Preachers and Governance in Fifteenth-Century Italian Towns: a Comparative Investigation of Three Case Studies
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PREACHERS AND GOVERNANCE IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN TOWNS: A COMPARATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THREE CASE STUDIES Stefan Visnjevac A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2012 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3631 This item is protected by original copyright Preachers and Governance in Fifteenth-Century Italian Towns: A Comparative Investigation of Three Case Studies Stefan Visnjevac Submitted for the degree of PhD in History Date of Submission: 22/05/2012 i Acknowledgments I would like to thank for their kind and generous financial support, without whose funding this thesis would not have been possible, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Society for Renaissance Studies, and the Institute of Historical Research. I also wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Frances Andrews, who found a place for my proposal for a PhD within her project on Religion and Public Life in Late Medieval Italy , and gave up a great deal of her time and energy to guide and mould that idea. I would also like to acknowledge the participants of the September 2009 Religion and Public Life in Late Medieval Italy conference and the 2010 International Medieval Sermon Studies Symposium in Salamanca for the advice and comments they freely and generously offered, especially Nicole Bériou, Brenda Bolton, Pietro Delcorno, George Ferzoco, Laura Gaffuri, and Carolyn Muessig. Finally, my utmost thanks to Agata Pincelli for the checking of translations, to Alessia Meneghin for comments on drafts, to my parents for their unwavering support, and to the archivists, librarians, and directors of the various libraries and archives I visited, who helped me to sift through the enormous and often daunting material. This thesis examines the sermons of three conventual mendicant preachers in three 15 th -century Italian cities: the Easter Sunday sermons of 1416 and 1417 of a ii Franciscan, Giovanni Coltellini; a 1446 sermon for the feast-day of St Mark by a Dominican, Leonardo Mattei; and the 1460 Palm Sunday sermon of another Dominican, Tommaso Liuti. These are studied through the contextual framework provided by the use of sacristy records, treatises, chronicles, diaries, council minutes, papal bulls, and other sermons. Through these sources, the thesis explores the theme of mendicant preaching in support of secular governing authority. Whereas most historians have concentrated on the criticisms of observant friars, it is here argued that mendicant preachers were employed as a ‘routine’ business of government at both critical and non-critical moments in order to promote the governance of a secular authority, its policies, or its ideology. The first three parts form case studies of preaching in socio-politically distinct contexts. The preaching on peace and unity by the Bolognese Coltellini during political upheaval in his native city is examined first, and establishes how the preacher sought to strengthen links between the governing coalition of factions. The second part investigates promotion of Venetian governance by Mattei in occupied Udine within a period characterised by claims of mismanagement. The last case study approaches from the viewpoint of personal motivation. It investigates Liuti’s relationship with the Este court in Ferrara and the links between the friar’s treatise on good governance, a sermon on a closely-related theme, and his future career. The final section is a comparative analysis of the case studies, assessing similarities and differences in approach, style, and content. It highlights the importance of a preacher’s local origin in forming bonds with audience and governing authority, and the crucial role played by the use of classical authorities in communicating with ruling elites. Lastly, the commonality of aims, if not ultimate goals, between preacher and secular authority is underscored. The involvement of holy men in secular affairs was perceived on the whole as uncontradictory, and provides evidence for an intrinsic inseparability between religion and public life in Quattrocento Italy. iii List of Abbreviations ACU Annales Civitatis Utini AFH Archivum Franciscanum Historicum AFP Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum ASB Bologna, Archivio di Stato BCA Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio BF Bullarium Franciscanum CC Udine, Cameraria di Comune MOPH Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historicum Ricc. 784 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 784 RIS Rerum Italicarum Scriptores iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract ii List of Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 1. The History of Preaching