September 1559).

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branch was also one of the pope’s own emblems which he had chosen when he was a Franciscan friar and had been appointed Inquisitor of Venice.72 The decision, which had been taken at the beginning of the Pontificate, no longer appeared justifiable at the time of Sixtus V’s death: on 28 August 1590 the Consiglio pubblico decreed that the municipal government would not be erecting any more statues to living popes.73 A similar decree was renewed during the Vacant See of Clement VIII which stated that ‘in the future it will no longer be possible to erect statues of living popes, nor of their families and friends’. As we shall see in the next few pages, the question of papal statues in the Capitol was not definitively resolved, however, a legislative veto by the commune during the reign of an authoritarian and imperious figure such as Sixtus V was a fact of no small importance. The political implications of these symbolic battles need to be made explicit: papal absolutism in Rome did not occupy the field unopposed, but just as in other institutional contexts, in Rome the pre-existing civic structure was quick to defend its jurisdictions and privileges. The urban policies of the Counter-Reformation popes were obviously designed to respond to profound religious and devotional needs, but they also represented a concession to secular, economic necessity and the consequences of this dialectic also affected the project of urban renewal. For example, the great public works project to bring the water from the fountains in Pantano de’ Grifi to Rome were intended to make the elevated areas of the city inhabitable — the Esquiline hill and the Viminal — in relation to the pilgrimage route of the Seven Churches. The municipal government also participated financially in the project, bringing water to the Capitol and obtaining the right to decide ‘where to build fountains and which private parties would be given water concessions’.74 Sixtus V placed a limit on this ‘freedom’ by having papal architect Matteo Bartolini direct the project for the fountain on the hill and he encountered more than a little opposition over this. In the meantime, the architect of the Roman people, Giacomo della Porta, brought water to the rioni of Sant’Angelo and Campitelli — where not coincidentally in the 1580s families belonging to the municipal élite such as the Muti (1585), the Astalli (1587), and the Capizucchi (1587) were building or rebuilding their residences.75 Della Porta also brought water to the Ospedale della Consolazione, a charitable institution that came directly under municipal authority. 72 

Spezzaferro, ‘Sisto V e il Popolo Romano’, p. 19. Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 29, fol. 254r. 74  Bedon, ‘La realizzazione del Campidoglio michelangiolesco’. 75  Lombardi, Roma: Palazzi, Palazzetti, Case. 73 

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Are we then justified in hypothesizing that ‘at the time of its greatest political weakness’ the Capitol was strong enough to impose its own control over its surrounding space and create a kind of Capitoline citadel?76 Or ought we rather to interpret the city’s expansion — directed by the pontiffs towards the newly remodelled districts and also encouraged by considerable incentives77 — as part of a larger process that included even the oldest rioni as candidates for renovation, the first among these being the areas adjoining the Capitol? Whatever the answer may be to these questions, we feel justified in maintaining that between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Roman municipal government continued to represent a political resource, with its own language, that expressed itself according in a variety of areas: the cultural-symbolic, the economic, and, not of least importance, the socio-religious. An event familiar to historians was the canonization of Saint Francesca Romana, which has been studied by Giulia Barone.78 Here is an example of the degree of energy the municipal government could bring to bear in religious-symbolic projects, even if this translated into a financial outlay for themselves. On 15 October 1604, the conservatori and the Prior of the Caporioni argued that in order to find the money to bring to a successful conclusion the canonization of Blessed Francesca, and so as not to alter the old Gabelle, nor impose new ones, it was thought to elect a number of Gentlemen who would engage to perform their offices free of charge and refuse any type of payment, and that twelve thousand scudi would be taken from the wages saved from these activities needed for the said Canonization by selling annuity bonds.79

The initiative was successful and on 20 May 1608 Francesca Romana was proclaimed saint. As the advocate for the urbs she was commemorated every year with the offering of the chalice and the paten which the Camera urbis presented through its magistrates to the churches situated in the areas adjacent to the Capitol or to churches that were dedicated to Roman saints.80 76 

Bedon, ‘La realizzazione del Campidoglio michelangiolesco’, p. 81. The Bull of Sixtus V (13 September 1587) promised an exemption from the confiscation of goods for any criminal offense except that of lèse majesté to anyone who built along the via Felice (via Sistina) and via Pia (via XX Settembre). 78  Barone, ‘La canonizzazione di Francesca Romana’; Barone, ‘Le culte de Françoise Romaine’; see also Caciorgna, ‘Sviluppo cittadino e culto dei santi’. 79  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Consiglio i, t. 21, fol. 133v. 80  It was the senator who went to the church of San Angelo alla Pescheria to make an offering of the chalices: Franzini, Le cose meravigliose della città di Roma. The number of churches honoured by the municipality increased considerably during the course of the seventeenth cen77 

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In August 1638 the body of Saint Francesca Romana was exhumed for exposition: present at the ceremony were the conservatori and caporioni as guarantors of the public character of the religious rite.81 These were events of significance which would appear to support Laurie Nussdorfer’s thesis that, if any civic religion existed in papal Rome, it was the religion of the Roman people.82 For the crucial years of Urban VIII’s long reign, Professor Nussdorfer’s work must be credited with identifying the variety of figures involved in the relationship between the municipal government and the papacy. Here Pope Barberini’s guiding principle was one of symbolic annexation, as may be seen from the very beginning of his reign, in the rite of the possesso, to which he chose to give a Roman and imperial character, according to Agostino Mascardi’s description in Le pompe del Campidoglio.83 Urban VIII’s adoption of romanitas as a form of imperial expression is again shown in his attempt to revive ancient Roman offices for the exclusive appointment of his own family members. One of these was the office of Prefect of Rome which went to Taddeo Barberini, who also appropriated for himself traditional honours reserved for the Roman people.84 But the relationship between pope and municipal government was based mainly on an exchange of mutual favours. A significant example of this was the request by the conservatori to the Consiglio segreto e pubblico in 1635 to derogate from the earlier provisions adopted during the Vacant See of Clement VIII and allow a monument to be erected in the reigning pope’s honour, so as to avoid the risk of ‘steering clear of the rock of adulation only to run up against the worse one of ingratitude, all the more so, since positive law must not depart from the law of nature’.85 A similar offer was made that year to the cardinal-nephew, Francesco, as a sign of gratitude to the Barberini family for the city’s weathering of the plague and the annexation of Urbino. Francesco Barberini declined the homage.86 tury, clearly the result of patronage, but there is as yet no analytical study of this topic. 81  Gigli, Diario romano, pp. 179–81. 82  Nussdorfer, ‘Il “popolo romano” e i papi’, p. 251. 83  Mascardi wrote: ‘Heaven wanted Rome to remain Queen, it moved the throne from the Campidoglio to the Vatican and the Emperor was succeeded by the Pope with a princely power that was wider and stronger […] nor did it lose its ancient virtues by having changed its religion and empire: rather, today it possesses even nobler virtues as its aims are worthier’: Mascardi, Le pompe del Campidoglio, p. 27. 84  On Taddeo Barberini’s appointment to the office of prefect, see Visceglia, La città rituale, pp. 147–52. 85  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 13, fol. 113r. 86  Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. i, t. 13, fol. 123r.

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And yet municipal culture also persisted on into the Barberini age confined within the context of an unequal relationship and by a thick web of cliental transactions. The well known diarist Giacinto Gigli was certainly one of the Barberini’s clients and yet he also happened to be a municipal official, several times caporione between 1631 and 1644 and three times Prior of Rome.87 Perhaps it was as a response to the decision taken by the Campidoglio in December 1640 to put up a marble tablet of the Fasti consulares Capitolini in the Palazzo dei Conservatori containing a list of the elite members of the conservatori and Priori dei Caporioni that Gigli composed some of his texts on Roman officialdom. One of Gigli’s discourses traces the history of the government of Rome over time and deals at length with the medieval revival of various municipal offices and with the repeated disputes that arose between the popes and the Quirites; these culminate in the conspiracy of Stefano Porcari in the mid-fifteenth century, which, Gigli writes, ‘was the last effort made by the Quirites for Freedom, which it seemed to them they had lost’.88 But he prudently adds that the loss of ancient freedom was compensated by the permanence of authority, by the greatness of the city and by the full extension of the ‘Majesty of Rome’.89 This concept of the urbs’ majesty may be found in many writings of the seventeenth century and finds full expression in the figurative arts of the baroque age.90 It refers to the majesty of Catholic Rome, made great by the universal mission of the papacy.91

87 

Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII, pp. 108–14. Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 130, fol. 123r–v. 89  The expression ‘the Majesty of Rome’ appears several times in the text. Gigli also recalls the 1539 celebrations in Agone, to which we referred above, as ‘very noble celebrations that depicted the Majesty of Rome, but Rome when it was young’ (Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Cred. iv, t. 130, fol. 87r. 90  On the metaphorical use of myth, see Strinati, ‘Decorazioni a carattere mitologico’. 91  On the iconographic tradition of the Church of Rome (a woman holding up the cross and a small round temple, on the model of the ancient round temple revived by Bramante in the Renaissance) from the sixteenth century to its full flowering in the second half of the seventeenth century, see Antinori, La magnificenza e l’utile, pp. 91–102, in which the author shows how important the renovations to the façade and square of Santa Maria della Pace were for Pope Chigi as an architectural allegory for the Church of Rome. On Alexander VII’s programme of urban renewal R. Krautheimer’s study remains an indispensible reference, Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII. 88 

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Conclusion The opposition between ancient Rome, still embodied in the Campidoglio, symbol and site of its memory, and modern Rome, was certainly resolved during the seventeenth century, with the latter engulfing and containing the former.92 The adjective modern used by contemporaries to describe Rome — that is, authors of the seventeenth century — referred to the city of the present age, its space dilated by the works of the popes and crisscrossed by new rectilinear routes, through which visitors from all over Europe now moved in admiration of the triumph of the Roman faith and the extension of her Christian charity.93 An author of the late seventeenth century whose name is associated with apologetic descriptions of ‘pious’ Roman works, Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza, in his description of Roman churches deplored the books of Giusto Lipsio Admiranda sive de Magnitudine romana. He regarded Lipsio’s taste for the ancient as avid curiosity for the ‘ruins of marble’ and the ‘rubbish of columns’, in contrast to his own apologetic view of ‘modern and religious Rome’, a city magnanimous in its beneficence. The Campidoglio — he vehemently affirmed — was not all the symbol of Rome in its role as ‘Head of the World’. Rather, it was a mythological fantasy which fortunately had been cancelled by the sacredness that the site had later assumed. For it was from the Campidoglio’s subterranean grottoes, the prison of Peter, that mankind had been freed from the tyranny of paganism.94 And yet, it would be something of an oversimplification to say that, based on a reading of this literature, the symbolic offensive of the Counter-Reformation first annexed and then cancelled the ‘other Rome’. Not only did the city’s secular and profane system of cultural, literary and figurative references persist, as I have attempted to show, but it became object for a new kind of enquiry that was scholarly and philologically rigorous, through the work of academies, antiquarians and collectors.95 And so, in the early eighteenth century when the Roman commune was on the way to becoming an administrative tool for the central authority, the cultural heritage it represented emerged forcefully in the fields of archaeology and learned local history. Moreover, not all contemporary observers used the adjective modern exclusively to describe a city of churches, monasteries, hospitals, confraternities, colleges, and seminars. In the seventeenth century guidebooks 92 

Labrot, Roma, ‘caput mundi’, p. 271. For an original and innovative reading of the Roman charity system see Groppi, Il welfare prima del welfare. 94  Piazza, La gerarchia cardinalizia, pp. 421–22. 95  See Donato, Accademie romane; Donato, ‘La Capitale au prisme de l’événement’. 93 

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and descriptions, Rome’s villas, palaces, fountains were figures of ‘modernity’ no less than its ‘religious’ buildings or charitable establishments. I shall limit myself to two examples taken from the many works on this topic. An anonymous French author describing Rome between the years 1677 and 1681 focuses all his attention on the city’s linear thoroughfares, along which rise the great Roman palaces. He clearly intends to compare Rome to the Paris of Louis XIV. He is somewhat disappointed by the via Pia: ‘upon entering the street named Strada Pia one first remarks on its beauty, it being the longest and straightest in Rome. It is hardly more than a mile in length, but as there are few houses and it is lined by walls that are used to enclose gardens, we should not place these streets in the rank of those that best show off the majesty of this city’. 96 He also admired long prospect of via Felice which ran from the Pincio to Saint Mary Major, although he judged it to be less beautiful than the rue Richelieu and other streets in the recent neighbourhoods of Paris, but he found especially pleasing the intersection of the Quattro Fontane which had become a meeting place, particularly in the summertime: ‘it is here that one sees a number of people stopping, for hours on end, in close proximity to each other, since the place is not large, their hats in their hands, enjoying the air’.97 No mention is made of the city’s sacredness. For this writer, modern Rome is a place of grand palaces belonging to the aristocratic families, the expression in stone of baroque nepotism, even if the map of the city was still in part an empty grid. To this anonymous Frenchmen, for whom the development of Paris was the measure of ‘modernity’, Rome had all the appearance of ‘a great village dotted with beautiful palaces and magnificent public buildings’.98 In conclusion, I would like to draw attention to a text from the end of the seventeenth century which enjoyed considerable popularity in the eighteenth. In 1693 Pietro Rossino, a native of Pesaro and antiquarian in Rome for the imperial ambassador, Count Lambergh, published the first edition of Il Mercurio errante 96 

‘entrant dans cette rue appellée Strada Pia on y trouve d’abord la beauté, estant la plus longue et la plus droite de Rome. Elle n’a guères moins d’un mille, mais comme il y a peu de maisons et qu’elle n’est formée que par des murailles qui servent de closture à des jardins, aussy ne doit-on pas mettre ces rues au rang de celles qui font voir de plus la majesté de cette ville’: Specchio di Roma barocca, ed. by Connors and Rice, p. 127. 97  ‘c’est là qu’on voit plusieurs gens assez voisins les uns aux autres, le lieu n’estant pas grand, qui le chapeau à la main s’ y arrestent des heures entières pour y gouster l’air’: Specchio di Roma barocca, ed. by Connors and Rice, pp. 128–29. 98  ‘un grandissime village semé de beaux palais et des magniffiques édifices publiques’: Specchio di Roma barocca, ed. by Connors and Rice, p. 37.

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delle grandezze di Roma tanto antiche che moderne. In this work chapters describing modern Rome (the first two) are juxtaposed with descriptions of the ancient city (the third chapter deals with ‘ancient things that can still be seen today’). Modern Rome is the city of public palaces — the Campidoglio, the Vatican, the Quirinal, the Monte di Pietà — and the residences of the great aristocratic families, which because of their size and the internal structure of space also had a public connotation, in addition to gardens and suburban villas. The only processional itineraries the volume mentions are the mounted parade by the ambassador of Spain to offer the Chinea to the pope and the senator’s mounted procession — both of them political rituals. Here is a manner of reading the city and its space quite different from that of Carlo Bartolomeo Piazza. It shows that while the paradigm of the holy city had been proclaimed with renewed vigour between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it never asserted itself as an exclusive identity, but continued to coexist along with a secular and profane image of the city that the popes themselves had contributed to creating.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Città della Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 4835 —— , MS Barb. lat. 4840 Roma, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Consiglio i —— , Cred., i —— , Cred., iv —— , Cred., vi —— , Cred. vii

Primary Sources Altieri, Marco Antonio, ‘Avviso di Marco Antonio Altieri dato all’Illustre Signor Renzo di Cere intorno alla Civiltà, donata in persona del Magnifico Giuliano et alla casa Medici’, in Il teatro del Campidoglio e le feste romane del 1513, ed. by Fabrizio Cruciani (Milano: Polifilo, 1968), pp. 3–20 —— , Li Nuptiali (Roma: Romana, 1873) Calvo, Fabio, Antiquae Urbis Romae cum regionibus simulachrum (Roma: Vicentino, 1527) Il Campidoglio trionfante in occasione della nobilissima cavalcata fatta il 4 novembre 1691 per l’Eccellentissimo Signor Ottavio Riario (Roma: Mascardi, 1691) Frangipani, Mario, Distinta relazione della solenne cavalcata fatta dall’Illustrissimo ed Eccellentissimo Marchese Mario Frangipani Senatore di Roma in occasione del Possesso nel Campidoglio (Roma: Zenobi, 1712) Franzini, Girolamo, Le cose meravigliose della città di Roma con le reliquie e con le indulgentie de dì in dì che sono in tutte le chiese di essa (Venezia: Fontaneto, 1542) Gigli, Giacinto, Diario romano (Roma: Tuminelli, 1958) Jodati, Giovanni, Dialogo che ha fatto il cerchio di Nerone per la perdita delle guglie (Roma: Accolti i Nuovo, 1586) Mascardi, Agostino, Le pompe del Campidoglio per la Santità di Nostro Signore Urbano VIII quando pigliò il possesso (Roma: Zanetti, 1624) ‘De nominibus regionum Urbis Romae, 1220–1227’, in Codice topografico della città di Roma, ed. by Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, 4 vols (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1940–53), iii (1946), 169–73 Ocampo, Florián de, and Ambrogio Morales, La cronica de España, quoted in Thomas J. Dandelet, Spanish Rome, 1500–1700 (Zamora: Juan Picardo, 1541; repr. in part, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 44 Le Palais Farnèse, 3 vols (Roma: École française de Rome, 1980–81) Piazza, Carlo Bartolomeo, La gerarchia cardinalizia (Roma: Bernabò, 1703) Signorili, Niccolò, ‘Descriptio urbis Romae eiusque excellentiae’, in Codice topografico della città di Roma, ed. by Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti, 4 vols (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1940–53), iv (1953), 151–208

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Specchio di Roma barocca: una guida inedita del xvii secolo, ed. by Joseph Connors and Louise Rice (Roma: Elefante, 1991) Torello, Sebastiano, Ordine delle festa celebrate in Roma, per Carnevale, nella Piazza di Agone e in San Pietro, con la dechiaratione e significato delli Carri che vi intervennero e dell’ altri progressi e invenzioni (Roma: [n.p.], 1539)

