17 - Liturgical humanism: saints’ Offices from the Italian peninsula in the fifteenth century

Summary

Civic rituals that centered on saints constituted one of the most widely shared and generally positive experiences that humans could have in late medieval and Renaissance Europe. This chapter describes humanists' commemoration of saints in the official ritual of the liturgy. For the humanists, the Office was also a form of public oratory, local history, rhetorical display, and civic education that stood to profit from their professional attention. The Italian peninsula is a logical place to look for the classicizers' efforts at liturgical revision. The part of the Divine Office that especially attracted humanist attention was the day's first round of prayer, known as Matins. The officiant could find the Matins texts gathered in the Sanctorale, a specially designated part of the breviary. Fifteenth-century humanists' ideas about the liturgy are usually discussed in light of two early sixteenth-century texts. Finally, the chapter describes four Matins offices: Maffeo Vegio's Office, Tommaso Schifaldo's Office, Pietro Ransano's Office and Raffaele Maffei's Office.