NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Holy Mediocrity: Saintly Matrons and the Dominicans in Late Medieval Italy A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of History By Julia Lauren Miglets EVANSTON, ILLINOIS September 2018 2 © Copyright by Julia Lauren Miglets 2018 All Rights Reserved 3 Abstract Holy Mediocrity: Saintly Matrons and the Dominicans in Late Medieval Italy Julia Lauren Miglets The task of this study is to explain why a cluster of female saints who were noted not for their miracles but for the moderate – even boring – quality of their sanctity, a paradigm I call “holy mediocrity,” emerged in Northern Italy in the late fourteenth century. I examine the development of the paradigm of holy mediocrity through the vitae of the women lauded as saints for their moderate piety: Villana delle Botti of Florence (1332–1361), Maria Sturion of Venice (ca. 1379–1399), and Bonacosa da Beccalòe of Milan (1352–1381). “Holy Mediocrity” elucidates the social implications of spirituality and sanctity to demonstrate how pressures on women in the Trecento and Quattrocento both necessitated and made possible an imitable model of sanctity. Holy mediocrity represented a pastoral initiative by the clergy, and especially Dominicans, to provide realistic spiritual advice to upper-class women who found that the demands of marriage, particularly the marriage debt, were not easily reconciled to the Church’s traditional idealization of virginity, and who worried that their wealth would prevent their entry into Heaven. Holy mediocrity posited a new profile for female sanctity – a less transgressive model that sought to circumscribe the potentially disruptive nature of female charisma. In a broader sense this is a study of late medieval and Renaissance religious culture, which uses one of these moderate holy women, Villana delle Botti, as a microhistory to map the intersections of the sacred and society. To do so, this project not only uses hagiography, monastic records, and city chronicles, but also art and architectural evidence. 4 Ultimately, this project illuminates the spiritual economy of late medieval Italy and how it functioned. More specifically, it explains the importance of “boring” holy women like Villana delle Botti both to their contemporaries and to our understanding of the religious milieu of the later Middle Ages. It shows why a model of piety was constructed for women to aid them in navigating the competing demands of marriage, motherhood, and piety, and how this paradigm was ultimately subverted by its own mediocrity. 5 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the enduring generosity of many. Above all, Dyan Elliott and her insights and keen editorial eye, and whose patience in helping me see this project to its conclusion has rivaled that of the saints in this study. Thanks also to Ed Muir for his guidance, and especially for his help with navigating the challenges of archives and funding, and Marco Ruffini for preparing me with the art historical tools I needed to see this project through. I am grateful to a number of institutions and their staff for their assistance: the Newberry Library, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna, the Biblioteca comunale degli Intronati in Siena, the Archivio di Santa Maria Novella, the Archivio di Stato in Florence, Bologna, Milan, Siena, and Venice, the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti, and the University of Minnesota Library. Emilio Panella at the Archivio di Santa Maria Novella shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the materials there as well as his enthusiasm for this project in its early stage, and I owe a special debt of gratitude to the indefatigable Interlibrary Loan staff at Northwestern worked miracles in helping me track down sources. The institutional and financial support of Northwestern University, and the Department of History and the Medieval Studies Cluster in particular, made this project possible. I would also like to thank the History Department at Washington and Lee University for the financial support of the William A. Jenks Award, as well as the fellow alumni who established and have funded that award. 6 This long journey has brought many companions. David Peterson, who first introduced me to Giovanni Dominici and Antoninus when I was an undergraduate, has cheered me on throughout this endeavor. Fellow italianisti – Charles Keenan, Celeste McNamara, Azeta Kola, Melissa Vise, and Tovah Bender – have shared advice and commiserated about the challenges and humor that accompany research in Italy. Thanks especially to the medievalists who have joined me in odium et amor of Latin: Anne Koenig, Jason Ralph, Raashi Rastogi, and Carissa Harris. Friends in Florence did and have made it a second home, especially Dottie and Mark Dunham, Betty and Cesare Nadalini, Davide Lacovara, Cristiana Ottanelli, and Cynthia D’Alimonte, as well as Lindsay Paiva, Melanie Goldstein, Victoria DeBlassie, Kelli Wood, and Carolyn Zimmerman, who welcomed me into the midst of their cohort. My family has encouraged and supported me from the outset of this project and in so many others, and this dissertation is dedicated to them and especially to Anne and Betty Lou. Thanks to Anni for her patience and long suffering in letting me turn the kitchen table and parts of rooms into my writing space. Wallace has been a consistent source of moral support, and a reminder that life exists outside of writing. Finally, to Dan, who has believed in me more than myself and without whose support and encouragement this project might never have reached its conclusion. 