Secondary Studies Ago, Renata, Economia barocca: mercato e istituzioni a Roma nel Seicento (Roma: Donzelli, 1998) Ait, Ivana, ‘I fiorentini a Roma durante i pontificati di Leone X e Clemente VII’, in Una ‘Gerusalemme’ toscana nello sfondo dei due giubilei: 1500–1525, ed. by Sergio Gensini (Firenze: Sismel, 2004), pp. 31–56 —— , ‘Strade cittadine: atteggiamenti mentali e comportamenti a Roma nel xv secolo’, Studi storici, 32 (1991), 877–88 Antinori, Aloisio, La magnificenza e l’utile: progetto urbano e monarchia papale nella Roma del Seicento (Roma: Gangemi, 2008) Barone, Giulia, ‘La canonizzazione di Francesca Romana (1608): la riproposta di un modello agiografico medievale’, in Finzione e santità tra medioevo ed età moderna, ed. by Gabriella Zarri (Torino: Rosenberg e Sellier, 1991), pp. 264–79 —— , ‘Le culte de Françoise Romaine: un exemple de religion civique?’, in La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne: chrétienté et islam, ed. by André Vauchez (Roma: École française de Rome, 1995), pp. 367–73 Bedon, Anna, ‘La realizzazione del Campidoglio michelangiolesco all’epoca di Sisto V e la situazione urbana della zona Capitolina’, in Il Campidoglio e Sisto V, ed. by Luigi Spezzaferro and Maria Elisa Tittoni (Roma: Segrete, 1991), pp. 76–84 Boiteux, Martine, ‘Carnaval annexé: essai de lecture d’une fête romaine’, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, 32 (1977), 356–80 —— , ‘Parcours rituels romains à l’époque moderne’, in Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (xvie– xixe siècle), ed. by Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice (Roma: École française de Rome, 1997), pp. 27–87 —— , ‘Violences rituelles: juifs et chrétiens dans la Rome pontifical’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-France-Allemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 191–207 Burroughs, Charles, ‘Below the Angel: An Urbanistic Project in the Rome of Pope Nicholas V’, Journal of the Warburg and the Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982), 94–124 Butzek, Monika, Die kommunalen Reprasentationsstatuen der Päpste des 16: Jahrhunderts in Bologna Perugina und Rom (Bad Honnef: Boch und Herchen, 1978) Caciorgna, Maria Teresa, ‘Il districtus Urbis: aspetti e problemi sulla formazione e sull’amministrazione’, in Sulle orme di Jean Coste: Roma e il suo territorio nel tardo medieovo, ed. by Paolo Delogu and Anna Esposito (Roma: Viella, 2009), pp. 85–110 —— , ‘Sviluppo cittadino e culto dei santi nel Lazio medioevale (secoli xii–xv)’, in Santi e culti del Lazio: istituzioni, società, devozioni, ed. by Sofia Boesch Gajano and Enzo Petrucci (Roma: Miscellanea della Società romana di storia patria, 2000), pp. 327–67

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Camerano, Alessandra, ‘La restaurazione cinquecentesca della romanitas, identità e giochi di potere fra Curia e Campidoglio’, in Gruppi ed identità sociali nell’Italia di età moderna: percorsi di ricerca, ed. by Biagio Salvemini (Roma: Edipuglia, 1998), pp. 29–79 Casini, Matteo, I gesti del principe: la festa politica a Firenze e Venezia in età rinascimentale (Venezia: Marsilio, 1996) Chittolini, Giorgio, ‘Alcune ragioni per un convegno’, in Roma capitale (1447–1527), ed. by Sergio Gensini (Pisa: Pacini, 1994), pp. 1–14 Cruciani, Fabrizio, Teatro nel rinascimento Roma, 1450–1550 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1983) —— , ed., Il teatro del Campidoglio e le feste romane del 1513 (Milano: Polifilo, 1968) Donato, Maria Pia, Accademie romane: una storia sociale (1671–1824) (Napoli: Scientifiche italiane, 2000) —— , ‘La Capitale au prisme de l’événement: les concours des arts à Rome au xviiie siècle’, in Capitales européennes et rayonnement culturel, xviiie–xxe siècle, ed. by Christophe Charle (Paris: Rue d’Ulm, 2004), pp. 97–111 Esposito, Anna, ‘Der römische Karneval in Mittelalter und Renaissance’, in FastnachtKarneval im europäischen Vergleich, ed. by Michael Matheus (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999), pp. 11–30 Fagiolo, Marcello, ‘La Roma di Sisto V: le matrici del policentrismo’, Psichon, 8–9 (1976), 24–40 Fantoni, Marcello, Il potere dello spazio: principi e città nei secoli xv–xvii (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002) Forcella, Vincenzo, Tornei e giostre e feste carnevalesche in Roma sotto Paolo III (Roma: Artigianelli, 1885) Fosi, Irene, La giustizia del papa: sudditi e tribunali nello Stato Pontificio in età moderna (Roma: Laterza, 2007) —— , ‘“Parcere subiectis, debellare superbos”: l’immagine della giustizia nelle cerimonie di possesso a Roma e nelle legazioni dello Stato Pontificio nel Pontificio’, in Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (xvie–xixe siècle), ed. by Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice (Roma: École française de Rome, 1997), pp. 89–115 Franceschini, Michele, ‘I Conservatori della Camera Urbis: storia di un’istituzione’, in Il Palazzo dei Conservatori e il Palazzo Nuovo in Campidoglio, ed. by Maria Elisa Tittoni (Pisa: Pacini, 1996), pp. 19–27 ——–, ‘La Magistratura Capitolina e la tutela delle antichità di Roma nel xvi secolo’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 109 (1986), 141–50 —— , ‘Il tribunale del Senatore’, in La facciata del palazzo Senatorio in Campidoglio: momenti di storia urbana di Roma, ed. by Maria Luisa Tittoni (Pisa: Pacini, 1994), pp. 29–37 Gallavotti-Cavallero, Daniela, Rione xxi: San Saba, in Guide rionali di Roma, 21 vols (Roma: Palombi, 1974–90), xxi (1989) Ghersi, Luciano Finocchi, ‘Le residenze dei Colonna ai santi Apostoli’, in Alle origini della nuova Roma: Martino V (1417–1431), ed. by Maria Chiabò and others (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992), pp. 61–75 Groppi, Angela, Il welfare prima del welfare: assistenza alla vecchiaia e solidarietà tra generazioni a Roma in età moderna (Roma: Viella 2010)

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Hager, Werner, Die Ehrenstatuen der Päpste (Leipzig: Römische Forschungen der Biblio­ theca Hertziana, 1929) Insolera, Italo, Roma: immagini e realtà dal x al xx secolo (Roma: Laterza, 1980) Krautheimer, R., The Rome of Alexander VII, 1655–1667 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) Labrot, Gerard, Roma ‘caput mundi’: l’immagine barocca della città santa, 1534–1667 (Napoli: Electa, 1997) Lazzerini, Luigi, ‘La Festa d’inverno: violenza civile e violenza rituale nella Pisa Medievale e Moderna’, in Le Destin des rituels: faire corps dans l’espace urbain, Italie-FranceAllemagne, ed. by Gilles Bertrand and Ilaria Taddei (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008), pp. 175–89 Lombardi, Ferruccio, Roma: Palazzi, Palazzetti, Case. Progetto per un inventario, 1200–1870 (Roma: Edilstampa, 1952) Maire Vigueur, Jean-Claude, ‘Arti o rioni? Appunti sulle forme di organizzazione del popolo nel comune romano’, in Studi sulle società e le culture del Medioevo per Girolamo Araldi, ed. by Ludovico Gatto and Paola Supino (Firenze: Giglio, 2002), pp. 327–40 Menniti Ippolito, Antonio, I papi al Quirinale: il sovrano pontefice e la ricerca di una residenza (Roma: Viella, 2004) Modigliani, Anna, Mercati, botteghe e spazi di commercio a Roma tra Medioevo ed età Moderna (Roma: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1998) Muir, Edward, Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta and Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) Nanni, Stefania, ‘Des cérémonies pour la “guerre juste”’, in Les Cérémonies extraordinaires du catholicisme baroque, ed. by Bernard Dompier (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2009), pp. 183–206 Nussdorfer, Laurie, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) —— , ‘Il “popolo romano” e i papi: la vita politica della capitale religiosa’, in Storia d’Italia: Annali xvi. Roma, la città del papa: vita civile e religiosa dal giubilieo di Bonifacio VIII al giubileo di papa Wojtyla, ed. by Luigi Fiorani and Adriano Prosperi (Torino: Einaudi, 2000), pp. 239–60 —— , ‘The Vacant See: Ritual and Protest in Early Modern History’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 18 (1987), 173–89 Nuti, Lucia, Ritratti di città: visione e memoria tra Medioevo e Settecento (Venezia: Marsilio, 1996) Palermo, Luciano, Il porto di Roma nel xiv e xv secolo: strutture socio-economiche e statuti (Roma: Centro di Ricerca, 1978) —— , ‘Sviluppo economico e organizzazione degli spazi urbani a Roma nel primo Rinascimento’, in Spazio urbano e organizzazione economica nell’Europa medievale, ed. by Alberto Grohmann (Napoli: Scientifiche Italiane, 1994), pp. 413–35 Pavan, Paola, ‘Dalla renovatio senatus all’unità d’Italia: il percorso di una istituzione’, in La facciata del palazzo Senatorio in Campidoglio: momenti di storia urbana di Roma, ed. by Maria Elisa Tittoni (Pisa: Pacini, 1992), pp. 21–28

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—— , ‘I fondamenti del potere: la legislazione statutaria del Comune di Roma dal xv secolo alla restaurazione’, in Il Comune di Roma: istituzioni locali e potere centrale nella capitale dello Stato Pontificio, ed. by Paola Pavan (= Roma moderna e contemporanea: rivista interdisciplinare di storia, 4 (1996)), 317–35 Pecchiai, Pio, Il Campidoglio nel Cinquecento (Roma: Ruffolo, 1948) Pietrangeli, Carlo, ‘I palazzi capitolini nel Medioevo e i Palazzi Capitolini nel Rina­ scimento’, Capitolium, 39 (1964), 191–98 Preimesberger, Rudolf, ‘Visual Ideas of Papal Authority: The Case of Bologna’, in Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation, ed. by Allan Ellenius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 173–90 Premoli, Beatrice, Ludus carnelevarii: il carnevale a Roma dal secolo xii al secolo xvi (Roma: Guidotti, 1981) Spagnesi, Gianfranco, Roma, la Basilica di San Pietro, il Borgo e la città (Milano: Jaca, 2002) Spezzaferro, Luigi, ‘Sisto V e il Popolo Romano: opere e progetti, ambiguità e conflitti’, in Il Campidoglio e Sisto V, ed. by Luigi Spezzaferro and Maria Elisa Tittoni (Roma: Segrete, 1991), pp. 15–32 Stinger, Charles L., ‘The Campidoglio as the Locus of “Renovatio Imperii” in Renaissance Rome’, in Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy: 1250–1500, ed. by Charles M. Rosenberg (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 135–56 Strinati, Claudio, ‘Decorazioni a carattere mitologico tra fine Cinquecento e grande stagione barocca’, in Dopo Sisto V: la transizione al barocco (Roma: Istituto nazionale di studi Romani, 1997), pp. 212–28 Tittoni, Maria Elisa, ‘Gli affreschi del periodo sistino in Campidoglio: Tommaso Laureti nella Sala dei Capitani’, in Il Campidoglio e Sisto V, ed. by Luigi Spezzaferro and Maria Elisa Tittoni (Roma: Segrete, 1991), pp. 137–40 Verdi, Orietta, ‘Da ufficiali capitolini a commissari apostolici: i maestri di strade e degli edifici di Roma tra xiii e xvi secolo’, in Il Campidoglio e Sisto V, ed. by Luigi Spezzaferro and Maria Luisa Tittoni (Roma: Segrete, 1991), pp. 54–63 Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna (Roma: Viella, 2003) —— , ‘Roma e il giubileo: universalismo e città tra medio evo ed età moderna’, in Città Sante-Città Capitali: il Giubileo nella storia, ed. by Ester Capuzzo (Napoli: Scientifiche Italiane, 2001), pp. 19–53 Westfall, Carroll, The Most Perfect Paradise: Alberti Nicholas V and the Invention of Con­ scious Urban Planning in Rome (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974)

Ritual Form and Urban Space in Early Modern Rome Genevieve Warwick*

Piazza Navona, 1634 For the carnival celebrations of 1634, in honour of the entry of the Prince of

Poland to Rome, Cardinal Antonio Barberini staged a magnificent spectacle in Piazza Navona that was to be the model of the princely baroque festival for centuries to come. The main event was a staged joust between costumed ‘Spaniards’ and ‘Saracens’, to commemorate the great victory of 1492 celebrating the expulsion of the ‘infidel’ from Granada. Official accounts of the entertainments focused as much on the glittering audience as on the spectacles, for the splendid *  Warm thanks are due to Martine Boiteux, Helen Hills, Andrew Hopkins, Tod Marder,

and especially Joseph Connors, for their comments on an earlier draft.

Genevieve Warwick ([email protected]) has focused on three major themes in her research to date: the cultural anthropology of art collecting (The Arts of Collecting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); ‘baroque’ illusionism within contingent fields of ritual and theatre (Bernini: Art as Theatre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012)); and issues of cultural translation in Renaissance painting. She is also the author and editor of Commemorating Poussin: Reception and Interpretation of the Artist with Katie Scott (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, 1500–1800 with Caroline Elam and Christopher Baker (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); Caravaggio: Realism, Rebellion, Reception (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2006); and of articles in the Art Bulletin, Art History, and Studiolo. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Getty Grant Program, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Britain. In 2003 she was invited to be a Distinguished Fellow of the Getty Research Institute. She is currently editor of Art History, the journal of the Association of Art Historians UK, a position which she will hold until 2017. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 297–328 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100777

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dress, jewels, and gold were, in the words of one author, the principal ornament of this ritual occasion. Indeed, the celebrations began with a procession of liveries and coats of arms borne on horseback by attendant noble households. The festivities thus combined the chivalric traditions of Europe’s medieval courtly legacy in the rich colours of heraldry, yet studded with classicizing mythological references, and pastoral performances, wrought in princely materials of silk, silver, and gold. As night fell a great boat circumnavigated the stage, commanded by Bacchus, with sails of taffeta and silver and a column surmounted by a golden crown. Then an orchestra began to play and the piazza echoed with the sound of ‘angelic’ singing voices, a concert delightfully interrupted by a pastoral ballet of dancing shepherds, nymphs, and satyrs making sweet music by the light of thousands of torches. Official reports and diaries described the layout of the piazza for this princely spectacle, reinforced for us by prints of the event (fig. 5). Raised seating made the centre of the piazza into what the sources described as a teatro within the square. With designated spaces for audience and stage this ‘space within a space’ was inset on three sides from the buildings surrounding the piazza, beyond which stood waiting coaches, coachmen, and other attending servants. To the ‘theatre’ itself there were two entrances. These served not only as a means of access for the invited audience but as stage entrances for the performers, making the space beyond into a kind of ‘backstage’. On the fourth side of the square where the wooden seating adjoined the buildings temporary balconies were added on to these palaces to form privatized viewing spaces, like theatre boxes, ornamented with coloured canopies and carved wood. Throughout the piazza palace windows were festooned with the draped cloth of the combatants’ colours to form ornamental tassels. These decorations served to integrate the permanent buildings of the square into the ephemeral festival decorations. 1 As a whole, festival form transformed the square’s quotidian appearance into a fictive or ‘imaginary’ space. The term ‘theatre’ with which the sources describe this ceremonial transformation of an urban space is signal. It draws on a widely deployed simile from the period used to denote the deployment of spaces for social, ritual, and theatrical enactments, distinguished from quotidian urbanism by their ephemeral decoration.2 With this in mind it is instructive to compare visual representations of 1 

The event was described in many relazioni, avvisi, and diaries, for example, Vitale Mascardi, Ludovico Bentivoglio, Giulio Arrigucci, and Giacinto Gigli. See Montanelli, Piazza Navona, p. 100; Fagiolo dell’Arco and Carandini, L’effimero barocco, i, 87–90; and Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca, pp. 285–88. 2  The term is abundant in source material for the period. In the secondary literature see

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Figure 5. ‘Saracen’s Joust at Piazza Navona, 25 February, 1634’, Roma, Museo di Roma. c. 1634. Soprintendenza Speciale per il patrimonio storico artistico e etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale per la città di Roma.

the festivities of 1634 with a woodcut illustration of Piazza Navona in Pompilio Totti’s 1638 guidebook to Rome, Ritratto di Roma moderna, or a painting attributed to Johann Wilhelm Baur of the piazza in use as a market square dating to 1630 (figs 6 and 7). While Andrea Sacchi and Filippo Gagliardi’s painted representations of the square as a festive theatre in 1634 depict a rich liveried procession circling the perimeter of the teatro observed by its glittering audience seated under coloured canopies and facades ornamented by draped cloths, Totti’s print Kitao, Circle and Oval in the Square of St Peter’s, pp. 20–26; and Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII.

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and Baur’s painting instead speak to the everyday life of this piazza. The woodcut shows the uneven architectural outline of the square reflecting the piecemeal history of its evolution built upon the remains of an antique stadium, and the drinking trough for horses that marked its centre at that time. Across the Middle Ages and Renaissance the square’s surface remained largely earthen, studded by the fallen stones of Domitian’s ruined stadium and some haphazard building within its shell. Since 1477 Piazza Navona had hosted Rome’s largest daily food market, filled with the tents of market stalls that Baur’s painting illustrates, and the inevitable remaining waste at the close of each day. Thus its workaday appearance into the first half of the seventeenth century was one predicated on the wherewithall of a large food market. The princely festival of 1634 instead cleared the space of its popular, market connotations and saw the erection of wooden scaffolding across the central part of the square to form a stage and seating — a ceremonial teatro. Thus the square was remade, albeit temporarily, through the urban scenographies of courtly festival.3 From among early modern Italy’s myriad forms of ritual life, this paper will treat that of the baroque princely festival. Staged as part of the public life of the city, with its attendant ceremonies, processions, and performances, the early modern festival produced an array of temporary sets, or apparati. Together with rich costumes and other decorations the festival was fabricated from a spectrum of visual cultures. My point of departure is art historical, its objective to trace relations between the ephemeral decorations that ornamented urban spaces for these festive occasions and the permanent construction of Rome’s cityscapes, visible in the architecture, fountains, and monuments of its squares. The analysis rests on an understanding of art historical objects — in this instance architecture, sculpture, urbanism — as the enduring remains of now-lost social relations that we witness also in the surviving historical evidence of festivals. The material remains of these cultural processes are thus ‘entangled objects’, produced and received within dense webs of social and ritual life. Following anthropological analyses this paper further understands ritual as a form of performance, drawn from lived experience yet distinctive for a stylization born of its recurring, rehearsed character.4 This quality of ritual repetition is central to my analysis. It is through its 3 

On Piazza Navona see de Gregori, Piazza Navona prima d’Innocenzo X; Romano and Partini, Piazza Navona; Montanelli, Piazza Navona; Ravaglioli, Piazza Navona Centro di Roma; Romano, Strade e piazze di Roma; San Juan, Rome: A City Out of Print, pp. 187–218; Rowland, ‘“Th’united sense of th’ universe”’; Montanari, ‘A Contemporary Reading of Bernini’s “Maraviglioso Composto”’; Warwick, ‘Pasquinade at Piazza Navona’; and Warwick, ‘Speaking Statues’. 4  Schechner, Between Theatre and Anthropology; Turner, The Anthropology of Performance;

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Figure 6. ‘Piazza Navona, 1638’, in Pompilio Totti, Ritratto di Roma moderna (Roma: Mascardi, 1638), p. 232, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 1638. Reproduced with permission.

Figure 7. Johann Wilhelm Baur (attr.), Piazza Navona, c. 1630, Roma, Museo di Roma. c. 1630. Soprintendenza Speciale per il patrimonio storico artistico e etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale per la città di Roma.

