CITIES IN MEDIEVAL ITALY Every commune had to have one - Diana Webb explains how the cult ofa holy man or woman and civic PR went hand-in- hand in medieval Italy. round the year 1550 an ttalian Atiinsess succinctly explained the concept of the patron saint: is especial recourse 10 tor and defender in all cities that named after him, whieh San. sion in this painting by the and. deathssults; oF there are those, albeit for ccigners, whom the cities themselves have chosen as their patrons with a special cult and devotion. The basic idea of patronage, of powerful and influential beings wh: offer help and protection to the clients, docs not, perhaps, need much explanation. But the vocabu- lary in which patron saints were described and invoked in medieval Europe derived from ancient Rome In the mid-seventeenth century a local historian of the little town of Camerino in eastern central Italy recalled that in Roman times Agrippa had been ‘citizen advocate of the Camerinesi’ and explained that, ‘at that time, the cities of Italy elected as My kind of town: the Virgin commends the city of Siena 10 CI their protectors in Rome those who originating from the same city, were high in the favour of the Prince’. The saints were high in the favour of God d a community which had exclu sive possession of a saint (whether the community consisted of the inmates of a monastery, or the inhabi tants of a settlement clustered about a church, or both) imagined tha return for their obedience and of ings and the proper upkeep of th shrine, the saint would show a part ular tenderness for their needs and sufferings. None of this was uniquely applica ble to ttaly. Of the thousands of saints who were venerated in medieval Europe, some were extren in this 15th-century panel by Bartolomeo: the shields testify to civic pride but also, perhaps, as armorial bearings ofthe Virgin, who was often hailed as actual ruler of Siena localised and some virtually universal in their appeal, The Virgin Mary, the Baptist, the Apostles all received church dedications throughout Europe and their major feast-days were observed everywhere. Scarcely less widely revered were martyrs such, as Stephen, Laurence, or Catherine of Alexandria, or bishop-saints such as Nicholas of Myra or Martin of Tours. In one sense, they contrasted markedly with’ saints who were known scarcely, or not at all, beyond the confines of the local community which possessed their relics. Yet the greatest and most universal of saints could become especially associated with a particular locality or communi- ty, Sometimes this resulted from the possession, or alleged possession, of their relies. St Nicholas and St Martin both had a European public, but their cults centred, respectively, on Bari, in southern Italy, whither the Normans had brought Nicholas’s relies from Syria in 1087, and on Tours. The name and the winged lion of St Mark became indissolubly associated with enice as a result of the propriation of his rel Alexandria in the ninth century. ‘National’ patrons might grow from relatively small beginnings as the pos- session of a local community. The that the remains of the Apostle ames the Great were brought by sea from Palestine to a remote north- western corner of the Iberian penin- trike us as unlikely in the the belief that the church of Compostela in Galicia pos- sessed the relics grew from the ninth century, and the kings of Leon-Castile took an increasing interest in the cult, During and after the twelfth century James became a ‘national’ saint, iden- tified with the Christian drive to liber: ate the peninsula from Muslim rule, \d the Galician shrine became the greatest pilgrimage destination in Europe after Rome itself. Another successful promotion was undertaken by the monks of St Denis, just to the north of Paris, on behalf of their saint, mistakenly identified with Dionysius the Areopagite who was converted by St Paul; as a result of their ‘special relationship’ with the kings of France, Denis enjoyed the 1s of a chief patron of the monar- ‘chy and the kingdom. It was not, however, necessary to possess a saint's relics to boast of his or her patronage. No one could lay claim to the physical remains of the Mary (although there were lothing and her milk) special patronage was but claimed all over Europe, and the lackof relics could be compensated for by wonder-working images, like the Madonna of L’Impruneta, a few miles from Florence, which from the late fourteenth century onwards was invoked by the urban authorities in moments of triumph or crisis. Mary was the greatest of the saints, and the greater the saint, the more reason there was to suppose that she - or he = possessed the power to help and protect the faithful, which was the essence of the patron’s role. The saints functioned as patron the Italian cities basically just Iscwhere. The distinctive ter of government in the city sta however, had profound repercu: sions on the cult. The associations of notable citizens who after about 1100, constituted ‘communes’ and claimed to exercise jurisdiction over city and its dependent territory. often won power in opposition to the bishop. The inhabitants of the city the bishop's tenants, and the clergy accustomed to edience to the bishop's authority in processions and offerings on the feast-day of the cathedral’s patron saint. When the commune supersi was It also 10 4 y a demonstration of obedi- ence to the secular authorities as well as (or even more than) to the church? Or was the commune to seck a saint and a celebration, of its own? Different