7 Abbreviations Acta Sanctorum. 1st ed., Antwerp and Brussels 1643–1748; 2nd ed., Venice, 1734–1770; 3rd ed., Paris and Rome, 1863–. ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze ASMN Archivio del convento Santa Maria Novella Firenze (Florence) BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Rome) BCA Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio (Bologna) BCNF Biblioteca Centrale Nazionale di Firenze Conv. sopp. Conventi soppressi (BCNF) CRSGF Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese (ASF) Inc. Incunable SMN Santa Maria Novella (Florence) Tanner Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Ed. Norman Tanner. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990. Vat. lat. Codex vaticanus latinus (BAV) VMO Jacques de Vitry. Vita B. Mariae Oigniacensis, AASS, June, 5:547-572. Trans. Margot King. The Life of Marie d’Oignies. Saskatoon, Sasketchewan: Peregrina Publishing, 1986. 8 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 7 List of Illustrations 9 Introduction 10 Chapter 1 – Constructing a New Spirituality 32 Chapter 2 – Holy Mediocrity: Sanctity and Dominican Spirituality 75 Chapter 3 – The Art of Sanctity 137 Chapter 4 – Private Sanctity 180 Conclusion – Moderation and Its Discontents 223 Illustrations 234 Bibliography 253 9 List of Illustrations Figure 1 – Map of Santa Maria Novella Figure 2 – Family Tree of Villana delle Botti Figure 3 – Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence Figure 4 – East wall, Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence Figure 5 – North wall, Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence Figure 6 – South wall, Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence Figure 7 – Crucifix of Villana delle Botti, detail Figure 8 – Diagram of Frescoes in the Spanish Chapel Figure 9 – Allegory of the Church Militant and Church Triumphant Figure 10 – Allegory of the Church Militant and Church Triumphant, view from eyelevel Figure 11 – Allegory of the Church Militant and Church Triumphant, detail Figure 12 – Lamentation Over the Dead Christ Figure 13 – Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, detail of Villana delle Botti Figure 14 – Floor tombs in Santa Croce, Florence Figure 15 – Sepoltuario plan, Santa Maria Novella Figure 16 – Tomb of Villana delle Botti Figure 17 – Tomb of Villana delle Botti, detail Figure 18 – Tomb of Villana delle Botti, detail Figure 19 – Saint Catherine of Siena and Four Dominican Tertiaries 10 Introduction What happens to the cult of a saint after the initial fervor of the miraculous wanes and the novelty of a new saint fades? Some, like the early Christian martyr saints, flourished in the centuries after their deaths as the narratives of their lives were slowly transformed into stories that were as much fairy tale as biography. St. Nicholas of Santa Claus fame, for example, began his saintly career as the fourth-century bishop of Myra in southern Turkey. There, his piety and charity earned him a posthumous reputation as a saint. In the centuries after his death, reports of miracles accrued at his tomb while legends, like his heroic rescue of three boys from a pickling vat, elaborated his charitable works.1 Still other saints were adopted as the patrons and patronesses of their hometown or a religious house. These communities preserved and promoted their titular saint in return for the spiritual – and financial – wellbeing of the community. The monks at the monastery of Conques, France stole the relics of St. Foy in January 866 as much out of devotion to the saint’s miracles as her lure to pilgrims. The theft was performed under the guise of spirituality but in practice preserved the monastery’s financial and juridical independence from a neighboring abbey in Figeac.2 Meanwhile in Conques, reports of the miracles performed by St. Foy’s jewel-encrusted relics offered proof of her sanctity.3 Not all 1 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 1, trans. William Granger Ryan, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 21-27. 2 Pamela Sheingorn, introduction to Bernard of Angers, The Book of Sainte Foy, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 8-10. See also Beate Fricke, Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013); Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, eds., Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 3 Around 983, a man whose eyes had been ripped out a year earlier had his sight restored in the presence of St.