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live reiteration that the ritual act seeds collective memory, and so forges group identities. The early modern princely festival is a particularly dense example of this process. The memory of its festival decoration informed the development of sculptural and architectural ornament so that buildings and monuments themselves became resonant with the recollection of these rituals. This decorative residue of the city’s processional life made of Rome a permanently ceremonial city, its spaces of festive display forged in perpetuity. In this architectural imitation of the princely festival, the material fabric of the city came to resemble the rituals it hosted. This is the twin development I will trace through the example of Piazza Navona. Its baroque development remade the square as a permanent theatre of princely display. It is a commonplace of early modern urbanism to argue for an historic shift in which the ornamental city square became fundamental to city planning and architectural development. If the Renaissance sought to widen and regularize medieval city streets in order to clarify its urban arteries, the early modern period produced the scenographic urban square. Scholars of urbanism see this process as inaugurated in papal Rome.5 These distinctive city squares were sometimes planned in relation to new buildings, but often forged from existing communal spaces within the urban fabric. If these spaces had, prior to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more simply marked the interstices between buildings, or the routes through which people travelled, or the locus of water supplies, food markets, and attendant occasional neighbourhood functions including those of communal ritual, the Baroque remade them as scenes of permanent princely display. As at Piazza Navona (fig. 8), changes in ritual form heralded such scenographic transformations of urban space. Historians of ritual trace a shift across the early modern period in which all ceremonial form was increasingly marked by court cultures’ iterative representation of political absolutism. 6 This paper Schechner, Performance Theory. See also Severi and Houseman, Naven, or, the Other Self; Schieffelin, ‘Problematizing Performance’; Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power. 5  On Rome’s early modern urban development, see especially Romano, Strade e piazze di Roma; Salerno, Spezzaferro, and Tafuri, Via Giulia; Ackerman, ‘The Planning of Renaissance Rome’; Krautheimer, Roma Alessandrina; Ingersoll, ‘The Ritual Use of Public Space’; Frommel, ‘Papal Policy’; Connors, ‘Alliance and Enmity’; Mignot, ‘Urban Transformations’; Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance; Antinori, La magnificenza e l’utile. For general histories of the city square, see Zucker, Town and Square, and Webb, The City Square. 6  Notably, Cérémonial et rituel, ed. by Visceglia and Brice; Visceglia, La città rituale; a succession of articles by Martine Boiteux, especially Boiteux, ‘Espace urbain, pratiques rituelles, parcours symboliques’, Boiteux, ‘Barocco e commemorazione’, Boiteux, ‘Le Bernin, les fêtes

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Figure 8. ‘Piazza Navona, Rome’. Photograph courtesy of Photo SCALA Archives.

argues that the ever more ‘staged’ ritual form of an absolutist politics reinvented and renewed urban space in its image. The spectacle of the princely festival produced the baroque scenographic city square as the permanent ‘stageset’ for its display. The argument thus depends on an understanding of ceremony as no mere illustration of political power but as an instrument of its force. What is under consideration here is a princely ‘imaginary’ of absolutist power in its visual manifestations, as distinct from the messier landscape of its political realities, although I also argue for the efficacy of these representations in effecting change to the ligaments of power. Thus my concern is with the tandem development of ritual et l’architecture éphémère’, Boiteux, ‘Il possesso: la presa di potere del Sovrano Pontefice’, and Boiteux, ‘Linguaggio figurativo’; and Torniai, ‘Il possesso pontificio nel teatro’.

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form and the urban square as linked visual manifestations of papal absolutism in early modern Rome.7 In his book La Production de l’espace of 1974 Henri Lefebvre argued that each culture offers to history its own particular space. This space is historically distinctive because it crystallizes the social relations of its own production. Thus the buildings, monuments, and works of art integral to the articulation of that space as a signifying field develop in relation to the cultural imperatives that produced it.8 Building on Lefebvre’s thesis as it has developed in the field of cultural geography, and tying it to Lewis Mumford’s classic study of the city as urban form, this paper sketches an outline for the development of the city square in early modern Rome through the example of Piazza Navona.9 Using Lefebvre’s terms, it understands the historical production of the square as a material embodiment of the political ambitions of early modern papal absolutism, also manifest in the parallel transformation of civic ritual from a communal to a princely event.10 The argument thus turns on a convergence between these interrelated yet distinct strands of early modern visual culture: the permanent forms of architecture and sculpture; and the ephemeral arts of ritual decoration. These shared a visual syntax and vocabulary of triumph and amplification able to articulate the politics of early modern princely power. The overarching argument is that processional and festival decorations — arches, floats, performances — often formed the living tissue from which new art, architecture, and urbanism drew in its reinvention of Rome. It rests on Warburg’s conceptualization of ritual, festival, and theatrical performance as ‘intermediary forms’, stylized representations of lived experience from which works of art drew the force of their artful naturalism.11 We may understand this as a process of translation, from ritual action into art, heightened by medial exchanges between ephemeral decoration and permanent works of architecture, 7 

See Perry Anderson’s history of early modern political absolutism, Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State; and The Princely Courts of Europe, ed. by Adamson. See Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, and Giesey, Rulership in France, on early modern political theories of divine right rule. See Prodi, The Papal Prince, trans. by Haskins, on the political representation of early modern papal power and, most recently, Antinori, La magnificenza e l’utile. 8  Lefebvre, The Production of Space. See the productive critiques of Lefebvre by cultural geographers Harvey and Soja, Postmodern Geographies and Rose, Feminism and Geography. 9  Mumford, The City in History; Kostof, The City Assembled. 10  My analysis draws on Mitchell, ‘Imperial Landscape’; as well as the political critique of landscape painting inaugurated by Solkin, Richard Wilson. See also Fantoni, Il potere dello spazio, and The Politics of Space, ed. by Fantoni, Gorse, and Smuts. 11  Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, trans. by Britt.

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sculpture and painting. Set within a larger narrative of Rome’s city squares, Piazza Navona is exemplary in the parallels that may be drawn between an evolving early modern history of ritual, and a corresponding transformation of urban space. Early modern Rome’s urban development thus embodied in perpetuity the ritual histories out of which it grew. To argue for the scenographic city square as a Lefebvrian space distinctive to the seventeenth century is to understand baroque space in terms of illusion, its urbanism as a cultural ‘imaginary’ of princely power. The prevalence of perspectival renderings of urban squares in court theatre scenographies of the period constitutes a further manifestation in visual form of the ‘ennobled city’ core to its political tracts on civic utopias.12 Thus the analysis hinges on an understanding of ritual, like scenography, as an ephemeral fusion of lived and imagined experience: the ways in which ceremony may make those cultural ‘imaginaries’ that drive it appear temporarily ‘real’.13 Finally, the paper argues for the potency of visual cultures, both ritual and artistic, in reinventing the identities of early modern Rome’s urban space.

Piazza Navona, 1651 On 12 June 1651 Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona opened to the Roman public.14 The new fountain marked the highpoint of the Pamphili pope Innocent X’s transformation of this space from an earthen market square into a visual manifestation of princely power. From the inception of his reign in 1644 Innocent sought to increase water supplies to generate sufficient power for a monumental decorative fountain. To crown it he transported across Rome an ancient Egyptian obelisk, whose pinnacle he would ornament with the emblem of his own family crest, the Pamphili dove.15 He would later refashion the existing sixteenth-century basin fountain at the southern end of the piazza into a work of sculpture, also by Bernini. These monumental sculpture-fountains 12 

See especially Povoledo, ‘Spazio scenico’, and Zorzi, ‘Il teatro e il principe’. See the landmark in Geertz, ‘Religion as a Cultural System’. 14  On Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, see especially Fraschetti, Il Bernini, pp. 179–206; Preimesberger, ‘Obeliscus Pamphilius’; Wittkower, Bernini, the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, pp. 268–70; Harris, ‘Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain as Permanent Theatre’; Rowland, ‘“Th’united sense of th’ universe”’; Fehrenbach, Compendia mundi. On its poetic reception, see especially Huse, ‘La Fontaine des fleuves du Bernin’ and Montanari, ‘A Contemporary Reading of Bernini’s “Maraviglioso Composto”’. 15  On the interest in obelisks in early modern Rome, see Iversen, Obelisks in Exile, i: The Obelisks of Rome, and Obelisk, ed. by Curran and Grafton. 13 

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were in keeping with broader urban developments from the late sixteenth century instigated by successive pontiffs that dotted Rome’s squares with decorative fountains and obelisks to mark those city sites of a heightened significance to the Church. Equally, Innocent pushed forward paving Piazza Navona, at the same time expanding and regularizing its outline to produce an unbroken rim of buildings along its perimeter. Finally, he expanded his extant family palace to flank the west side of the piazza and to include the existing church of Sant’ Agnese within its fabric.16 On its completion the Este agent in Rome described the square as ‘fit for a prince […] this square is now kept like a teatro’.17 In so doing he conjoined the square’s redevelopment with the ephemeral forms of princely festival decoration, seeing its permanent urban transformation through the cultural memory of ritual scenographies. It illustrates a contemporary understanding of papal ceremonial as presaging, even constructing, Rome’s urban development. Like the Este agent, architectural historians have noted how extensively the language of architectural ornament drew on the memory of festival decoration across early modern Italy. Manfredo Tafuri has traced the iteration of festival forms in Italian palace architecture of the period, with a decorative vocabulary structured by the recollection of the temporary balconies, hangings and swags erected for festive celebrations.18 More specifically scholars of Bernini’s architecture have argued that both his monumental projects such as the colonnade for the square of St Peter’s and his interior decorations like the redressing of Santa Maria del Popolo owe a debt to his work on festival decorations.19 Conversely the historian of early modern Italian theatre, Ludovico Zorzi, has uncovered a visual language shared between early modern urbanism and theatre stage sets, which were largely perspectival renderings of cityscapes.20 In doing so he, like Tafuri, pointed to the role of festival decoration as an ‘intermediary form’ in Warburg’s sense of the term. An early modern court culture’s ceaseless quest for surprise and novelty in its festive forms made the festival artist’s workshop into a ‘technical laboratory’ for baroque visual experiments, in Giuliano Briganti’s phrase. In his study of Pietro da Cortona he analysed the artist’s moves between architecture and decoration to find similarities in technique from one realm to the other, 16 

On the church of St Agnese, see Eimer, La fabbrica di S. Agnese. On Palazzo Pamphili see Leone, Palazzo Pamphili in Piazza Navona. 17  Modena, Archivio Stato, CD AE Roma, 261, 9 December 1651, cited in Jarrard, Architecture as Performance, p. 174 n. 18. 18  Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance. 19  Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca; Noehles, ‘Teatri per le Quarant’ore e altari barocchi’. 20  Zorzi, ‘Il teatro e il principe’.

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noting also the degree of shared materials between ephemeral products and preparatory works for permanent art. More broadly Briganti understood the relationship between urban development and the work of the festival as formative, seeing in the ephemeral this culture’s modal means, a connecting tissue between its various visual manifestations.21 Maria Antonietta Visceglia has defined early modern Rome as a ‘ritual city’, which suggests that its material fabrication was constructed around processional routes and inflected by this ceremonial practice. Lewis Mumford, too, recognized baroque urbanism as a translation of ritual practice into built form.22 Moreover, it is a staple of Bernini scholarship to analyse many of his major monuments as permanent embodiments of ephemeral decorative traditions — the Baldacchin, the Cathedra petri, and as I argue here, the Fountain of the Four Rivers.23 Bernini’s deep involvement with festival decoration stretched across his career, to include at least thirty engagements from the 1620s to the 1650s. These included apparati for Quarant’ore decorations in church displays; princely funeral corteges and catafalques; papal-sponsored diplomatic celebrations for royal births of the French and Spanish crown; and entrance ceremonies for visiting sovereigns, notably those for Queen Christina of Sweden in 1655.24 André Chastel has described the temporary space of the festival as a lieu imaginaire, able to transform everyday buildings, quotidian city streets, and squares into imagined realms of myth, fable, distant times and places by means of its art.25 Over the early modern period the civic festival’s social ‘imaginary’ increasingly became that of the prince and his court. As Visceglia and Martine Boiteux among others have argued, Italian festival forms across the longue durée of historical change evolved out of a medieval construction as a manifestation of communitas to a growing orchestration as projections of princely power and court culture. Visceglia has pointed to the increasing ‘theatricalization’ of baroque ceremony, intimating its growing deployment as ‘spectacle’ in the sense of court entertainments staged for an urban audience and in the public sphere, yet with progres21 

Briganti, Pietro da Cortona. Visceglia, La città rituale; Mumford, The City in History, pp. 344–409. 23  On the Baldachin and the Cathedra Petri at St  Peter’s, see Lavin, Bernini and the Crossing of St Peter’s; Lavin, Visible Spirit, i, 62–183, and 480–95; Kirwin, Powers Matchless; Dombrowski, Dal trionfo all’amore; Schütze, ‘“Urbano inalza Pietro”’; ‘La cathedra Petri’, ed. by Coliva and Fagiolo; ‘“Werke als Kalküle ihres Wirkungsanspruchs”’, ed. by Satzinger and Schütze. 24  Fagiolo dell’Arco and Carandini, L’effimero barocco. 25  Chastel, ‘Les Lieux de la fête’. 22 

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sively little civic input.26 In this regard it is signal that the joust became a set piece in which the victor of the piece was increasingly predetermined. Similarly, centuries-old displays of heraldry were now tempered by a flood of antique references derived from humanist court cultures. Now imitating court entertainments, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century urban festival became classicizing and courtly in its references, studded with mythological figures and other decorative symbols of antique derivation as at Piazza Navona in 1634. Again, Mumford noted that the urban planners deployed by baroque princes were also their court scenographers, as in the case of Bernini, staging not only the intermezzi of palace entertainments but also the festivals that unfolded in city streets. Through this overlap of spheres, age-old communal festivals now sponsored by the papacy increasingly came to resemble court entertainments. The convergence of forms between stage set, festival apparati, and urbanism was not limited to the realm of materials and techniques but included also the deployment of common representational motifs drawing on Rome’s classical past as a form of visual legitimation of papal power. The classical reference was increasingly arrogated for the prince and the court. Chastel’s lieux des fêtes were in fact those of the everyday city but transfigured all’antica. As Frances Yates has argued this fictive realm of the antique urbs was superimposed on the built, social spaces of the city’s early modern architectural fabric. In the case of Rome, and moreover at Piazza Navona, the fusion between archaeological traces and ephemeral decorations in the form of classical motifs made of the city a kind of ‘memory theatre’ suffused with recollections of antiquity. Through a ritual ‘coming together’ of distant temporalities, papal Rome arrogated to itself the authority of its classical past, turning its antique heritage into lieux de mémoire now made to resonate with princely papal magnificence.27

Innocent X’s possesso, 1644 Of all the classical motifs deployed in festival decorations, the most frequent was the Roman triumphal arch, its ephemeral manifestations echoing those permanent antique arches of the city’s history-marked topography. Festive arches were deployed for ceremonial processions throughout the early modern city: for the 26 

Visceglia, La città rituale; Boiteux, ‘Barocco e commemorazione’, and Boiteux, ‘Le Bernin, les fêtes et l’architecture éphémère’. 27  Yates, ‘Discussion’; Yates, The Art of Memory; Nora, ‘Between Memory and History’; Nora, Realms of Memory. In arguing for an urban ‘imaginary’ I borrow from studies of the literary and filmic urban, in turn dependent on Walter Benjamin’s essays concerned with Paris as an urban dreamscape.

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welcome of foreign princes and dignitaries; but also for the new pope’s cavalcade across Rome to inaugurate his rule over or taking possession of the city, known as the possesso. This conjoining of triumph with festival was an historic development forged by the early modern papacy which would emanate across the courts of Europe. The triumphal arch crystallized in visual, material form the representational politics of early modern absolutism. The transformation of the possesso, once a medieval rite of humility, into a triumph all’antica epitomizes the broader trajectory of papal ritual in this period. Whereas its medieval antecedents represented this journey as a liminal, Bahktinian inversion that anthropologists would recognize as one of reversal, the early modern ritual became a triumphal entry that reified the power of the papacy through an apotheosis of its new incumbent. The post-Tridentine church’s emphasis on representations of triumph as a metaphor for its dominion co-opted the symbols of a Renaissance romanitas founded in the city’s historic remains. These vestiges of triumph in turn directed the references of festival ornament towards the classical past.28 Thus it was for Innocent X in his accession to the papal throne in 1644. His progress from St Peter’s to the Lateran ran along the via papale of his predecessors, yet now modified to encompass Piazza Navona. In this way, the seat of the Pamphili family palace and its adjoining square were brought into the signifying realm of papal legitimation. The cavalcade of the possesso was a ceremony increasingly laden with the history of the antique Roman triumph. The way was marked by ephemeral triumphal arches and other festive decoration of the streets as well as rich ornament to those noble houses along the route. Public sculptures along the way were costumed for the occasion, or accompanied by additional, sculpted effigies rendered from stucco and papier mâché. Throughout the decorations were pervasive figurations of the heraldic dove of the Pamphili crest tied to representations of Noah’s ark, and allegories of Rome Triumphant. These themes were repeated in evening celebrations, above all in the form of fireworks, those early modern set pieces of visual display that illuminated the city’s largest public spaces for several hours.29 Fireworks were usually of allegorical intent and often comprised some degree of narrative, strewn with antique references like the decoration of those ephemeral triumphal arches that also marked the route of papal progress. Extant prints and relazioni reports for 1644 describe these firework scenes or ‘theatres’ of display in different Roman squares, including Piazza Navona. 28  Visceglia, La città rituale. On the motif of triumph see also ‘All the world’s a stage … ’, ed. by Wisch and Munshower, especially Partridge and Starn, ‘Triumphalism and the Sala Regia’. 29  On fireworks see Salatino, Incendiary Art.

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Figure 9. ‘Fireworks, 1644, Mount Ararat’, in Laurentius Banck, Roma triumphans […] (Roma, 1645), Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. 1645. Reproduced with permission.

Here a rock formation representing Mount Ararat was surmounted by Noah’s ark to which a dove, again recalling the Pamphili crest, flew at the close of the display. In Piazza Borghese a firework representation of Rome Triumphant was configured by personifications of the four continents — Europe, Asia, Africa, America — to signify the global reach of papal dominion (figs 9 and 10). Piazza di Spagna hosted another more elaborate rock formation with caverns from which issued forth other animals associated with Pamphili heraldry.30 Scholars of early modern festival prints, as well as of Bernini’s sculpture, have long noted the proximity of motifs between the ritual decoration attending 30 

On the ritual displays attending Innocent’s accession, see Fagiolo dell’Arco and Carandini, L’effimero barocco, i, 131–37; and Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca, pp. 149–51 and pp. 329–37.

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Figure 10. ‘Fireworks, 1644, Four Continents’, in Laurentius Banck, Roma triumphans […], (Roma, 1645), Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. 1645. Reproduced with permission.

Innocent’s accession, and the Fountain of the Four Rivers.31 The base of the fountain is that of a mountainous rock formation pierced by hollows, here cut from rough-hewn white travertine. From these openings a lion and a horse cavort forward to enjoy the waters of the fountain’s pool where other animals both fictive and exotic play — turtles, armadillos, sea serpents. Above the base four colossal river gods recline, festooned with attributes of their varying geographical identities as Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Similarly the base of the obelisk is ornamented with the Pamphili coat of arms including its dove; and a further dove of gilt bronze stands above the obelisk’s pinnacle. The rock, the dove, and the allegories of the four continents all repeat the motifs of firework display in 1644. 31 

Harris, ‘Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain as Permanent Theatre’, p. 491; Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca, pp. 149–66, and pp. 329–37; Fehrenbach, Compendia mundi, p. 95.