answers were found in different places, At Si other cities, the improve on theruled the cathedral, and the Fea the Assumption | (August 15th) became the commune’s great day as well as the cathedral’s, Rural commu- nities and individual nobles who had submitted to Sienese rule appeared. to pay tribute and make a ceremonial offering of a stipulated quantity of wax at her altar in the cathedral. Already in the early thirteenth century, the ancestor of the famo the patio, that is such tion today, was being run on this day for a prize provided by the commune. In the midst of the plagues of the fourteenth century it was resolved that the palio must still be run, despite the unpropitious circu stances, in order to woo the Virgin's favour. The Virgin was in fact often hailed as the actual ruler of Sic! This conception drew strength from the legends that grew up around the battle of Montaperti, on September 4th, 1260, in which the Sicnese inflicted an unexpected and bloody defeat on the Guells of Tuscany, headed by the Florentines. It came to be believed that the Virgin had inter- vyened to protect the city and its army and later tradition related in detail ‘The miraculous Volto Santo of Lucea, focus of the "s specifi cult in the cathedral of St Martin. (Below) St James depicted asa pilgrim ~from the altar of his chapel io Pistoia Cathedral. how the citizens had on the eve of the battle mounted a great penitential procession which culminated in their formal submission to the Virgin as their ruler, In other Tuscan cities the com- mune opted for a cult of its own. The Venetians might be regarded as hav- ing furnished the prototype, for St Mark was the patron of the doge and the city, and his church did not become the cathedral of Venice until the early nineteenth century. It would, however, be difficult to prove that the Venetian example was con- sciously imitated elsewhere. The Flo- rentine commune adopted St John the Baptist, patron not of the cathe: dral but of the adjacent Baptistery. At Lucea, St Martin of Tours, to whom the cathedral was dedicated, did not receive a legally prescribed offering from the officials of the commune until the mid-fourteenth century. The great Lucchese civic festival from the late twelfth century, took place on September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Citizens and subject communities were bound by law to make their offerings to the miraculous crucifix, the Volto Santo or ‘Holy Face’, which had its own altar and chapel in the cathedral. According to legend it had been brought to Lucca in the year 782, but there is in fact no evidence for its cult before the 1090s, when we have it on good authority that William Rufus of England liked to swear by it. Lucca was strategically sited on a major pil- grimage route to Rome, and Rufus’ ‘oaths are among the evidence for the European fame of the Volto Santo. At acighbouring Pistoia it seems that the bishop himself took steps to obtain the relics which provided the foundation of the citizens’ special cult, Bishop Atto in 1138 excommuni- cated the consuls of the commune for violating the sacristy of his church. A few years later, however, he sent letters to the archbishop of Compostela by two Pistoiese citizens who were going there on pilgrimage, and obtained from him a portion of the relics of the apostle James. These were installed in a chapel in the cathedral of Pistoia, and within a few years James had his own hospital and his own office of works, the statutes of which ranked with those of the commune and people, and survive in several versions ~ Latin and vernac lar = from the fourteenth century This was a lay body, which adminis. tered the fabric of the chapel and had complete charge of the festivities held in honour of the saint. James was the civic patron, and his day was the chief civic festival of the year; St Zeno remained the patron saint of the cathedral, An incoming podesta (chief executive officer of the commune) did reverence at Zeno’s altar on tak- ing office, the captain of the people at James’ The experience of these citizen bodies, which managed either to appropriate the management of the episcopal cult, or to promote one of their own, or both, can be contrasted with what happened in one city north of the Alps. The burghers of the ‘new town’ at Tours, the Chateauneuf, failed to throw off the authority of the canons of St Martin who ruled them (with the backing of the kings of France) and largely dictated the terms ‘on which the profits of the pilgrimage traffic, including such items as the income from taverns, were divided. The burghers neither successfully appropriated St Martin nor installed their own saint as the emblem of the urban community. If Italian citizens were often more successful in achiev- ing autonomy, this was in part because so many of the cities were simply larger and richer, but also because of the absence of an effective central authority, which might have underwritten the authority of the bishop and clerical establishment In the fourteenth century, in fact, city-state governments often increased the amount of official homage that was paid to the ancient Patrons of the bishopric. At Lucca, for example, it became customary for the commune to pay every year for the robing and adornment of the sculpt- ed group of St Martin and the Beggar which stood high on the facade of the cathedral. At Pistoia, a procession was instituted in honour of St Zeno, at which the attendance of all citizens was required. The Florentine authori ties recognised their duty to