and Sermon Studies 6 2. Aims 25 3. Methodology 35 4. Sources 39 Chapter 1: Striving for Peace and Unity in Bologna, 1416-1417 47 1. Giovanni Coltellini da Bologna 48 2. The ‘Peace’ Sermon of 1416 56 3. The ‘Unity’ Sermon of 1417 73 4. The Value of Sermons on Peace and Unity: Conclusions 89 Chapter 2: Promoting Venetian Governance in Occupied Udine, 1446 97 1. The Itinerant Preacher Comes Home: Leonardo Mattei da Udine 98 2. The Sermon for the Feast-Day of St Mark 106 2.1. The Sermones de sanctis of 1446 106 2.2. The Sermon for the Feast-Day of St Mark 111 2.2.1. Divisions 1-4 and 6 114 2.2.2. Division 5: Concerning the Governance of the 117 Venetians v 3. Conclusions 135 Chapter 3: The Dominican and the Duke in Ferrara, 1460 139 1. Tommaso dai Liuti and His Works 140 1.1. Background and Career 140 1.2. Literary Works 144 2. The Lenten Sermons of 1460 154 2.1. The Liber petitionum anime 154 2.2. The Sermon for Palm Sunday 163 3. Conclusions 177 Chapter 4: Comparisons of Preaching in Support of the Governing Authority 187 1. Preparing the Sermon: Background 188 1.1. Selection 188 1.2. The importance of ‘local knowledge’ 193 1.3. Occasion for the Sermon 197 1.4. Location 200 2. Delivering the Sermon: Style and Method 202 2.1. Methods of Delivery – Admonition versus Consolation 202 2.2. Common Themes 206 2.3. Sources 213 2.4. Exempla 221 2.5. The Influence of Humanist Thought and Classical Oratory 225 2.6. The Religiosity of the Sermon – Did the Religious Occasion 235 Shape the Sermon? vi 3. Processing the Sermon: Objectives 239 3.1. Objectives of the Secular Authority 239 3.2. Mendicant Objectives 246 3.3. The Existence of Personal Objectives? 251 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 263 7 1 INTRODUCTION ∗∗∗ ‘You want me to be the pope, the bishop, the governor…I cannot be everything!...When you need to go to the Signori, do not call on me, for again I can do nothing: Go to them. And I say this to everyone; it is a waste of time to come to me – time in which I could be studying and composing a magnificent sermon in honour of God.’ On Friday 12 September 1427, the great Franciscan preacher Bernardino da Siena found cause to remonstrate with the assembled audience in his hometown. The friar argued that he should not be asked to act outside of his capacity as preacher – in the strict sense of delivering sermons which aimed to guide the spiritual and devotional lives of his listener. 1 On yet another day, Bernardino criticised the Sienese for employing friars in communal offices, such as bursars – roles that, according to the preacher, took them away from their true tasks. The response that this was done so as to forestall corruption did not hold any weight with the preacher, who was insistent that religious should not be employed in what were ostensibly roles for lay civic officials. 2 ∗ This study was conducted under the auspices of the Religion and Public Life in Late Medieval Italy AHRC-funded project headed by Prof. Frances Andrews. The project seeks to investigate relations between secular and religious communities in late medieval Italy using the phenomenon of secular office-holding by monks and friars nominally dedicated to a life of detachment from the secular world. 1 Bernardino da Siena, Prediche volgari sul Campo di Siena 1427 , ed. Carlo Delcorno, 2 vols. (Milan: 1989), II, p. 805 – Voi volete ch’io sia papa, ch’io sia vescovo, ch’io sia rettore…Oh, io non posso fare ogni cosa, io!..Quando ti bisogna andare a’ Signori, non capitare a me, che anco non ti posso fare nulla…E questo dico a ognuno; però che ’l vostro venire a me è uno perdimento di tempo; che potrei stare a studiare e fare una predicozza a la magnifica a onore di Dio . 2 Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (London: 1980), p. 31. Bernardino had also made similar comments in Siena in 1425, to the anger of the audience, forcing Bernardino to exclaim 2 Despite the warning words of Bernardino (and, indeed, evincing the need for them), his own medium of communication – the sermon – had long been employed by numerous preachers to elucidate on all manner of topics, including being put into the service or support of ruling bodies, with a view to influencing civic issues and political affairs. Indeed, preachers could be appointed by governing bodies with this particular task in mind, the sort of official civic position which, from his previous words, one might imagine Bernardino remonstrating about as being more appropriately filled by a lay orator – perhaps especially in Italy’s city-states more than elsewhere, as secular public oratory had been revived in this region as early as the twelfth century. 3 Bernardino’s complaints serve to reflect a society in which the political and religious discourses were inextricably intertwined, and where the guidance of a holy man was both sought after and could have particularly powerful socio-political repercussions.