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If the representations of the four continents under the reach of the Pamphili may be said to signify the global extent of the pope’s geographical dominion, the placement of an ancient obelisk and four sculptures that recall Rome’s heritage of antique sculpted river gods represents a fusion of temporalities. The obelisk under the Pamphili dove links the mysteries of the Catholic faith to those of Egyptian sun worship manifest in the obelisk’s ray-like form, as well as the archaic powers of nature worship embodied in the figures of the river gods. Thus the firework in Piazza Spagna of Rome Triumphant with personifications of the four continents may be connected to Bernini’s four river gods in a further sense. While the firework was an allegory of triumph, and the fountain took the form of the triumphal arch, they are linked manifestations of the politics of the Church Triumphant, the Catholic Counter-Reform. Following historians of early modern ritual I am arguing that the seventeenth-century Roman festival, staged in the city’s streets and squares and viewed by all comers, deployed the language of antiquity to signify papal authority.32 Of course, motifs of triumph and heraldry are ubiquitous in early modern representations of papal power, generic both to its rituals and its art. Yet these specific iconographic parallels suggest the wealth of festival connotations latent within the fountain. What I wish to pursue however is not the iconographer’s quest for sources, but the convergence between ritual and sculptural form that lies at the fountain’s genesis. Beyond specific motifs that repeat across the realms of ceremonial ornament and the permanent visual arts, what is significant to this essay is their easy confluence, for the fountain’s form was predicated on those of the papal court’s ceremonial decorations. Scholars have also seen in the fountain’s cleft base the form of an arch, linking it to the ephemeral arches of triumphal entries for the possesso as for visiting sovereigns and, by association, with the Roman arches of antiquity. Frank Fehrenbach specifically ties the Four Rivers to the quadripartite Arch of Janus in the Forum Boarium with its longstanding interpretation as a representation of Rome’s rule over all four parts of the world, matched by the four ‘arches’ of Bernini’s cleft rock surmounted by his representation of the four continents. Further, Fehrenbach understands the composition of the fountain’s base as a whole to resemble the form of a revolving festival carousel, those ceremonial equestrian displays that turned around a centre point.33 At the heart of the space, then, the fountain’s seeming rotation recalled the festive processions that turned around the square.

32  33 

Visceglia, La città rituale. Fehrenbach, Compendia mundi, p. 95.

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Jubilee One of the most far-reaching examples of the intertwined fate of urbanism and festival form in early modern Rome was the relationship between the development of its streets and squares on the one hand, and papal jubilees on the other.34 Papal jubilee celebrations, given a renewed vigour by the Tridentine church, brought thousands of pilgrims into Rome and this ritual influx provided a general impetus for urbanism by successive popes. Jubilees served to reinforce the ongoing quest to widen and straighten streets in order to accommodate increased traffic, and to ‘stage’ major papal monuments within their contingent city spaces by means of scenographic urban planning. Within this evermore articulated processional street plan squares and their monuments served as ritual focal points to the progress of pilgrims through the city. Thronging jubilee visitors walked new, straight arteries that cut through the narrow winding medieval routes of the city to ease circulation, particularly between Rome’s seven principal pilgrimage churches. The via Alessandrina, via Giulia, via Leonina, via del Babuino, and the many streets forged by Paul III, named after the sponsoring pope, refigured the city in the image of the papacy.35 All these roads led to monuments rich in ‘memorative’ associations with papal history.36 Open vistas onto new ‘staged’ squares gave the city’s papal monuments a pronounced visibility which the winding streets of the medieval comune had not.37 If the new vistas forged by straight streets beckoned pilgrims on, scenographic squares provided permanent festival settings for ritual worship before key monuments redolent of papal power. Through this urban development of Rome’s streets and public spaces we may map, literally, the effects of ritual action on the cityscape. Thus the ephemeral forms of ritual worked to remake the identity of the urban spaces they touched in perpetuity. This scenographic remaking of Piazza Navona was in keeping with broader historical developments. As with Rome’s streets and squares more generally it came to embody a political ‘imaginary’ of papal absolutism. This was manifest both in the ephemeral displays of ceremony, and in the material fabric of the square. In Lefebvre’s terms, the square articulated a representation of the papacy to its urban publics. Indeed the ‘force’ of the square’s redevelopment was to reify 34  On jubilees see O’Grady, Rome Reshaped; The Art of the Jubilees in Papal Rome, ed. by Rossi and Vuolasto; I giubilei nella storia della Chiesa. 35  See n. 5. 36  Nora, ‘Between Memory and History’. 37  Sennett, The Conscience of the Eye, pp. 150–63; Girouard, Cities and People, pp. 115–36.

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this relationship as one of majesty and awe. Its means were dialectical, including both the fountain’s monumental scale but also the playful delights of its detail translated from conventions of court art and festival into the public realm of the piazza. Like the princely festival, if the message of the Four Rivers was deeply political in intent yet its syntax was ludic and its vocabulary that of artistic illusion. The fountain’s form calls to mind the trionfi, or parade floats of the early modern procession, in addition to its ephemeral triumphal arches, and festival carousels. The porous white travertine intimates the papier mâché of much temporary decoration, used to construct fabricated illusions of rocks, mountains, clouds, city- and landscapes as well as ephemeral sculptures. The reclining river gods are redolent of such effigies, which were commonly grouped in tableau displays in piazzas, or placed on carnival floats, and in the niches of festival arches, as part of their thematic elaboration. The obelisk too was a common ornamental motif within festival, processional and ceremonial decoration, replicated in a gamut of sizes from the diminutive scale of table-top ornament to the colossal. Poetic reception that heralded the fountain’s completion celebrated the delights of its sculptural detail — exquisitely carved clusters of Indian figs; the criss-cross bark and furling leaves of a palm tree; the flared nostrils of a lion; the armadillo’s scales.38 Such floral and animal motifs, playful in their illustration, were ubiquitous to festival ornament and to the decorative art of a court culture. Thus the fountain, in keeping with the redevelopment of the piazza as a stage set display for the Pamphili, purposefully recalled the ephemeral forms of festival decoration and court art not just in its motifs but also in its means. Architectural historians recognize the disposition of festival apparati in the regularized rim of the baroque piazza, and the ephemeral festive decoration of its palaces in the language of architectural ornament. Bernini’s fountain complements and extends this metaphor to remake the square’s centrepiece in the image of a festival teatro. This deployment of the visual languages of the courtly festival in the permanent development of the city square was signal also for its fusion, or confusion, of public and private realms. Played out in the public spaces of the city, yet the festival’s patronage was sovereign. The urban space of its unfolding was above all the public city square, but its genesis lay in the privatized realm of the princely palace, by artists in the service of the court. At the same time, the horizon of the festival’s reception was always that of its multiple ‘publics’: both its princely patronage and its popular spectatorship; its local and international audiences. This reflexive structure impinged upon its genesis such that its anticipated reception became 38 

Lualdi, Descrittione della Fontana Pamphilia, quoted in Huse, ‘La Fontaine des fleuves du Bernin’.

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the cultural fabric of its making. In fact, this merging of public and private interests was core to the historic trajectory of the early modern princely festival, and of urban space alike. Both were parallel manifestations of a shared early modern history, that of the rise of absolutism as its archetypal structure of political power. Historical studies of seventeenth-century Church politics outline the growing encroachment of papal sovereignty over Rome’s medieval communal government, manifest in its reconfiguration of both civic ritual forms and urban spaces.39 If the medieval shape of carnival and other popular festivals comprised much grass-roots activity, early modern papal administrations reworked these events to orchestrate them from above as displays of pontifical sovereignty. The history of the city square is indelibly interwoven with that of its public life. As successive papal administrations remade the public festival in the image of the sovereign, the urban space in which it took place was also reconfigured. Just as we may trace ‘biographies’ of objects, or buildings, so we may also do for city spaces.40 If Piazza Navona was once an ancient imperial stadium, then an open space serving its immediate Roman medieval neighbourhood, its ceremonial role as one of Rome’s largest open spaces would come to dominate its early modern history. As ceremony increasingly revolved around the representation of princely presence, the city square became its space of display. Thus these once-public places became, in representational terms, those of the prince. The concert of visual languages deployed in the square — festival, architectural, sculptural — were those of a court culture, yet configured as if to embody the pope’s dominion. In this respect the form of the princely festival was directly engaged with a theorization of early modern absolutism, in which the figure of the prince was understood to encompass that of the whole political community. Early modern political theory understood the sovereign’s person as a metaphor for the ‘body politic’, engendered through allegiance to its ruler. The work of princely ceremonial was to strengthen these ideological ties. Shifting from a political to an architectural history, the ritual form of the ceremonial city square encompassed these developments. Although receiving vast crowds, yet Piazza Navona had become the forecourt of the Pamphili family’s private palace, situated exactly at the interface of the sovereign’s ‘two bodies’ in which the private persona of the early modern ruler was also the metaphor of the body politic within cultures of absolutism.41 39 

Nussdorfer, ‘The Politics of Space’; Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII. The Social Life of Things, ed. by Appadurai; Waddy, The Seventeenth-Century Roman Palace. 41  Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies; Apostolidès, Le Roi-Machine; Prodi, Il sovrano pontefice. 40 

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Thus, if the lieu de la fête was the public street yet the early modern festival’s visual language was that of the palace. In drawing on ephemeral festival productions for its forms and motifs, Bernini’s fountain was a fabrication of a court art notwithstanding its situation in the public realm of a city square. Like Chastel’s lieu de la fête in which the apparati of festival scenographies remade quotidian city spaces into the imaginary landscapes of a courtly imaginaire, Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain and the accompanying development of the square by the Pamphili effected a parallel transformation of this space in permanent form. Commentators of the day returned repeatedly to what we may call the ‘doubling’ of the fountain’s ‘lure’, its ideal viewing distance(s).42 They noted both the ‘wandering beauties’ of the fountain’s base; and the strong vertical of the obelisk rising in the square as a ‘first line of marvel’.43 Thus they recognized both the arresting first view of the soaring obelisk that could master the dimensions of this vast square; and the wealth of carved detail across the travertine base that worked to draw the viewer around its perimeter in pursuit of its unfolding delights. Close up, the viewer’s specular apprehension of the fountain is that of rotation, of procession around its circumference. If the fountain solicits a circular movement around it this is fitting. The illusion of rotation in the fountain is the mirror of this bodily movement of its audience that makes of it a carousel. In this sense we may understand it as a ritual object, constructed for and by its ceremonial role as a processional turning point in this ‘theatre’-cum-square, now remade as a stage set for the permanent display of Pamphili sovereignty.

Piazza Navona, 1650 If the Four Rivers Fountain may be said to invoke the great princely spectacle of 1634, and Innocent’s 1644 inaugural fetes, it also iterated a further range of festival celebrations played out in the living memory of the square up to and during its fabrication. In 1579 the national Spanish confraternity in Rome was instituted at the church of S. Giacomo on the east side of the square; this brought celebration of the births and deaths of the Spanish ruling house to Piazza Navona. These commemorations of the life rites of a royal family, at once private and popular, epitomize the crux of the ‘king’s two bodies’ and so of the princely festival held in the public domain, the model that was to encroach on all public ceremoni42 

Marin, On Representation. Lualdi, Descrittione della Fontana Pamphilia, cited in Huse, ‘La Fontaine des fleuves du Bernin’, p. 13. 43 

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als under the early modern prince.44 Such festive transformation of the space of the square reached an acme in 1634. Yet this event was itself conjoined to a longer history, for the Spanish victory of 1492 that it commemorated was also celebrated annually in the square at Easter time by the Spanish confraternity. The recurring commemoration by procession of a Renaissance military victory again echoed the antique triumph, those ancient parades of the victorious by chariot through the streets of Rome. With the advent of the Spanish confraternity in Piazza Navona came also an annual ritual procession through the square on the day of Christ’s Resurrection. Subsequent popes were to curb, at times even suspend, these nationalist celebrations because they inflamed Spanish-French party politics within both court and city; but they were revived again by the Pamphili for the jubilee of 1650. The decorative forms for this procession in 1650, designed to enhance the celebrations of that Jubilee Year, were made confluent with the unfolding work of the fountain and the related redevelopment of the square (fig. 11). The Roman diarist Giacinto Gigli described the scene within the square’s teatro, picked out by decorated wooden arches: The company of the Resurrection made solemn procession […] carrying the Holy Sacraments […] together with an image of the Madonna, well and richly adorned […]. Piazza Navona was decorated [for the occasion], as used to be done, and more so. The two fountains [at either end of ] the piazza were enclosed within four walls with very high columns, and above the arches were towers and cupolas that seemed as if made of stone and coloured marble. Hidden within these were stands from which musical choirs sang during the procession. In the middle of the piazza where the obelisk now stands, which was not at the time yet finished, stood a great wooden fence covered with paintings […] and in a straight line from the obelisk running along the middle of the piazza stood other painted obelisks filled with fireworks. The theatre of the piazza was surrounded by arches of painted wood, all filled with lamps, as were all the towers and other ornaments. In front of the obelisk where the Church of S. Agnese now stands was made a beautiful altar with columns and a cornice above painted and gilded, upon which the Holy Sacraments were placed.45

Dominique Barrière’s engraving of this festival shows a figure of the Risen Christ under a wooden baldachin or quadripartite arch ornamented by miniature obelisks and behind this the castellated structure surrounding the Pamphili obelisk 44  The analysis draws on Kantorowicz’s dualism, on which with regard to funerary rituals see Visceglia, La città rituale. 45  Gigli, Diario di Roma, ed. by Barberito, ii, 585–86. For sources on this festival see Fagiolo dell’Arco, La festa barocca, pp. 349–52.

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Figure 11. Dominique Barrière, Piazza Navona, Resurrection parade, 1650, Roma, Museo di Roma. 1650. Soprintendenza Speciale per il patrimonio storico artistico e etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale per la città di Roma.

from which choirs sang to accompany the procession. A row of decorative obelisks-cum-fireworks also marked the centre line of the piazza, echoing the form of the emerging fountain. This was at the same time intended to recall the square’s ancient history, for its archaeology was misread throughout the early modern period as a circus, marked by a central line of mete, rather than the stadium it had in fact been. These ornamental obelisks forged a material fusion of the piazza’s past with the present of the festival, and the future of the fountain to come. Soon the Four Rivers would transform the piazza into an enduring festival teatro, a permanent conjoining of urban development and princely display.

Piazza Navona, post-1651 An early painting of the Four Rivers Fountain attributed to Filippo Gagliardi depicts the monument within the surroundings of the square while also representing a papal cortège in progress around it (fig. 12).46 In the left foreground Bernini is shown mounted on a white horse, his position symmetrical to the depiction of Innocent X within a covered sedan in the lower right corner. The 46 

See the catalogue entry for this painting in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, pp. 380–81, cat. no. 117; and The Triumph of the Baroque, ed. by Millon, p. 449.

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Figure 12. Filippo Gagliardi (attr.), Innocent X viewing the Fountain of the Four Rivers, 1651, Roma, Museo di Roma. 1651. Soprintendenza Speciale per il patrimonio storico artistico e etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale per la città di Roma.

square is viewed frontally, showing the newly renovated Palazzo Pamphili on the right in its original pale blue with ornamental stucco work that survived into the eighteenth century. The fountain by contrast is rendered in three-quarter view which allows depiction of three of the four river gods — Nile in the centre, Rio’s back to the right, and Ganges on the left. The cortège progresses around the fountain in a clockwise direction in order to view the fountain from every aspect, and then to join the artist on its east side. Their circumnavigation coupled with the artist’s rotation of the fountain reflects again the revolving festival carousels that Fehrenbach invoked. This painting forms part of the concerted resignification of the square in the name of the fountain. This is also true of the official poetry produced in celebration of the fountain, the commemorative medals struck, and the papal cortège

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that attended the Four Rivers’ official completion on 12 June 1651, in both its historical and representational forms. Gigli described the official opening of the Four Rivers, and signalled its larger consequences for the daily life of the square: days before the opening of the fountain, Innocent banned the longstanding daily food market from the piazza with immediate effect. Innocent’s edict proclaimed that the piazza was no longer to be cluttered with the ‘impediments’ and rubbish of a market, but to be enjoyed for its beauty, free of vendors and their wares.47 In Gigli’s words, the pope ordered the market out of the piazza in order that it ‘might serve only those travelling by carriage’.48 The inference is a revealing one, for the horse-drawn carriage was a development of the late sixteenth century that quickly established itself as the essential transport of the elite, a social and technological change that had vast consequences for urban architecture and town planning across Europe. The advent of the carriage created a new need for larger spaces both within and without the urban palace, to allow sufficient room for turning. This doubtless charged the Pamphili orchestration of Piazza Navona as an ornamental forecourt to their palace. Carriages were also used in procession, noble families often sending them richly decorated with their crests and liveries to represent them on these ceremonial occasions. Their procession in large numbers required significant open spaces, which Piazza Navona’s scale could accommodate. Gigli’s comment cuts to the heart of the square’s transformation. If it was once Rome’s busiest market square, the Pamphili remade it as one of ceremony and parade. We may see Bernini’s Four Rivers as the decorative manifestation of an absolutist politics of ‘enclosure’, remaking once-‘public’ spaces in the image of the prince. Pierre Nora’s extensive anthology on Les Lieux de mémoire launched a scholarly attention to the places and spaces within which cultural memories might inhere most forcefully. In particular, it brought a new scrutiny to the role of monuments and rituals within structures of collective memory. Nora purposefully drew on Frances Yates’ classic study of the early modern ‘memory theatre’, an investigation into the intellectual history of texts concerned with the art of memory, in tandem with Maurice Halbwach’s work on collective memory, to suggest the role of cultural memory in the ‘invention’ of collective identities. The 47 

Edict of 6 June 1651, Roma, Bibl. Casanatense, Per. Est. 18/7, 1650–55, Bandi e Editti. See Fraschetti, Il Bernini, p. 186 n. 4. 48  ‘per passaggio delle carrozze’: Gigli, Diario di Roma, ed. by Barberito, ii, 631, June 1651. See Lotz, ‘Gli 883 cocchi della Roma del 1594’, for a discussion of carriages in Rome and the consequences for urban development. See also Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII, pp. 15–36.

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Renaissance texts Yates studied conceived of memory in processional terms, as a progress through a building or space marked by fixed moments before objects or places in which specific memories and so cultural identities were seen to crystallize most clearly. Nora translated this mnemonic structure of thought from the realm of the text to a multiplicity of cultural spaces including the material ones of monuments and historic sites. It is significant in this regard that Yates’ texts were not concerned with specific historical buildings as memory theatres but rather with the construction of ficta loca, fictional or imagined places, composites of existing or known edifices constructed within the realm of imagination from the building stones of memory.49 The textual ficta loca finds its spatial parallel in the festival teatro. Gagliardi’s painting of the Four Rivers situates this monument, as I have argued the fountain itself also does, within such an economy of cultural memory. The fountain’s work was circular, functioning as both a mnemonic and commemorative object, to call to mind a cluster of collective memories in order to reify them as a form of cultural identity in imaged form. The memories are those of princely ceremony; the dominant identities those of the pope, his artist, and his entourage — the audience that the painting depicts. The local community the square had once served as a meeting point was, in ideological terms, now incorporated in the political ‘body’ of the sovereign. This replaced the square’s former cultures of communal drinking troughs and market criers, redefining levels of access to the square and with it the collective memories of those labours it displaced. The work of the fountain and the surrounding scenography of the square was to queue this redefinition of cultural access to Piazza Navona.50 The role of the fountain was central to this transformation. Through its artistry it served as a mnemonic of the marvellous, built to resemble and thereby recall those wondrous ephemeral transformations wrought by princely festival scenographies. Viewers marvelled at the pierced rock of the travertine over which the massive weight of the obelisk sat, awed by the artist’s mastery in rendering the apparently impossible: the suspension of an obelisk’s ton weight over a void, as if it were a vision. The river gods’ gestures of wonder and reverence seem to direct, even embody the viewer’s response. If the form recalls the papier mâché confections of festival decorations and parade floats yet the materials confound the association. While obelisks of painted papier mâché might sit above canvas 49  Nora, ‘Between Memory and History’; Yates, The Art of Memory; Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, trans. by Ditter Jr and Ditter. 50  On landscape and forgetting, see Said, ‘Invention, Memory, and Place’. See also Deutsche, Evictions.