do pub- lic homage to the ancient bishop- saint Zenobius and the martyr Reparata, to whom the cathedral was dedicated. In 1351, they tried to obtain the arm of Santa Reparata from the abbey of Teano in the king- dom of Naples, but the abbess of Teano palmed them off with a fake made in wood and gesso, which was only discovered some years later. In 1353 the priors did some research to discover why the cathedral was dedi cated to Reparata, and why ‘by Givi pride: today in Siena on August 131 ancient custom’ a palio was run on her day. The story went that it was on her feast-day that Florence had, in the fifth century, been delivered by the forces of the emperor, Honorius, from the threat of barbarian horde: It was declared that henceforth the prize for her palio should consist of twelve braccia of fine scarlet cloth, worth up to forty florins, Such developments suggest that by the fourteenth century the rulers of the communes had nothing to fear from symbols of episcopal authority and in fact wished to advertise their pious regard for all the saints who. were historically associated with the city, especially if their bodily remains were present. Multiple patronage was in fact both possible and praisewor- thy: the ancient bishop-martyr, Ruf us, remained (and is still) patron of both the cathedral and commune of Assisi, despite the appearance of St Francis and St Clare in the thirteenth century. Four ancient martyrs (Ansanus, Crescenzius, Victor and Savinus), whose relics lay in the thedral of Siena, began around 1300 to be celebrated in works of art commissioned by the civie authori ties. The two greatest Sienese Painters of the age, Duccio and Simone Martini, both painted repre- sentations of the Virgin in Majesty in which these four martyrs were depict ed as suppliants kneeling on ‘laborate palio in honoue of the Virgin, continues side of the Virgin’s throne, conveying o her the wishes and p ienese people. In 1413 they were declared to be the official ‘advocates’ of the city, and their feast-days became public holidays. Later in the century they were joined as ‘advo- cates’ of Siena by the Franciscan Preacher, Bernardino, canonised in 1450, and the dyer’s daughter, Catherine, canonised in 1461 Governments composed of laymen thus managed and manipulated the cult of the saints, publishing laws which regulated it, and using it to dis- play both their piety and their author: ity. The patron's feast day was often ked by the release of one or more irefully selected prisoners from the city’s gaols; the commune would pay for small candles for them to offer at the saint's altar. Informers who reported on citizens who failed to offer on the prescribed occasions were rewarded with a share of the fine; there might be penalties for dis- 19orderly conduct on major feast-days. ‘The authority exercised by the city: state over the surrounding country- side, which was so notable a feature of the Italian scene, was visibly sym. bolised by the annual rendering of tribute by the city’s rural subjects at the shrine of the patron. In the 1240s the Lucchese mounted an armed expedition to punish the failure of the inhabitants of the region called the Garfagnana to make their offering. to the Volto Santo. This discipline extended to cities that were subjected to the rule of other, more powerful, cities. When in 1400 Florence achieved total control over its small neighbour, Pistoia, it required its new subjects to send a palio every year for the feast of St John, as Arezzo and many other Tuscan towns already had to do; but when the rural communes that were subject to Pistoia tried to avoid sending their offerings to St James, the Florentine authorities intervened to insist that they should fulfil their obligations Warfare had its influence in shap- ing the civic cult. The carrozzo, an oxdrawn cart decked with holy emblems, was used by Archbishop Aribert of Milan already in the carly eleventh century to serve as a rally ing-point and inspiration for the ci zen body at war; the Milanese took their carrozzo, with an image of St Ambrose, into battle against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at Leg- nano in 1176. Typically the carrozzo was kept wherever the patronal cult was allocated, for example in the Baptistery at Florence, to be brought forth when the communal troops went forth to war. Prisoners of war 20 jologna: atypical trapping of the mis of civic pride fand religious fervour that ‘characterised Hain city were paraded through the Streets to the patron's altar, and might be ceremonially released there. From the late thirteenth ce tury, victory on the battlefield was’ commemorated — with creasing frequency by the stitution of official celebra- tions and offerings to the saint ‘on whose day the event had taken place. Many of the carli- est examples were associated with successes scored by Guelf forces after the death of the emperor, Frederick Il, in 1250. In June 1256 a crusading army under the Archbishop of Ravenna was preparing to assault Padua, ruled by the notorious tyrant, Ezzelino da Romano. The chronicler, Salimbene, himself a Franciscan, tel how a lay-brother in the army encour- ‘aged all its members to put their faith in the Franciscan St Antony, canon- ised in 1232 and intimately associated with Padua. The crusaders carried the Suburbs on June 19th and the city itself the following day, which was the ‘octave’ (the eighth day after) Antony's feastday. AS a consequence, Salimbene says, the Paduans kept Antony's octave and its vigil with more solemnity than they did his