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clouds in a festival car, the fountain’s floating granite obelisk both tapped into collective memories of festive artistry, and remade them as an object of wonder, apparently able to defy the limitations of its materials. The technical feat of its weightless weight coupled with its prodigious proportions referenced the pope’s cultural power as patron of this consummate artistry, Bernini’s wondrous skill of illusion. The effects of this marvel were understood as playful and powerful in equal measure. Thus we may read the fountain as a visual metaphor of princely power within political cultures of early modern papal absolutism. In its weightless weight it seemed to embody that effortless mastery of divine-right rule celebrated and extolled in political treatises of the period. The scenographic square in which it stood mirrored and amplified this enduring display of sovereign power. Thus visual cultures, both ephemeral and permanent, produced the baroque city square as the ‘mirror of princes’. The visual arts gave enduring form to the work of ritual action, embodying in perpetuity the collective memories of its ceremonial enactments.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Modena, Archivio di Stato, CD AE Roma, 261 Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense, Per. Est. 18/7, 1650–55 (Bandi e Editti — Edict of 6 June 1651)

Primary Sources ‘La cathedra Petri: superbissima macchina nella tribuna della chiesa di San Pietro’, in Ber­ nini e la Roma di AlessandroVII, ed. by Anna Coliva and Marcello Fagiolo (Milano: Silvana, 1999), pp. 191–207 Gigli, Giacinto, Diario di Roma, ed. by Manlio Barberito, 2 vols (Roma: Colombo, 1994) Lualdi, Michelangelo, Descrittione della Fontana Pamphilia, dove fu gia il Cerchio agonale (Roma: Moneta, 1651) “‘Werke als Kalküle ihres Wirkungsanspruchs”: Die Cathedra Petri und ihr Bedeutungs­ wandel im konfessionellen Zeitalter’, in Sankt Peter in Rom, 1506–2006, ed. by Georg Satzinger and Sebastian Schütze (München: Hirmer, 2008), pp. 405–25

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Salatino, Kevin, Incendiary Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Early Modern Europe (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1997) Salerno, Luigi, Luigi Spezzaferro, and Manfredo Tafuri, Via Giulia: una utopia urbanistica del ’500 (Roma: Staderini, 1973) San Juan, Rose Marie, Rome: A City Out of Print (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001) Schechner, Richard, Between Theatre and Anthropology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985) —— , Performance Theory (London: Routledge, 1988) Schieffelin, Edward L., ‘Problematizing Performance’, in Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, ed. by David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 194–207 Schütze, Sebastian, ‘“Urbano inalza Pietro, e Pietro Urbano” Beobachtungen zu Idee und Gestalt der Ausstattung von New-St. Peter unter Urban VIII’, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 29 (1994), 213–87 Sennett, Richard, The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (London: Faber and Faber, 1991) Severi, Carlo and Michael Houseman, Naven, or, the Other Self: A Relational Approach to Ritual Action (Leiden: Brill, 1998) Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) Solkin, David, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction (London: Tate Gallery, 1982) Tafuri, Manfredo, Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006) Torniai, Paola, ‘Il possesso pontificio nel teatro della Roma barocca: il potere, l’immagine, la meraviglia’, Storia dell’Arte, 58 (1986), 229–46 Turner, Victor, The Anthropology of Performance (New York: PAJ, 1987) Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna (Roma: Viella, 2002) —— , and Catherine Brice, eds, Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (xvie–xixe siècle) (Roma: École française de Rome, 1997) Waddy, Patricia, The Seventeenth-Century Roman Palace: Use and Art of the Plan (Cam­ bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990) Warburg, Aby, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance, trans. by David Britt (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999) Warwick, Genevieve, ‘Pasquinade at Piazza Navona: “Public” Art and Popular Protest in Early Modern Rome’, in Ex marmore: pasquini, pasquinisti, pasquinate nell’Europa moderna, ed. by Chrysa Damianaki, Paolo Procaccioli, and Angelo Romano (Roma: Vecchiarelli, 2006), pp. 355–79 —— , ‘Speaking Statues: Bernini and Pasquino’, in Articulate Objects: Voice, Sculpture and Performance, ed. by Aura Satz and Jon Wood (Berne: Lang, 2009), pp. 29–46 Webb, Michael, The City Square (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990)

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Wisch, Barbara, and Susan Scott Munshower, eds, ‘All the world’s a stage … ’: Art and Pageantry in the Renaissance and Baroque; Triumphal Celebrations and the Rituals of Statecraft, 2 vols (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990) Wittkower, Rudolf, Bernini, the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 4th edn (London: Phaidon, 1997) Yates, Frances, The Art of Memory (London: Routledge, 1972) —— , ‘Discussion’, in Les Fêtes de la Renaissance, ed. by Jean Jacquot, 3 vols (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1956), i, 422 Zorzi, Ludovico, ‘Il teatro e il principe’, in Idee, istituzioni, scienza ed arti nella Firenze dei Medici, ed. by Cesare Vasoli (Firenze: Giunti, 1977), pp. 141–71 Zucker, Paul, Town and Square: From the Agora to the Village Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959)

Symbol of Venice: The Doge in Ritual Andrew Hopkins*

I

f Saint Mark is omnipresent as the symbol of Venice he is also immobile and invisible. His relics remain in the crypt of San Marco, the ducal chapel — successively expanded, thereby enveloping in ever more layers the Evangelist’s last resting place. It was Mark’s neighbour and custodian in the adjacent Palazzo Ducale who was called upon to represent and enact through ritual the Serenissima in his role as the visible sign of Venice. In the early modern period the figure of the doge was further transformed, becoming almost icon like, moving or being moved by his master of ceremonies, in procession in the

*  My thanks go to Fabrizio Ricciardelli for the invitation and his editing of the text. A version of this paper was presented at the study day dedicated to San Marco that I had the pleasure of organizing at Villa I Tatti in Florence when I was a fellow there in 2003–04. For their helpful comments then my thanks to my co-organizer Iain Fenlon, and to Matteo Casini and Bronwen Wilson. Since the completion and consignment of this text to the editors in June 2009, the proceedings of a major conference have been published: Henry Maguire and Robert S. Nelson, eds, San Marco, Byzantium and the Myths of Venice (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Library and Research Centre, 2010). Andrew Hopkins ([email protected]) has been Associate Professor at the Università dell’Aquila since 2004. His books include Santa Maria della Salute: Architecture and Ceremony in Baroque Venice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Italian Architecture from Michelangelo to Borromini (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002); Baldassare Longhena and Venetian Baroque Archiecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012; publ. in Italian as Baldassare Longhena, 1597–1682; Milano: Mondadori Electa, 2006); and Alois Riegl, The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome, ed. and trans. by Andrew Hopkins and Arnold Witte (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2010). He was a Fellow at Harvard University’s Villa I Tatti in Florence, a Paul Mellon Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, a Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and is a Research Fellow of the British School at Rome. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 329–347 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100778

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ceremonial andate ducali, for example — as the living symbol of the Republic. This chapter examines some key moments in the transformation of ducal ritual from the late medieval period to the early modern, focusing first on the doge’s place in San Marco and then on his role in urban processional. Terminating a long-standing late medieval tradition, ducal visibility in San Marco was significantly restricted by Doge Andrea Gritti (1523–38) through his transformations of the chancel in the 1520s and 1530s. Designed and executed by Jacopo Sansovino under Gritti’s direction, the new liturgical furniture meant that the doge no longer regularly appeared in the ceremonial pulpit in the crossing. How can these changes be interpreted? Ten years of reflection on the subject and further research by a group of architectural and music historians have helped clarify a number of issues. Manfredo Tafuri’s monarchical doge imposing himself on various magistracies and imprinting his vision on San Marco and its surrounding spaces has been convincingly confirmed.1 Gritti’s actions can be considered within the larger context of the plethora of ruling figures in early modern Europe who, together with their court advisors, reconfigured their ritual representation as part of the creation of absolutist rule in many states.2 Indeed, under Gritti the ducal image became more regal and dignified, while popular but unseemly ducal ritual was eliminated.3 In a pan-European context, this decision to diminish ducal visibility finds parallels in the mid-sixteenthcentury introduction of Burgundian court ritual that rendered the French king immobile and inaccessible.4 Such a strategy is also confirmed in the limited ceremonial appearances of the Spanish monarch during the liturgy.5 For ducal 1 

‘Renovatio Urbis’, ed. by Tafuri. See also Da Mosto, I dogi di Venezia nella vita pubblica e privata, pp. 235–46; Hopkins, ‘Architecture and Infirmitas’; Casini, I gesti del principe. For the wide range of issues it treats, of fundamental importance is the volume Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation, ed. by Ellenius, that can be usefully paired with the specific recent treatment of Venice by Fenlon, The Ceremonial City. 2  Adamson, ‘The Making of the Ancien-Régime Court’. 3  Muir, ‘Images of Power’, p. 51; Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Still worth citing are the earlier pioneering studies by Fasoli, ‘Nascita di un mito’; Muir, ‘Liturgia e ceremoniale ducale’. As Muir has shown, in 1525 Gritti managed to eliminate what were considered unseemly elements from the popular festival of Giovedì Grasso; Muir, ‘Manifstazioni e cerimonie nella Venezia’, pp. 59–61; Casini, I gesti del principe, p. 279. 4  Apart from Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, now also see Arnade, Realms of Ritual; Court and Civic Society, ed. by Brown and Small. 5  See Hofmann, Das spanische Hofzeremoniell; Elliott, ‘Philip IV of Spain’; RodriguezSalgado, ‘The Court of Philip II of Spain’; Redworth and Checa, ‘The Courts of the Spanish Habsburgs’. In addition, see Nelson, ‘Ritual and Ceremony in the Spanish Royal Chapel’.

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Venice Ottoman ceremonial was always relevant, and the disappearance from view of the sultan in Constantinople during the liturgy is not unlike the withdrawal of the doge. The increasing Ottoman haughtiness that was noted in the 1590s coincided with a similar development in Venice.6 The doge became more like an icon in his ducal chapel, San Marco, and also a more symbolic presence as his new throne, installed in the 1520s, ensconced on which the incumbent remained invisible to all but the highest dignitaries, enshrined him as the living sign of Venice in the carefully staged ritual enactments of ducal ceremony.7 The title of this volume suggests continuity between the late medieval period and the early modern in Italy, and the subtle but sure transformations effected over these centuries in San Marco are exemplary.8 They reveal how the doges Cremades, ‘Monarchic liturgies and the “Hidden King”’, p.  102 describing the context of Philip II’s commission for Leone Leoni’s sculptural work at El Escorial, resulting in the presbytery area of the basilica presenting the image of the king in three ways: 1) his actual presence; 2) his figurative presence in the praying figures (the equivalent of the ducal throne); 3) his funeral presence by way of the mausoleum, which in Venice was banished from San Marco around 1350, as Mark’s relics represented Venice and not any particular doge’s, for which see Pincus, The Tombs of the Doges of Venice, p. 146. 6  Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople, pp. 96, 132, 134, and 142–47, although his views have not gone uncontested. The emperor’s throne, at least in the fourteenth century and possibly earlier, was apparently not in the south aisle, but rather in ‘the south-exedra [which] housed the imperial metatorion […] an oratory opening onto the sanctuary of the church. It was here that the Emperor and his entourage normally attended the liturgy in St. Sophia’. See Majeska, Russian Travellers to Constantinople, pp. 228 and 432. See also Cameron, ‘The Construction of Court Ritual’. For the sultan’s residence and court, see Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, in particular pp. 15–22: ‘Imperial seclusion: The Codification of Court Ceremonial’, and p. 19 noting how Mehmed II initially conformed to the ancient rite of appearing before courtiers during communal meals but then abolished this custom; how the Sultan would only appear in the court of the council on two religious holidays to sit on his throne; that he no longer participated in public ceremonies in the second court and so had a curtained window built so he could watch divan meetings from behind it where he remained unseen. For his increasing haughtiness in the 1590s, something that had begun in the second half of the sixteenth century with the reign of Selim II, see pp. 25–26. 7  See Hopkins, ‘The Influence of Ducal Ceremony’; Casini, I gesti del principe. One issue worth pursuing would be the role of ducal shields or escutcheons in San Marco, first put on permanent display following the death of Marino Morosini in 1253. This practice was abandoned in 1688 when no further additions were made to the sixty shields on display and they were all removed around 1730 because their weight was damaging the fabric of the church; Pincus, The Tombs of the Doges of Venice, p. 56, and p. 196 n. 67. 8  Pincus, The Tombs of the Doges of Venice, p. 11 notes how the ducal aspect of San Marco was enhanced visually and legally in the course of the thirteenth century.

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continued to adapt their liturgy and ceremonial in order to modernize it in the light of contemporary practice elsewhere. Beginning in 1204, after the Sack of Constantinople, the doge’s participation in the mass was elaborated in recognition of his more princely status, and several features of the imperial rite, as it had previously existed, were taken up by the doge in San Marco, probably in imitation of the Eastern emperor.9 As described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his tenth-century De ceremoniis, at Sancta Sophia the Eastern emperor was crowned on the ambo, just as the doge after his election was later presented to the people from the ceremonial bigonzo (pulpit) in the crossing. The emperor on occasion lit candles and placed offerings on the high altar, just as the doge was also involved in the mass, at which he assisted beginning in 1256. He kissed the Gospel before it was read and, flanked by six canons, joined them in reciting the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Agnus and responded to the celebrant. He kept on his hat, the camauro, during mass and genuflected on a special cushion. The doge was also censed and received the kiss of peace from the primicerio. Just as the emperor was commemorated in the liturgy, in 1296 the doge’s name was introduced in the canon of the mass, and he was mentioned in liturgical formulas. In Constantinople after important festival masses the emperor, patriarch, and clergy usually dined together, while in Venice the doge gave banquets after major feast-day masses.10 All these changes increased the ritual presence of the doge in the liturgy and ceremony and, from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, the doge’s visibility on major feast days throughout the year was also ensured by his presence in the bigonzo, although on most other days during the year he sat on his second throne that was located in the San Clemente chapel where the government dignitaries sat.11 So too, the Pala d’Oro (the enamelled high altar of San Marco) was 9 

Constantinus VII Porphyrogenitus, Le Livre des cérémonies, ed. by Vogt. Several impor­tant excerpts are translated in Taft, The Great Entrance, p. 30 n. 76; p. 156 n. 37; and pp. 186, 195, and 396. 10  Demus, The Church of San Marco in Venice, p.  47. On occasions the doge chanted the paternoster in front of the high altar, kissing the altar or the Gospel. For the emperor, see Taft, The Great Entrance, p. 231. Venezia, Bibl. Marciana, MS It. Cl. vii, 1639–7540 (Doge’s Ceremonial of 1590), fols 63r–64r (Pasti Maggiori che fa il Serenissimo Prencipe di Venetia): ‘Nel giorno di San Marco […]. Nel giorno di San Vio […]. Nel giorno dell’Ascensione […]. Nel giorno di Santo Stefano […]. La terza festa di Pasqua […]. La zobia grassa […]. Quando quelli di Muggia portano la regalia […]. Il di di S Gerolamo […]. Il giorno di San Clemente […]. La Vigilia di San Nicolo’. 11  This practice is confirmed in the earliest documents containing liturgical and ceremonial directions, dating from 1308, Betto, Capitolo della basilica di S. Marco, p. 181. This was still current practice as late as 1526 as confirmed in Sanudo, I diarii, xli (1894), 150 (8 April 1526).

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only opened on a specific number of days throughout the year and the icon of the Madonna Nikopeia, San Marco’s most precious, was taken in procession through Venice only on a limited number of annual occasions.12 This is perhaps the best way to read the fewer appearances of the doge in the bigonzo, while most of the time he was present in San Marco but not generally visible, either being accommodated as primus inter pares on his second throne in San Clemente with the rest of the Signoria, or looking into San Marco from the small grilled window giving onto the interior from a contiguous room in the Palazzo Ducale.13 Doge Gritti’s decision in the 1520s to no longer use as his second throne that in San Clemente, but rather use the primicerio’s immediately inside and to the right of the tramezzo, next to the entrance to the presbytery, requires further analysis. Certainly it resulted in the doge being surrounded by his court in a more stately manner, in the new liturgical furnishings created by Sansovino.14 It also meant that the doge remained invisible to the larger public in the nave as before, but his presence became more iconic in that he was permanently represented by the ducal throne: from the nave one could see his ‘presence’ but no longer see ‘him’. What appears curious is that when the doge and Signoria were not present to occupy these new seats, they reverted to the primicerio and canons of San Marco, a switch that demonstrates the primicerio’s function as the doge’s deputy, representing the doge’s ecclesiastical role in Venice as custodian of Mark’s relics.15 For clarification regarding the doge’s second throne now see the important article, Brenk, ‘Arte del potere e la retorica dell’alterità’, pp. 95–96. 12  There are few studies of the symbolic role and status held by the Pala d’Oro and the Nicopeia in San Marco, most research being focused on their materiality: La Pala d’oro, ed. by Hahnloser; Merkel, ‘La Nicopeia costantinopolitana della basilica di San Marco’. 13  It is true that from this less visible throne in the San Clemente chapel the doge was probably viewed by groups of religious and laymen as they processed on occasions in front of him. Recent studies on the concept of sacred space are Ierotopija, ed. by Lidov; Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Coster; Modesti, ‘Recinzioni con colonne nelle chiese veneziane’. Also see Thresholds of the Sacred, ed. by Gerstel, in particular the chapters by Jung, ‘Seeing through Screens’, and Hall, ‘The tramezzo in the Italian Renaissance, Revisited’. See also Trexler, ‘Florentine Religious Experience’. Fortini Brown, ‘Measured Friendship, Calculated Pomp’. 14  Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, i, 55–72; ii, 329–34. The new throne of the doge was constructed of walnut, with gilded columns, a pediment, and an intarsia panel. The panels stolen in the 1950s and then sold at auction were recovered in 2008 and restored to the Basilica. 15  Stringa and Sansovino, Venetia Città Nobilissima, fol. 35 r: ‘Ne giorni, che’l Prencipe in Chiesa non discende, il predetto coro, ov’egli siede con la Signoria, che e il primo chiamato, serve per li Canonici, Sottocanonici, & altri Preti di Chiesa; ma quando vi e il Prencipe vanno

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How important this new location was for the doge can be gleaned from a documentary description of the early seventeenth century which suggests just one of the important additional ritual meanings enacted by these ceremonial transformations. On 3 June 1613, during a ‘Quarant’ore’ exposition of the Holy Sacrament: the church was decorated from the stairs of the choir all the way to the main door in a theatrical manner with silk sheets, and very charming and beautiful upholstered hangings [and] the altar was placed within the entry to the choir […] and created a perspective all the way to the large pilasters.16

The focus here was no longer the high altar or the Pala d’Oro seen beyond the tramezzo in the sanctuary, but rather the temporary altar set within the central opening of the tramezzo, itself set above the raised sanctuary and crypt and reached by a set of stairs. Here the Holy Sacrament was displayed less than a metre from the ducal throne and, as Jacqueline Jung has put it recently, the focus is not so much on the solid structure that encloses or divides than with the spaces its surfaces frame.17 In the centre of San Marco, two adjacent apertures house Christ (the Host) and the doge (his throne). Just as carefully cultivated was the display of the doge in ritual movement following the creation of the post of master of ceremonies, maestro de coro — sive delle cerimonie in San Marco in 1514.18 The role played by Pietro Magnatello, the first master of ceremonies, in the transformation of the presentation of the doge and the renovation of ceremonial space was fundamental because he was responsible for the smooth running of the ducal chapel. His job was especially important given the increasing number of ceremonies and their complexity in what had become almost a daily enterprise involving the coordination of numerous people. The urgency for this new post can be evaluated from the fact that the procurators of San Marco, including the then procurators Andrea Gritti, Marco Bollani and a seder da’lati dell’ Altar grande’. Gritti’s changes anticipate developments regarding Louis XIV set out by Marin, Le Portrait du Roi. Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV; Burke, ‘The Demise of Royal Mythologies’. 16  ‘Essendosi ornato la chiesa dalli scalini del choro fino alla Porta grande a modo d’ theatro con panni di seta, et tapezzarie molto vaghe, et belle […]. L’altare era appogiato alla porta del Choro […] et faceva prospetiva sin alli pilastroni’: Venezia, Collegio Cerimoniale, MS 3, fol. 39v. 17  ‘Specifically, the open doors that faced congregants in the nave and invited them, even if just for a moment, to let their gazes, if not their bodies, move from one space to another across the threshold’: Jung, ‘Seeing through Screens’, p. 186. 18  Venezia, Procuratie di San Marco de Supra, busta 88, processo 195, fasc. 1, fol. 1r–3r.

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Antonio Grimani, decided to instigate this new and separate role with a salary of thirty-four ducats per annum in 1514, a period of austerity following the drastic cutting of salaries at San Marco in 1509 because of the League of Cambrai and the Venetian defeat at the Battle of Agnadello. This specific new post was aimed at ensuring that both ceremony and liturgy were properly executed but, above all, the master of ceremonies was responsible for the presentation of the doge in his public appearances. The maestro di coro was almost always a cappellano of San Marco, or otherwise the parish priest of another church closely linked church, such as San Geminiano or San Basso both of which were under giuspatronato ducale.19 First held by Magnatello, a cappellano of the ducal chapel since at least 1505, in 1514 he was brought specifically from his post at the cathedral of Candia because of his reputed suitability for such a role. Initially the post was exclusively internal to San Marco and at the outset was not concerned with the entries of foreign dignitaries to Venice. From 1523 Magantello, who held the post until 1538, the year of Gritti’s death, when it passed to Antonio Magnatello (perhaps his son, who then presided until 1552), worked hand in hand with Doge Andrea Gritti who dedicated a considerable amount of his energy to reorganizing the logistical arrangements in San Marco as part of his wider and better-known renovatio. One of his aims was to make ducal ceremony more dignified and, just a year after election as doge, Gritti issued a new set of rules for the employees of San Marco. This tightening of discipline continued with further relevant decrees in 1529 and again in 1535, surely the result of close collaboration with the master of ceremonies. The abandonment of the bigonzo occurred quite precisely in early 1530: ‘The doge usually on this day goes into the pergolo with the ambassadors, but he having bad legs, was unable to go and stayed in the choir’.20 Certainly the physical infirmity of Doge Gritti was a major factor in this change as revealed by the documentary sources, but it is also important to discuss the wider implications. Crucially, the doge was better located for his ritual participation in the mass, and was no longer visible from the nave except when entering and leaving the church, thus glimpsed only on occasion, making each appearance more special. His presence was indicated to the people in the nave by the back of the ducal throne. In the first instance, these alterations can be interpreted in terms of relations between the 19 

Cozzi, ‘Del doge e prerogative del primicerio’. See also Cattin, Musica e liturgia a San Marco. Sinding-Larsen, ‘A Walk with Otto Demus’. 20  ‘Ma il Serenissimo hessendo solito in tal zorno andar sul pergolo con li oratori, et lui havendo mal a le gambe, non pote andar et resto in coro’: Sanudo, I diarii, liii (1899), 163 (24 April 1530).

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ducal chapel and the Patriarchal See in Venice. The primicerio of San Marco, its head ecclesiastic, surely agreed to these changes as they shored up his position in the context of the local rivalry between his chaplains and the canons of Castello, the Patriarchal See of Venice. The redefined hierarchy and precedence integral to ceremonial here made a pointed statement about ecclesiastical relations in the city. The primicerio gave up his throne in the front of the choir of San Marco only to take it back again in his role as head of the chapel when the doge either wasn’t in the church or the very few occasions when he still ascended into the pergolo outside the choir. This is exactly what Sanudo tells us in his diary entry of 1526: 24 April 1526. The doge went into the pergolo with all the ambassadors and the sword-carrier; the rest down below in the chapel of S.  Clement and the main chapel. The primicerio sat on the throne of his Serenity as head of the church with the young priests around him.21

Thus the primicerio became the doge’s substitute physically and ceremonially, something increasingly attractive to various primicerii over the course of the sixteenth century because of the continual attempts to reduce the power of the ducal chapel by the Patriarch of Venice. This ongoing battle was exemplified by the attitude of Lorenzo Priuli, patriarch from 1591 to 1600 who, it has been suggested, would have moved heaven and earth to place under his jurisdiction the church of San Marco.22 If there is any doubt about the deliberate use of ceremonial by the government to make political statements about the relations between San Marco and the Patriarchal See, another demonstration was the decision by the collegio (council) in 1561 to insert members of the Cancelleria between the doge and patriarch in procession, thus downgrading the status of the patriarch.23 To prevent further changes to the choir, once the liturgical furniture and other furnishings had been completed, Doge Girolamo Priuli instigated the composition of a ceremonial book from the third and most well-known master of ceremonies, Bartolomeo Bonifacio, whose tenure lasted from 1552 to 1564.24 This great 21 

‘Il Serenissimo andò sul pergolo con li oratori tutti e quelli porta la spada; il resto da basso in capela di San Chimento e in capela granda. El Primicerio sentato in la chariega del Serenissimo come capo di la chiesia e li calonegi atorno’: Sanudo, I diarii, xli, 215 (24 April 1526). 22  ‘il cielo e la terra per ridur sotto la sua giurisdizione patriarcale la chiesa di San Marco’: Lonigo, Sul patronato del doge di Venezia, p. 24. On this see Cozzi, ‘Il giuspatronato del doge du San Marco’, p. 4. 23  Casini, I gesti del principe, p. 166. 24  Moore, ‘Bartolomeo Bonifacio’s Rituum ecclesiasticorum ceremoniale’; Stringa and Sansovino, Venetia Città Nobilissima, fol. 82v, maestro delle ceremonie, ‘Il terzo si chiamava

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undertaking inaugurated a completely different phase in the development of the status and authority of the master of ceremonies, who not only set down and therefore codified all existing ceremonial, but also stabilized to a much greater degree how and when the doge was visible in public. Bonifacio’s volume immediately became authoritative and subsequent masters of ceremony were ordered to: put into execution the Book and Ceremonial of the ecclesiastic rites that was consigned to you at the time of your election […] never altering nor changing any of these sacred rites and ceremonies, these being executed according to and observing the antique ways.25

For safety’s sake, two other copies of Bonifacio’s work were preserved in different places, one in the office of the Procuratori di San Marco de Supra and another in their stronghold. I think, however, that by the 1590s we can identify another phase in the development of the ritual presentation of the doge that fits well into the more urbane and even theatrical culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Venice. Numerous documents mentioning elaborate hangings and tapestries in San Marco that suggest the chapel was becoming increasingly theatre-like, as the document of 1613 cited at the outset demonstrates. Further significant developments in the ritual presentation of the doge took place in the last decade of the sixteenth century, as it was in the 1590s that a personal guide was written by the master of ceremonies for his use as the person responsible for presenting the doge, and indeed, it is written from the point of view of the doge and covers his annual ceremonial duties, where he should sit or stand and what he should wear. This booklet was compiled in the 1590s by Salustio Gnecchi, the cavaliere of the doge and his master of ceremonies, the Master of Ceremonies for Doge Pasquale Cicogna.26

Bartolomeo Bonifacio, che visse sino all’anno 1564. Questi fù quello che compose; e scrisse di suo proprio pugno con molta sua lode il Libro, detto Ceremoniale, che contiene tutte le cerimonie, che usar si sogliono in questa chiesa’. 25  ‘dobbiate nel vostro carico predetto essercitar, et metter in essecutione il Libro, et Cerimoniale delli Riti Ecclesiastici che vi fù consegnato al tempo di detta vostra ellettione […]. Non alterando, ne innovando, niuno di essi riti sacri, et Cerimoniali, quelli esseguendo giusta l’antica conseutudine osservata’: Venezia, Procuratie di San Marco de Supra, busta 88, processo 195, fasc. 1, reg. 139, 26 July 1601, quoted in Moore, Vespers at St. Mark’s, i, 72–73; in addition, see Moore, ‘Bartolomeo Bonifacio’s Rituum ecclesiasticorum ceremoniale’. 26  Cicogna, who was responsible for the aggrandizement of much of the annual ceremonial activity as recorded here, appears to have specifically commissioned this work. See Hopkins, ‘The Influence of Ducal Ceremony’, p. 32.

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In it Gnecchi sets out the ceremonial procedures the doge must perform throughout the year and with this undertaking Gnecchi provided for the doge an important record comparable to the work of Bonifacio. Another insight into the role of the cavaliere of the doge is, however, revealed by Gnecchi’s post-mortem inventory that lists a great deal of valuable clothing and, indeed, just a few years later the master of ceremonies for the San Marco requested a raise in salary from the procurators of the church specifically so that he could be better dressed for his job. So too, much more attention was paid to ducal clothing in this period as Pasquale Cicogna and his wife, the dogaressa, were vested in fabulous golden cloth for their funerals.27 The issue of appropriate attire was something about which Giovanni Stringa, the master of ceremonies at San Marco from 1605 to 1611, would later complain: I, Giovanni Stringa, see […] that the salary of sixty ducats a year […] is to be found wanting in a way that I am unable to barely maintain a wardrobe, of surplices, and other that I need to wear, to appear in a dignified manner in the presence of his Serenity and the Most Excellent Senate, in the church of San Marco and others in the city, during public procession.28

Written by a canon of San Marco, Stringa’s aggiornamento of Francesco Sansovino’s famous guide to the city published in 1604, contains a detailed account of the post, described as: being of great weight and importance […]. He is also responsible for directing all the regular processions […] and all the special processions, that are done by request of the doge, or of the senate for whatever occasion, be it the visit of a prince […] for giving thanks to the Lord for a peace treaty achieved […] and many others, that would take to long to recount. To the choir master in fact behoves ordering every ecclesiastical event that is performed in this church.29 27 

See Il Serenissimo Doge, ed. by Franzoi, pp. 273–82. ‘Vedendo io Zuanne Stringa […] che il salario di ducati 60 all’anno […] si trova molto tenue di modo che non posso con quello à pena mantinermi di vesto, di cotte, et altro, che mi convien portare, per compaser honorevolmente al cospetto di Sua Serenità et dell’Eccellentissimo Senato, cosi in Chiesa di San Marco, come in altre per la Città, nelle publiche processioni’; Fenlon, The Ceremonial City, pp. 81 and 343; Casini, I gesti del principe, p. 151. 29  Venezia, Procuratie di San Marco de Supra, busta 88, processo 195, fasc. 1, fol. 69r, ‘di gran peso et importanza […]. Egli anco ha carico di ordinar tutte le processioni ordinarie […] e tutte le straordinarie, che vengono fatte di commissione del Doge, ò del Senato per qual voglia occasione, come di venuta di qualche Prencipe […] di rendimenti di gratie al Signore per qualche pace seguita […] e di altre molte, che troppo sarei lungo in raccontarle. Al maestro di coro in somma tocca ordinare qual si voglia atto ecclesiastico, che si faccia in questa Chiesa […]’. 28 

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The role of the master of ceremonies was thus fundamental for directing the doge’s participation in liturgy and ceremony, together with coordination of ducal ceremonial elsewhere throughout the city.30 This included not only the Marriage of the Sea, but all the andate ducali, including new ones instigated in 1576 for the church of the Redentore and in 1631 for the church of Santa Maria della Salute as well as those on the vigil and feast of Saint Stephen to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore. These visits were described by the writer Francesco Sansovino in the 1560s: The Prince […] every year makes various progresses to different parts of the city on certain festal days, solemnized either by the rites of the Church, by public decree for perils averted, or as an act of thanksgiving. The palace officials commonly call them triumphal progresses, because, in addition to the fact that the Doge wears all the insignia of the principate, the Signoria turns out in full, i.e. with the additional persons required for these progresses.31

Beginning when the doge and Signoria proceeded from the Palazzo Ducale out onto the piazza, and then by land or water to the designated church for the liturgical functions of the day, from the church visited the group would return in procession to San Marco and attend the liturgical functions within, and then depart for a ducal banquet with the doge as host. It was in these urban contexts beyond the confines of the ducal chapel of San Marco that the authority and status of the doge and his master of ceremonies was less assured, as they also had to take into account the difficult relations with the patriarch of Venice. The collegio of the Republic, on 3 January 1660, decided that: Having to reach a decision regarding what our Illustrious Monsignor Patriarch has set out down in the College concerning the ceremonies that have been performed in the last year in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Castello on the day of the Blessed Lorenzo; it is decided that in all the churches that are to be visited by the Most Serene Prince, and by the Most Serene Signoria, it would be the duty of the Choir Master of the ducal church of San Marco to arrange and direct the ceremonies in the same manner and with the same authority as he does in the said church of San Marco, following the use of the ceremonial because, where the Most Serene Prince or our Signoria are to appear, it is not reasonable, or decorous, or convenient not to follow this.32 30 

Chroscicki, ‘Ceremonial Space’. Fundamental here is Rituale, cerimoniale, etichetta, ed. by Bertelli and Crifò. Also see Il gesto nel rito e nel cerimoniale, ed. by Bertelli; Bertelli, ‘Rex et Sacerdos’. For processions to some other churches, now see Gaier, Facciate sacre a scopo profano, p. 267. 31  Sansovino, Venetia Città Nobilissima et Singolare, ed. by Martinioni, pp. 492–93, quoted in translation in Venice: A Documentary History, ed. by Chambers and Pullan, p. 50. 32  ‘Dovendosi prendere qualche deliberazione quanto espose giù nel Collegio nostro Mon­

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In the newly instigated ducal visits of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the government made a significant effort to protect and enhance the doge’s ceremonial status by acting as the single patron for the two new votive churches of Redentore and Salute, thus rendering these primarily ‘ducal’ churches in which on their feast days their spaces and the urban ceremonial spaces beyond them would be under the direction of the master of ceremonies. This control of urban space was particularly important as most Venetians and visitors to Venice had no access to the official rooms of the Palazzo Ducale and viewing the doge had always been highly circumscribed by ritual. It was thus in public ceremonial enacted in the urban spaces of the city that the doge, flanked by the Signoria and other members of government, appeared as the public symbol of the Serenissima.33 In the Benedictine church of San Giorgio Maggiore, which enjoyed the unique distinction of being visited in two consecutive andate ducali, first on the Vigil and then on the Feast of Saint Stephen, 25 and 26 December, the case can be made that when it was rebuilt by Palladio from 1565, ducal ceremony influenced the design.34 I have argued elsewhere that it seems reasonable to assume that in the old church of longitudinal plan with a nave, two aisles, and three apsidal chapels at the eastern end, when the doge and government members visited S. Giorgio they sat in the monks’ choir and the monks were displaced into the apse behind the high altar. The new building was mostly complete by 1580 when Andrea Palladio died. The most notable innovation, executed only after Palladio’s death in 1580, but probably attributable to him in concept, was the introduction of a retrochoir to house the Benedictine monks.35 Ducal ceremony was most likely a factor in this change as not only the monks would remain in signor Illustrissima Patriarca circa le Cerimonie che sono state praticate l’anno passato nella Patriarcale di Castello nel giorno del Beato Lorenzo; sia preso che in tutte le Chiese che doveranno esser visitate del Serenissimo Prencipe, e dalla Serenissima Signoria sia incombenza del maestro di Coro della Chiesa Ducal di San Marco ordinar e diriger le Cerimonie nella maniera stesso e con la stessa autorità che fà nella detta Chiesa di San Marco, dal uso e cerimonial della quale, dove intervengono il Serenissimo Prencipe ò la Signoria nostra non è di ragione, di decoro, e di convenienza il di partirsi’: Venezia, Procuratie di San Marco de Supra, busta 88, processo 195, fasc. 1, fol. 105r, quoted in Moore, Vespers at St. Mark’s, i, 274, doc. 107; see also Moore, ‘Bartolomeo Bonifacio’s Rituum ecclesiasticorum ceremoniale’. 33  Howard, ‘Ritual Space in Renaissance Venice’; Hopkins, ‘The Influence of Ducal Ceremony’; Moretti, ‘Architectural Spaces for Music’; Fenlon, ‘The Performance of Cori Spezzati’. 34  Cooper, ‘Locus meditandi et orandi’; Guerra, ‘Architettura dell’ascolto’; Guerra, ‘Croce della salvezza’; Hopkins, ‘Ceremony, Singing and Music’; Cooper, ‘Singers and Setting’. 35  Hopkins, ‘The Influence of Ducal Ceremony’. Recent literature on Palladio includes, essays in Palladio, 1508–2008, ed. by Barbieri and Palladio, ed. by Beltramini and Burns.

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their own purpose-built choir throughout the year, and no longer be displaced during the two ducal visits, but the removal of the monumental choir from the nave meant that the space in front of the high altar was left free to accommodate the doge and government members during the feast day when they came to hear mass, thus privileging their status. The doge’s ceremonial book of 1590 describes the two visits, of which the feast day itself is reported here as it describes the ritual participation of the doge in the liturgy: On the day of Saint Stephen […] the monks give the peace to His Serenity, the doge gives in offering a gold zecchino, and at the end of the mass the Most Illustrious Nunzio gives the benediction. When departing the doge goes to ask forgiveness at the altar of Saint Stephen, and then gets into the boat.36

When the Senate commissioned the church of the Redentore in late 1576 as a votive response to the plague Palladio again employed a retrochoir for the monks, and a purpose-built sanctuary for the government that accommodated the permanent seating arrangements for the annual visit by the doge and government members. Because the government financed the building they could insist on the provision of this area for themselves which was redundant on the other 364 days of the year. In a similar act of devotion, the Senate of the Venetian Republic commissioned the church of Santa Maria della Salute in November 1630, because of the plague which was devastating the city. Baldassare Longhena won the competition to design the new building, and he took up Palladio’s tripartite division of the church building, here consisting of a rotonda, a sanctuary to house the doge and Signoria before the high altar, and a retrochoir to house the conventuals in a space separated from the lay congregation. Thus the governmental use of the building involved a direct processional movement from the principal entrance, through the centre of the rotunda and into the sanctuary for the low mass, followed by their exit via the same route. The emphatic longitudinal axis established by the addition of the sanctuary to the centralized rotunda bril36 

‘Il giorno di Santo Stefano […] si va ad udir messa a San Zorzi […] il Padre Abbate con comitiva d’altri Padri processionalmente vengono ad incontrar Sua Serenita, et darli la pace, essendosi anco appresso li Signori Oratori, l’Illustrissimo Nontio prima, et poi dette alcune Orationi l’accompagnano in chiesa, dove Sua Serenita va subito alla sua sedia, et ivi vicino sono quelli delli Illustrissimi Oratori, et doppo quelli delli Magistrati, et quelli che portano la spada presso il Cancellier Grande. Nel dar la pace, che fanno li Padri a Sua Serenita, il Serenissimo li da offerta un Cechin d’oro, et nel fin della messa l’Illustrissimo Nontio da la benedittione, e nel partir si va a tuor la perdonanza all’Altar di Santo Steffano, et poi si monta nelle Piatte’: Venezia, Bibl. Marciana, MS It. Cl. vii, 1639–7540 (Doge’s Ceremonial of 1590), fols 29v–30r.