feastday itself, and the Paduan statutes bear him out. (On June 1th 1289, the feastday of the apostle Barnabas, the Florent won a great victory Campaldino. As a result, all Flore tines, and especially the Guelf party ‘were supposed to venerate Barnabas. A cardinal and nephew of Pope Clement V got to know of the Floren- tines’ devotion to Barnabas, and in 1310 sent them a gift of relics of the saint from the papal court, which were joyously received and installed in the Baptistery. A race was run in Barnabas’ honour, which was still a feature of the Florentine social calen- dar in the late fifteenth century, Simi- lar vietory celebrations were inaugu- rated in many cities of northern and central Italy. The author of a descrip: tion of the city of Pavia around the year 1330 commented that at sever: churches a palio and offerings were presented ‘not out of custom, but because of some special devotion, or because of a vietory won on that day’ A deliverance from tyranny or change of regime might be treated in the same manner as a triumph on the battlefield, Both St Anne and St Victor (Pope Vietor I) are depicted among Florence's patrons in an altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin which the Florentine office of the Mint, the Zecca, commissioned from Jacopo di ‘one on October 20th, 1372, Anne is shown holding a model of the city, an artistic device expressive of a specially. protective role, which was often used in representations of bishop-patrons like Petronius of Bologna or San Gimignano, patron of both Modena and the little Tuscan town which bore his name. Anne was so depicted because, in July 1343, she had helped rid Florence of the short-lived tyranny of Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens. By expelling the tyrant on her feast- day, Anne, mother of the Virgin, avenged the insult done to her daughter, on the feast of whose nativ- ity he had seized power in September the previous year. Just over twenty years later, on July 29th, 1364, Florence obtained a victory over Pisa which was both so complete and so unexpected, according to a chroni cler, that the Guelf party decreed the annual celebration of St Victor, whose day it was, as of a ‘patron of the Guelfs’ like St Barnabas, In the altarpiece, therefore, Victor holds both the palm of his martyrdom and the bays of the victory he had brought Florence. Barnabas is also present, as is Bishop Zenobius, with a fleur-de- ys on his vestments, Reparata, who carries the communal standard, a red ‘cross on white, St Matthew as patron of the Mint, and of course the Baptist. ‘Anne and Victor were both rewarded ‘with races run on their feast days. In the generation after the Zecca altarpiece was painted, several more ‘commemorative offerings were intro- duced but such innovation was firmly controlled, By an enactment of 1380 it was strictly forbidden for officials of, the guilds or of the merchant college to institute any offering on a saint's day; the power to do so was reserved to the officials of the commune, ‘These officials of course were fore: most among the worshippers at the shrine of the patron, and, often, other saints besides. They were not kings; especially where a city succeed ed in avoiding despotic rule, the saint represented the monarchic principle in urban society, supreme, undying, transcending mere mortal and tem- porary officials. Yet the offerings of the magistrates were conspicuous, and all the world saw them process to the altar of the patron. In the 1330s it ‘was declared that the ‘Nine’ of Siena‘would personally attend the celebr: tons of the Feast of the Assumption it’s day. Thus th magistracy with the supreme patron was underlined. From the late fourteenth century, however, a new ceremony demanded their preset stress of late medic himself, as well as on his mother, exacted a public response from the aders of the earthly society. The of Corpus Christ, ciate themselves with the ultimate symbol of the divine embodied on Donatello panel in the Hasilica of St Anthony intimately healing’ cripple section from Gentile Bellini's procession ia the Piazza San Marco ~a festimony to the role of the religious ‘confraternities in promoting civic pide and Venice's independence earth, the Eucharist, To walk immedi icly behind the s Fried in public nor elsewhere in Italy did the rulers of the Italian cities, whether princes or magistrates, fail to grasp this opportunity FOR FURTHER READING, Although a great deal has been published in recent ye relics, miracles an pil frimage, there is lite in English specifically Concerning Italian civic cults RC Trealer, Pub Ue Life n Renatssance Horence (Comeli Un: versity Press 1980, paperback ection 1991): E Muir, Clete Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton University Press, 1981). D. Webb, The Holy Face of Lucca’. in Anglo-Norman Studies 1X. ed R.Allen Brown (Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1986 and The Boydell Press, 1987) and ‘Cities of God: the Italian ‘Communes at Wat in Suies in Church Histo. ry 20: The Chureb and War, ed. WJ. Shells munities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Cornell University Press, 1991); Mini Rubin, Corpus. Christe; The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cam brie University Press. 1991), Diana Webb isa lecturer in medieval bistory ‘at King’s College London She bas published number of articles on late medieval Italian religious bistory and Isat present completing 4 study provisionally entitled Patrons and Defenders the Saints in the ltakan City States,