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liantly expressed this processional movement of the doge and Signoria, depicted by Marco Boschini in his engraving of 1644.37 If it was Palladio who provided the most innovative design to house the doge and Signoria on their visit to another church, it was Longhena’s ambulatory that provided the most original, innovative, and yet historically traditional setting for the rest of the processional group. Aspects of designs for both buildings provide clear evidence of the influence of ducal ceremony on church design in Venice. Change in ducal ritual in Venice occurred over a long period of time, but certain doges and masters of ceremonies, particularly in the sixteenth century, propelled the development of a more monarchical and theatrical ceremonial presence and image of the doge that finds confirmation in many other republics and courts in Europe in the same period. Subtle and not so subtle changes to the liturgy and ceremonial of the ducal chapel in Venice surely seemed momentous when they were instigated but over a much longer period of time what comes through is a picture of great continuity: of a state carefully updating and modifying its image through the ritual presentation of its ruler with the aim of showing to the world the great antiquity and modernity of the Serenissima.

37 

Hopkins, ‘The Influence of Ducal Ceremony’.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Venezia, Archivio di Stato, Collegio Cerimoniale, MS 3 —— , Procuratie di San Marco de Supra, busta 88, processo 195, fasc. 1 Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, MS It. Cl. vii, 1639–7540 (Doge’s Ceremonial of 1590)

Primary Sources Constantinus VII Porphyrogenitus, Le Livre des cérémonies, ed. by Albert Vogt, 2 vols (Paris: Belle Lettres, 1939–40) Sansovino, Francesco, Venetia Città Nobilissima et Singolare, descritta dal Sansovino con nove e copiose aggiunte di D. Giustinian Martinioni, ed. by Giustinian Martinioni (Venezia: Curti, 1663) Sanudo, Marin, I diarii, 58 vols (Venezia: Visentini, 1879–1903) Stringa, Giovanni, and Francesco Sansovino, Venetia Città Nobilissima, et Singolare […] con molta diligenza corretta, emendata, e più d’un terzo di cose nuove ampliata dal M. R. D. Giovanni Stringa, Canonico della Chiesa Ducale di S. Marco (Venezia: Salicato, 1604)

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The Pope as Conqueror: Rites of Possession, Episodes, and Unexpected Events in 1598 Ferrara Giovanni Ricci

I

n Ferrara in the year 1598 a century-old dynasty died out. Power was ‘devolved’ — that is to say, transferred — to another ruler, the Church of Rome. New rulers arrived, and high-ranking guests presented themselves to congratulate them. Concentrated in a few months, a number of solemn entrances followed one another as had not occurred in fifty years of normal times. We will analyse this ritual process both for the value it has in itself, and so as to understand better the cultural outlines of a change in regime that has up to now been seen only from a juridical-political point of view. Due to its chronology and its significant aspects, the event under examination seems almost made to demarcate the official end of the Renaissance. Profane rituals that were either cancelled out or emptied of meaning were replaced by religious rituals of the Tridentine age. At the same time, incidents and unexpected events revealed the inevitable precariousness of every attempt at the ritualization of reality. Giovanni Ricci ([email protected]) is Full Professor of Modern History at the Università di Ferrara. He is the author of the following volumes: Bologna: le città nella storia d’Italia (Roma: Laterza, 1980); Ravenna: le città nella storia d’Italia (Roma: Laterza, 1985); Povertà, vergogna, superbia: i declassati fra Medioevo ed Età moderna (Bologna: Mulino, 1996); Il principe e la morte: corpo, cuore, effigie nel Rinascimento (Bologna: Mulino, 1998); Ossessione turc: in una retrovia cristiana dell’Europa moderna (Bologna: Mulino, 2002; Turkish trans., İstanbul: Kitap Yayinevi, 2005); I giovani, i morti: sfide al Rinascimento (Bologna: Mulino, 2007); I turchi alle porte (Bologna: Mulino, 2008); and Appello al Turco: i confini infranti del Rinascimento (Roma: Viella, 2011). Many of his essays have appeared in conference proceedings and in readings, as well as in such journals as Annales: E.S.C., Historein, Jahrbuch des Italienisch-deutschen Instituts in Trient, Quaderni storici, Società e storia, Storia urbana, Studi veneziani, Schifanoia, Cheiron, and others. Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual, ed. by Samuel Cohn Jr, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, BREPOLS PUBLISHERS (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013) and Fabrizio Ricciardelli, ES 7 pp. 349–364 10.1484/M.ES-EB.1.100779

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The political history of the ‘Devolution of Ferrara’ is well-known.38 With Duke Alfonso II d’Este dead without legitimate heirs, and with the chosen successor, his cousin Cesare excommunicated and forced to cede Ferrara after Venice and France had abandoned him, everything was transformed. The social atmosphere was charged with a new tone, which was no less influential than the institutional innovations that were to come. Local chroniclers and numerous printed booklets celebrated the arrival of the Roman masters: initially Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, the nephew of the pope, and then Pope Clement VIII himself. Other pamphlets described the race of the potentates of the Italian peninsula to pay homage to the victorious pontiff during his stay in Ferrara.39 In some cases the authors were gazette-writers and so their work represented an evolution of the genre of the avvisi;40 in other cases they were members of the court or functionaries. The favourable market also encouraged the production of flysheets for the people. It was one of the first occasions in which a political-diplomatic event was followed by a flow of printed material that in some way brings to mind the present-day phenomenon of instant books. A form of public opinion in embryo found a way to reveal itself, even if with the precautions necessary so as not to irritate the absolutism in power.41 During the high tide of the Renaissance the Estense dukedom had offered itself as an implicit brake against the excessive extension of ecclesiastical power.42 And the clear anti-curialism of Venice had guaranteed it sufficient political cover. Now, with Ferrara conquered by the spiritual and temporal arms of Rome, the Italian states learned to live in conditions of limited sovereignty. The limit was to be found exactly in the ecclesiastical claims. In this era the concept of ‘true Italian faith’43 began to be mentioned, and with this there was the intention to construct an Italian identity that was highly clerical and not very religious. It was not all ritual in the days of the interregnum in Ferrara. There were real episodes of sacking: the exotic animals were stolen from the court menageries; precious plants were uprooted from the ducal gardens; deer in the Este family game 38 

See Barbiche, ‘La Politique de Clément VIII’; Marini, ‘Lo stato estense’; Callegari, ‘La devoluzione di Ferrara alla S. Sede’; Biondi, ‘Ferrara: cronache della caduta’; Masetti Zannini, La capitale perduta. 39  See Mitchell, 1598: A Year of Pageantry; Mitchell, The Majesty of the State, pp. 191–96; Chiappini, ‘Immagini di vita ferrarese’, p. 9; Ricci, I giovani, i morti, pp. 89–122. 40  See Infelise, Prima dei giornali. 41  See McAllister, ‘Essai de critique interne des livrets d’entrées français’. 42  See Gattoni, ‘L’antagonismo pontificio-ferrarese’. 43  See Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza, pp. 17–34.

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reserves were killed. Having been initiated on the orders of Duke Cesare, with the transfer to Modena of works of art and archives, the despoliation of the city was finished once and for all with the transportation of the best pictures to Rome.44 However, in the meantime the ritual gestures survived as well. We can see how the chronicler Claudio Rondoni relates this. Cardinal Aldobrandini45 ‘took possession of the city’ in the name of Clement VIII on 29 January 1598. To be sure there would be no misunderstanding, six thousand armed men went with him. It was the last Thursday of carnival, twenty-four hours after the departure of Cesare d’Este. The moment was both solemn and dramatic at the same time, and singularly intersected with the opportunities associated with carnival that the people of the time were reluctant to deny themselves. After having received the keys of the town from the highest-ranking magistrate, the ‘Judge of the Wise’, the Cardinal was escorted by ‘twenty-two youths dressed in white’ who displayed ‘gold necklaces of great value’. It was Lucrezia d’Este, Duchess of Urbino, who had chosen them personally. Mounted on ‘a mule ornamented in red velvet’, the prelate processed ‘beneath a baldaquin of white taffeta with a fringe of white silk carried by the above-mentioned youths’. All around Cardinal Aldobrandini there were machinery and decorations set up rather in a hurry immediately after Duke Cesare’s departure. Great skill was required to transform the mood of the city immediately from a funereal to a joyous atmosphere, and perhaps not everything had worked to perfection. Having reached the square in front of the cathedral, the cardinal ‘left his mount in the hands of the youths’, and after a brief religious ceremony he headed for the castle. Here everyone was kept outside, with only one significant exception: the youths dressed in white, who, having made reverence to the Cardinal and kissed his hand, were courteously received by him; this action being concluded, they left, leading away with them the mule which they had taken from him before.

From the general climate we have already understood that we are not dealing with an act of insubordination. But the final outcome of the episode is equally surprising. We continue to read the chronicler Rondoni. Four days after the solemn entrance, on 2 February, the Cardinal convoked the twenty-two youths to the castle again and ‘he created them knights’; the nomination was attested by two precious medals that were given to each of them. On the obverse of the medals there 44  See Venturi, ‘Scena e giardini a Ferrara’, pp. 553–54; Emiliani, ‘Il collezionismo ferrarese tra leggenda e realtà’, pp. 31–33. 45  See Fasano Guarini, ‘Aldobrandini, Pietro’.

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was a portrait of the pope; on the reverse there were two figures, ‘one that was receiving some keys from the other, and the recipient holded a whip in his hand with the words, Ferrara recuperata’. We shall return to this iconography. The final gesture towards the youths was the donation of ‘five hundred gold scudi to buy back the mule that they took from the Cardinal when he entered the cathedral’.46 What kind of ceremonial exchange have we witnessed? In Renaissance Italy, young people were considered the custodians of a public ethics all their own; this was a different ethics from that of the states that the adults were constructing, since it was generally egalitarian and communitarian in an age of incipient absolutism. These young people created an uproar and clashed with the world of adults in power. They succeeded in doing this because the title of ‘youth’ placed them on average between twenty and thirty years old.47 They were thus individuals in full possession of their physical capacities and mental vitality while the custom of delayed marriage excused them from family responsibilities. This conflict between youths and adults was singular in revealing the youths as champions of timeless traditions and themselves towards innovation. A conflict within the male world and perhaps associated with a symbolic sexual competition between bachelors and married men.48 In short, in the urban cultures of the time youths figured not so much as a sociological or official or legal category, but rather as a ritual group charged with precise tasks. They were permitted to represent ethical-political needs that were denied to others. In order to express them, one of the languages preferred by the youths was ritualized acts of violence that broke out on predetermined occasions such as the solemn entrances of powerful figures into cities. So it happened that youths stole (or damaged) baldaquins, displays, standards, horses, and harnesses used for the ceremony. By analogy, the reference for the actions would seem to be to the sacred character of the body of the sovereign. There was a desire to enter into contact, perhaps indirectly, with this body in a similar way as happened with the bodies of the saints; the act of sacking took the form of an act of devotion and love. It is, however, possible that other meanings of the violent acts linked to solemn entrances remain to be deciphered: meanings that are more aggressive. As a 46 

Claudio Rondoni, Cronaca, Ferrara, Bibl. Comunale Ariostea, MS Antonelli 250, fols 3v–5r. See also Rodi, La devolutione di Ferrara, ed. by Frongia, pp. 130–33; Elia Minerbi, Memorie di Ferrara dal anno 1412 fino al anno 1607, Ferrara, Bibl. Comunale Ariostea, MS i 759,fol. 80r–v. 47  See Crouzet-Pavan, ‘Un fiore del male’, pp. 211–13; Taddei, Fanciulli e giovani, pp. 13–20. 48  See Ago, ‘La costruzione dell’identità maschile’, pp. 26–28.

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political-religious sign, the torn baldaquin might signify a predefined but direct challenge, and possession of its material fragments might represent the claim to fragments of sovereignty.49 The fact remains that acts of public indiscipline by youths, their transgressions that were tolerated within certain limits, over time entered into conflict with new functions of power. A struggle developed in which the construction of unequivocal formal norms was at stake. From this perspective what occurred in Ferrara during the solemn entrances of the year when power was transferred to Rome can be seen as the final outcome of the gradual process of disciplining of youths. Indeed, not one single detail of the ceremonial sequence we have just witnessed was left to chance; and ideological messages were disseminated everywhere. The cardinal could permit the custom of sacking formally to continue in existence, but only by having emptied it of its original contents. From the first moment the twenty-two players of 1598 are presented in the scene wearing jewels. This novelty announces the fact of their belonging to the higher classes; it tells us in advance that there will be no regrettable fights; it guarantees the abandonment of the right to commit athletic gestures like those of earlier sackers. Indeed it is true that in front of the cathedral the mule is ‘left’ without resistance to the young dandies. In the same way, these receive favourable treatment in the castle and in their turn they behave with bows and the kissing of hands before leaving with the mule. Summoned back later on, they are named knights and showered with gifts. The sum of five hundred gold scudi paid for the ransom of the mule is very high. To be added to this is the value of the precious medals offered. The sixteenth-century Ferrara historiographer, Agostino Faustini, adds other information. His is a voice that is quite reliable, based as it is, not only on direct memory but also on the testimonies of spectators of the events and on consultation of local archives. It is also a voice that is freer than those of the authors of the avvisi and obviously less official than those of the courtiers. Nostalgic for the Este family and no lover of Roman power, Faustini published his work in the papal Ferrara of 1646. This was the era of greatest control over expressions of thought, and for this reason we ask ourselves: did Faustini take advantage of small, localized pockets of toleration? Or did the distraction and stupidity of censors, which have always been the allies of freedom of expression, play in his favour? Just to begin, Faustini supplies us with the name of the person responsible for the theft of the mule: ‘the son of Spagnuolino (a nickname meaning “little 49 

Concerning these aspects a convincing dossier coming from Ferrara and the Este states has already been collected and analysed. See Ricci, I giovani, i morti, pp. 17–38, and pp. 55–70.

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Spaniard”), an honoured merchant’. As soon as the prelate was removed from the mule, the youth ‘got on it at once, leading away, as is customary in similar occasions, the mount and the baldaquin’.50 Socio-professional identity of the protagonist is quite clear: his father belonged to an ‘honoured’ guild of merchants. In early modern Europe the concept of contamination was outlined in the following way: the guilds of textiles, goldsmiths, banking, and some others were honoured, all these being city guilds par excellence; instead, the guilds linked to the rural world or the physiology of living things were lowly, like trade in cereals, animals, hides, meat, or the travelling guilds and those linked with entertainment.51 Research into the identity of the youth does not finish here. The name and profession of his father have possible ethnical-religious implications. It would be tempting to see in ‘Spagnuolino’ one of the Jewish merchants who had found refuge in Ferrara following the expulsion from the Iberian peninsula.52 But perhaps the hypothesis would be rather unconvincing at a time when it was in the interests of the Jews to keep a low profile. Up to then the Jews had enjoyed the protection of the Este dukes, and now they feared a worsening of their condition. The fear was well-founded: in 1624 they were to be enclosed in the ghetto. Nevertheless, this was an ordinary gesture by the young Spagnolino as revealed by Faustini: ‘as is customary in similar occasions’. In harmony with the hierarchical spirit of the times, the baroque state adapted ancient symbolic behaviour to its advantage.53 The blend of caresses and threats sterilized the alterity of youths, relegating them to a social group that was above all concerned with their own elegance. So was everything sweetened and pacified on this day of the entrance of the Cardinal Aldobrandini? On the surface certainly the answer is yes. However, a threat hung over the city: it was that suggested by the iconography of the medals offered to the twenty-two youths. The figure that proffers the keys is probably Ferrara and that which receives them is obviously the pope: and the pope is holding a whip in his hand. That is what the chronicler Claudio Rondoni, who we read above, understands. Being contemporaneous with the events, he is more familiar with this iconographic language than we are. Numismatics experts of today, however, form a different interpretation: the whip might be a censer with which the pope is spraying the personification of Ferrara.54 There is a substantial difference between a whip and a censer: who is right? 50 

Faustini, Aggiunta alle historie del sig. Gasparo Sardi, pp. 146 and 159. See Blok, ‘Mestieri infami’. 52  See Di Leone Leoni, ‘La diplomazia estense’; Segre, ‘La formazione di una comunità marrana’. 53  See Visceglia, ‘Riti, simboli, cerimonie tra Rinascimento e Barocco’. 54  See Morelli, ‘I procedimenti di conizione e le monete’, pp. 191–94. 51 

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Certainly, the so-called censer is quite unusual in its dimensions and features and rather resembles a cat-of-nine-tails. But let us suppose that the engraver really did want to represent a censer. In this case the mistaken interpretation by the chronicler remains and requires a little further analysis. We are aware that in the transmission of manuscripts the process of misinterpretation often begins with an oversimplified reading, induced by reasons of ‘mental economy’; and we know that the errors of copyists which textual criticism investigates can often be defined as lapsus. Faced with iconographic items a not greatly dissimilar mechanism is involved.55 In the context of the events we are describing it might have been more ‘economical’ to think of a whip than of a censer. But perhaps there is no need even to disturb the psychoanalysis. But in the Ferrara of 1598 the whip and the censer ended up being the same thing: the secular arm and the spiritual arm tended to coincide. Now everything converged on the act of taking possession of the city by Pope Clement VIII. During the journey from Rome to Ferrara it does not seem that there were any incidents. In a short time a pamphlet had been printed that laid down the ceremonies with which the pope was to be received.56 It was a text of regulations for the lay and religious authorities, all of whom were graced with a plenary indulgence if they organized the entrance ceremonies well. But it was also a narrative text that was interesting in itself, seeing that this kind of move on the part of the Pope did not occur often. Wherever the cortege made a stop in real cities, groups of youths always presented themselves in full dress; their service was always impeccably respectful. We are informed about all this by another anonymous avviso. It is so similar, word for word, to the manuscript report by the Ferrara chronicler, Filippo Rodi,57 that it seems logical to assume that the author is the same, that is to say, Rodi. Nevertheless, the avviso adds details that are significant for us. In Ancona, which was the most important of the cities that the procession passed through, an organized sack of foodstuffs and precious objects took place. In the Palazzo Vescovile they laid ‘three tables in the courtyard for dinner for equerries and Swiss guards; these tables, besides being full of foods, were enriched with small golden statues and with many types of sweetmeats’.58 The 55  See Timpanaro, Il lapsus freudiano, pp. 9–38, and pp. 135–41; Niccoli, ‘Le testimonianze figurate’, pp. 1104–06. 56  Ordine et cerimonie della paretenza del sant.mo Sacramento di Roma. See Gardi, ‘La nascita di una Legazione’, pp. 71–76. 57  Rodi, La devolutione di Ferrara, ed. by Frongia, pp. 146–52. 58  Felicissima entrata di N. S. Clemente, without pagination.

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pope admired and ‘took great pleasure in seeing the attack that was made on it’. The phraseology is warlike (‘attack’), but we are not dealing with anything more than a scramble between young servants and mercenaries to grab the sweets and the presents. And now we find ourselves in Ferrara on 8 May; the chronicler Rodi observes and records. As soon as he had passed through the walls, Clement VIII put on his pontifical robes and got on to the formal throne. Magistrates, ambassadors, and some twenty-seven cardinals escorted him. If for the entrance of Cardinal Aldobrandini the triumphal arches were dedicated to abstract qualities such as Glory, Immortality, or Happiness, now they were inspired by more concrete requirements: for example, the task of making the branches of the river Po, that passed close by the city, navigable once more. Around the pontiff there were ‘thirty noble pages’, dressed up in costumes and jewels ‘made at the expense of each’. They were high-ranking youths who could spend. This is confirmed by the list of their high-sounding surnames: Cybo, Strozzi, Bevilacqua, Romei, Sacrati, Tassoni, Riminaldi, Cati, Trotti.59 No sooner had the pope ventured into the streets when his treasurer ‘began to throw coins to the people in all corners of the streets where His Holiness passed by’. A highly hierarchical gesture, in emulation of the customs of the ancient emperors, the triumphant largesse transformed the bystanders into riotous competitors against each other; it rendered them sackers, in a certain way, but of a gift thrown to them as charity; it assimilated them with the papal employees who had struggled with each other in the Palazzo Vescovile in Ancona. Always at the mercy of financial difficulties, the Este dukes had made little use of this largesse. But the new ecclesiastical power which enjoyed much greater resources, could allow itself both to threaten with the whip/censer and to show generosity with money. Already, when Aldobrandini took possession of the city, coins had been thrown from the balcony of the Cathedral.60 Now we have indeed a special coin dedicated to the ‘recovery’ of the city. Expert in inventing traditions,61 the ancien régime peddles every novelty for the restoration of a pre-existing right. In this case, the advance of the Papal State up to the line of the River Po becomes the recovery of a city belonging to Rome by virtue of the Donation of Constantine. As far as we are aware, there remains one single iconographic testimony to the throwing of coins. It is offered by the personal sacristan of the pope, the 59 

Rodi, La devolutione di Ferrara, ed. by Frongia, p. 149. Narratione della partenza del sereniss. sig. d. Cesare da Este, p. A3v; Minerbi, Memorie di Ferrara dal anno 1412, Ferrara, Bibl. Comunale Ariostea, MS i 759, fol. 80v. 61  See The Invention of Tradition, ed. by Hobsbawm and Ranger. 60 

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Augustinian Angelo Rocca. Published in 1599, his account relates the journey from Rome and the entrance of the pope into Ferrara. It is all expressed in a Latin that reflects the culture of the author, a theologian whose personal collection of books was to become the nucleus of the Bibliotheca angelica in Rome.62 In the first pages of the tract, an engraving offers the image of the pontifical entrance procession. Here in front of the pope surrounded by the ‘thirty noble youths of Ferrara’, we can see the back of ‘the treasurer who is throwing the coins’. In the text, Rocca explains that the treasurer acted when he became aware of the need ‘to separate the throng’ (by throwing coins to the sides so that the street was opened up), and ‘to stimulate the joy of the people’ (which perhaps was a little cold).63 At last, the main scene, the occupation of the Castello Estense. The pope entered the palace, the symbol of Este power, crying with emotion. At this point the white mount on which he was sitting changed hands. But this was certainly not because it had been stolen in the old way: ‘the mule was taken from him by the Count Romei and His Holiness went in to rest’. The sacker was Ercole Romei, member of a great noble family of the city. The Romei having decided, in contrast to other aristocrats, not to follow Cesare d’Este to Modena, Ercole had been placed among the thirty youths who had given service to the pope. It was to such a high-ranking stable boy that the mule was handed over. Up to this point we have followed the chronicler Filippo Rodi, according to whom the mule was given back the next day with ‘a certain ordinary form of ceremony’64 — again a reference to the legitimating power of tradition. Nor may we expect better information from the hurried leaflets thrown onto the market by the Roman printer Bartolomeo Bonfadino and from some of his competitors.65 About forty years later, however, the historiographer Agostino Faustini added a pair of details that are invaluable. Here they are: While the pontiff raised his left foot from the stirrup to dismount the horse, Count Ercole Romei, a youth of about twenty-three years, from other side placed his right foot in the same stirrup, and he lifted himself up so quickly that he hit the pontiff lightly with his left foot on the right hand, and this hand being affected by a form of gout, made him bend it.

62 

See Mitchell, 1598: A Year of Pageantry, pp. 26–27, 50, and 73–74. Rocca, De sacro sancto Christi corpore, pp. 82–83. 64  Rodi, La devolutione di Ferrara, ed. by Frongia, p. 152. 65  Masolini, Narratione dell’accoglienze fatte da molte città; Magliani, Ordini tenuti nell’andata del sant.mo sacramento; Banordini, Narratione dell’entrate po; Lettera venuta da Ferrara. 63 

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Let us read this again and be convinced: in his haste to mount the mule, the young Romei kicked the pope’s hand. It was a hand affected by chiragra, a disease caused, like gout in the legs, by a diet that was too rich in meat.66 The reaction of the pope, who had pain in the hand, was skilful and elegant at the same time: ‘I’ll give you it willingly, my son, and I bless it’. Forgiven for his involuntary attack, Count Romei left on the mule. But he put no brakes on his excesses. He improvised a wild procession along Corso della Giovecca, the artery that divided the medieval city from the Renaissance addition. He was accompanied by ‘fifteen or twenty of those knights dressed in white who dragged along with them the lowest citizenry’. In fitting with a consolidated model, the aristocracy and the lower orders came together in entertainments which excluded any kind of bourgeois composure. Despite appearances, the young Count Romei was not simply wandering around wildly. He had as his destination one of the best-known addresses in Ferrara: having dismounted at the steps of the palace of the Lady Marfisa d’Este, he met her as she came out to see what was happening, when he reverently presented himself to her and with words full of courtesy he asked her to accept as a gift the mount that the pontiff had given him.67

It is worth observing the language used: a gift to the Count Romei from the pope, not a theft committed against the pope. The only Este princess left in Ferrara, Marfisa, cousin to Alfonso II d’Este, attempted to defend the honour of the dynasty as best she could. That same day the pope had passed in triumphal procession in front of her palace, and she had remained ostentatiously locked inside. But silence is one thing and provocation is quite another. Indeed Marfisa accepted the mule ‘contentedly’. However she immediately sent a message of pacification to the new lord of the city: ‘having secretly ordered her men to lead it back to the stables of the pontiff ’.68 Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference between the gesture of acceptance and that of restitution. The former occurred in front of the crowd, the latter was done ‘secretly’; the victory was public, the reconciliation private. In interpreting this complex dynamic, let me propose a hypothesis. However much her beauty was celebrated, the proud Marfisa was approaching fifty years of 66 

See Cosmacini, La medicina e la sua storia, pp. 130–34 and 210–19. Faustini, Aggiunta alle historie del sig. Gasparo Sardi, pp. 167–68. 68  Faustini, Aggiunta alle historie del sig. Gasparo Sardi, pp. 167–68. 67 

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age. The homage by the Count Romei, a twenty-three-year-old, is difficult to see as a form of courting. This is not to say that the thing in itself is impossible: history is full of lovers who were very different in terms of age. In the case of Romei and Marfisa, however, nothing allows us to suspect anything. Rather, the youthful indiscipline of the protagonists perhaps betrays a nostalgic message, a lastminute pro-Estense demonstration. The anthropological dimension to the ritual sacking allows space for a political argument that is both rational and limited. This in itself confirms the idea that the ancient rites of violence are exhausted. Youth having gained political objectives pertaining to adults, it has ceased to be a complete ritual condition for relegating itself to a status of imperfect maturity. After brushing with disaster with the kick to the pope and the gift to Marfisa, the accident was not, however, late in coming; and it was a serious accident, according to the direct testimony of the chronicler Filippo Rodi. On the evening following the arrival of the pope, on 9 May, fireworks were set off from the top of the Este castle. An ember then set light to the roof of a tower. With the alarm raised, the young men responsible for fire fighting ran to the scene. But the roof in flames fell onto the unfortunates, killing twenty-three of them, ‘in addition to the many others who were left maimed’. In the meanwhile the Pope had escaped from the castle, ‘distressed by fear of the fire and suspicious of some treachery’, that is to say, frightened that the incident was to coincide with an insurrection. As happens in life, our story, tragic in itself, now becomes comical. The pope and his entourage tried to find refuge opposite the castle, in the palace of the bishop, Giovanni Fontana. ‘But the bishop being unaware that it was the pope who was the one banging on the door’, and not liking the idea of ‘opening the doors of his house in times of fire and tumult, all the more in times of political change, he was unwilling to allow the doors to be opened’. Quite a problem for the pope, who then, afraid of taking up residence in the street, escaped elsewhere. Once the fire was under control and the tumult had subsided, the families of the victims received an ‘abundant’ gift and the incident was closed with a fine Requiem mass.69 Apparently there was nothing political in the event that interrupted the official celebrations. It was merely carelessness and a touch of irresponsibility. In the past the Este policy of entertainment had demanded a tribute of lives and disablement. Put simply, the passion for games, parties and practical jokes overcame any requirement for public safety. From this point of view, changes of regime made no difference. 69 

Rodi, La devolutione di Ferrara, ed. by Frongia, pp. 152–53.

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If this is all true, the version given by the chronicler Rodi is not fully convincing. Was fear of a revolt, whether planned or coming about by chance, so far-fetched? It is strange then that the Bishop Fontana didn’t notice that it was the pope who was knocking at his door. Did his palace have neither windows nor spyholes? And did the bishop not worry about the safety of the Vicar of Christ who was staying in the castle which was in flames? In fact, some decades later the fire was re-examined by the ever-diligent Agostino Faustini, an eyewitness in his youth. He underlines with gusto the pope’s fear, who ‘asked repeatedly if he was safe’; and the malice of the citizens towards the Roman troops who, being little acquainted with Ferrara, ‘asked them to show them which street to take to get to the fire, to whom, however, no-one replied’. Perhaps there was someone who thought he might take advantage of the opportunity: either to discredit the new power or to strike at the supporters of the old regime. Provocations of this kind are older than the Berlin Reichstag fire. It is into this climate that we can insert Faustini’s reading of the event. While they climbed up towards the roof in flames, the Ferrara firemen ‘were cruelly closed inside there’. Some attendants did this, but it was a Roman ecclesiastic who ordered them to do it. Misunderstanding, fear of a plot, a nasty joke? The fact remains that the firemen shouted vainly for the exit to be reopened for them. And when the roof collapsed, ‘beneath, all those who had been closed in there were left dead’. So as to avoid reprisal, the name of those responsible for the ‘atrocity’ was kept secret, and so indeed the numbers of the victims who must have been at least twenty. Faustini also has something to add about the damages paid to the widows: ‘the sum was received by all, except for one who, being young and married, rejected it, saying that her husband’s soul should not have other relief than in her prayers and no other comfort than in her tears’.70 With the insubordination of the young woman, again a wider scene is revealed. When circumstances became desperate, often it was the women of the people in early modern Europe who were to carry out the acts of political disobedience. It was the same in Ferrara in 1598, in the face of a victorious Clement VIII. Here the traditional right to resistance to power, which the group of young men had even ritually renounced, is exercised by a ‘young wife’, by a widow. And widows were an underclass of the female universe that was capable of great resistance.71 In the ritual negotiation improvised by the widow, the language of gift and counter-gift is chosen. After the humiliating gift — because it is too generous — granted to 70 

Faustini, Aggiunta alle historie del sig. Gasparo Sardi, pp. 147, 168–70, and 172. See Cohn, Women in the Street; Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Cavallo and Warner. 71 

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the young men of Ferrara by Cardinal Aldobrandini, we see the disrespectful gift made to Clement VIII by the fireman’s widow who refuses the damages. In any case, the intended result is always the same, the deep meaning of every gift: to transform the receiver into a debtor, an inferior,72 even if it is the Vicar of Christ. The historiographer Faustini concludes: ‘there were those who, seeing the court of Rome in Ferrara in a bad light, murmured terrible things about it’. Was it to be for this reason that when Clement VIII returned to Rome, ‘the water of the Tiber rose so strangely, that the whole city, besides the hills, was left submerged’? Was it also to be for this reason that on the day when the foundation stone of the papal fortress of Ferrara73 was laid, such a ‘black’ storm broke out that some workers ‘were killed’? Throughout the Renaissance floods of the Tiber and lightning strikes on churches and prelates had raged, and were interpreted as a kind of divine message.74 It was this ancient, moralistic, and egalitarian culture that the baroque historiographer Faustini, nostalgic for the Este, was drawing on in his attempt to discredit his present and re-evaluate the past. But he could not conceal from himself the fact that in the new times even anxiety of nature had its limits. Indeed, from the storm that killed the labourers of the fortress ‘the two cardinals who were present there came out safe’.75 During that memorable year of 1598 a new pattern of public ritual was put in place, eliminating or colonizing the previous one. Even the peculiar anticlericalism of the early Renaissance left no trace. In Rome, in contact with the ecclesiastical hierarchy, irreverence and familiarity with the sacred had joined without any apparent contradiction. On the contrary, now the contradiction would be intolerable to a pontiff of the Counter-Reformation like Clement VIII;76 on the other hand, the times of the biting pasquinades were over in Rome too. The modifications to ritual implied a new form of political communication revealing the transformation of the whole of Italy into the courtyard of the pontiff ’s house. Management of the troublesome behaviour of the youths ended up welding itself to the silent alchemy of curial finance. Alongside the political-territorial advantages, the conquest of Ferrara permitted the papacy to confirm itself as the single recipient of ecclesiastical taxation in Italy.77 From control of ritual to control of the fisc. 72 

See Mauss, Essai sur le don. See Guidi, La Fortezza del Papa: Ferrara 1598–1859. 74  See Niccoli, Profeti e popolo nell’Italia, pp. 186–90; Niccoli, Rinascimento anticlericale, pp. 51–52. 75  Faustini, Aggiunta alle historie del sig. Gasparo Sardi, p. 182. 76  See Borromeo, ‘Clemente VIII, papa’. 77  See Giannini, L’oro e la tiara, pp. 249–50. 73 

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Documents Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, MS i 759 (Elia Minerbi, Memorie di Ferrara dal anno 1412 fino al anno 1607) —— , MS Antonelli 250 (Claudio Rondoni, Cronaca)

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Secondary Studies Ago, Renata, ‘La costruzione dell’identità maschile: una competizione tra uomini’, in La costruzione dell’identità maschile nell’età moderna e contemporanea, ed. by Angiolina Arru (Roma: Biblink, 2001), pp. 17–30 Barbiche, Bernard, ‘La Politique de Clément VIII à l’égard de Ferrare en novembre et décembre 1597 et l’excommunication de César d’Este’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 74 (1962), 289–328 Biondi, Alberto, ‘Ferrara: cronache della caduta’, in Storia di Ferrara vi: il Rinascimento; situazioni e personaggi, ed. by Adriano Prosperi (Ferrara: Corbo, 2000), pp. 494–508 Blok, Anton, ‘Mestieri infami’, Ricerche storiche, 26 (1996), 59–96

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Borromeo, Agostino, ‘Clemente VIII, papa’, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 67 vols (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–2006), xxvi: Cironi-Collegno (1982), pp. 277–78 Callegari, Ettore, ‘La devoluzione di Ferrara alla S. Sede (1598) da documenti inediti degli Archivi di Stato di Modena e Venezia’, Rivista storica italiana, 12 (1985), 1–57 Cavallo, Sandra, and Lyndan Warner, eds, Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (London: Longman, 1999) Chiappini, Alessandra, ‘Immagini di vita ferrarese nel secolo xvii’, in La chiesa di San Giovanni Battista e la cultura ferrarese del Seicento, ed. by Carlo Pirovano and Anna Della Valle (Milano: Electra, 1981), pp. 9–69 Cohn, Samuel K., Jr, Women in the Street: Essays on Sex and Power in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) Cosmacini, Giorgio, La medicina e la sua storia: da Carlo V al Re Sole (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1989) Crouzet-Pavan, Élisabeth, ‘Un fiore del male: i giovani nelle società urbane italiane (secoli xiv–xv)’, in Storia dei giovani, ed. by Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt, 2 vols (Roma: Laterza, 1994), i, 211–77 Di Leone Leoni, Aron, ‘La diplomazia estense e l’immigrazione di cristiani nuovi a Ferrara al tempo di Ercole II’, Nuova rivista storica, 78 (1994), 293–326 Emiliani, Andrea, ‘Il collezionismo ferrarese tra leggenda e realtà’, in La leggenda del collezionismo: le quadrerie storiche ferraresi, ed. by Grazia Agostini, Jadranka Bentini, and Andrea Emilian (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1996), pp. 15–50 Fasano Guarini, Elena, ‘Aldobrandini, Pietro’, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 67 vols (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–2006), ii: Albicante-Ammannati (1960), pp. 107–12 Gardi, Andrea, ‘La nascita di una Legazione: Clemente VIII a Ferrara (1598)’, in La Legazione di Romagna e i suoi archivi: secoli xvi–xviii, ed. by Angelo Turchini (Cesena: Ponte Vecchio, 2006), pp. 59–90 Gattoni, Maurizio, ‘L’antagonismo pontificio-ferrarese come exemplum di conflitto tra potere ecclesiastico e laico nell’Italia del Rinascimento’, Ricerche storiche, 26 (1996), 619–74 Giannini, Massimo Carlo, L’oro e la tiara: la costruzione dello spazio fiscale italiano della Santa Sede (1560–1620) (Bologna: Mulino, 2003) Guidi, Laura, La Fortezza del Papa: Ferrara, 1598–1859 (Ferrara: Liberty House, 1990) Hobsbawm, Eric J., and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) Infelise, Mario, Prima dei giornali: alle origini della pubblica informazione (Roma: Laterza, 2002) Marini, Lino, ‘Lo stato estense’, in Storia d’Italia xvii: I Ducati padani: Trento e Trieste, ed. by Giuseppe Galasso, 24 vols (Torino: Utet, 1979), pp. 51–66 Masetti Zannini, Gianludovico, La capitale perduta: la devoluzione di Ferrara del 1598 nelle carte vaticane (Ferrara: Gabriele, 2000) Mauss, Marcel, Essai sur le don (Paris: Broché, 2007)

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Europa Sacra All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet E. Burton (2007) Anna Ysabel D’Abrera, The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism: 1484-1515 (2008) Cecilia Hewlett, Rural Communities in Renaissance Tuscany: Religious Identities and Local Loyalties (2009) Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1500, ed. by Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin (2010) Communities of Learning: Networks and the Shaping of Intellectual Identity in Europe, 1100-1500, ed. by Constant Mews, John N. Crossley (2011) Alison Brown, Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion (2012) Faith’s Boundaries: Laity and Clergy in Early Modern Confraternities, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Adriano Prosperi, and Stefania Pastore (2013)

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