Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
11 - Who Destroyed Assisi? The Lament of Jacopone da Todi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Part I John Moorman and His Franciscan Studies
- Part II The Order of Friars Minor in England
- Part III The Friars and the Schools
- Appendix: The Moorman Letters in the Archive of the Collegio San Bonaventura (Quaracchi/Grottaferrata/Rome)
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The connection between Assisi, the burial place of St Francis, and Paris, the home of the premier university for the study of theology in the thirteenth century and the place where the friars established their leading school, was never going to be easy. The view attributed to Jacopone da Todi – that the friars’ engagement with the University of Paris undermined the concepts of humiltas and simplicitas – was shared by many reformers. Reformers such as Ubertino of Casale protested that the order was being dominated by a Parisian elite, many of whom held the positions of influence and power. A further symbol of tension within the order was the construction and decoration of the basilica of St Francis in Assisi. Professor Cusato explores the uneasy relationship between the two cities and examines the image of St Francis projected in the artistic design of the upper basilica in Assisi.
Keywords: Jacopone da Todi, laude, basilica of San Francesco, upper church, Giotto, Legenda maior, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Matthew of Acquasparta, Pescia Tavola, Bardi Tavola, the poor
Introduction
The writings of Jacopone da Todi serve as an excellent homage to Bishop John Moorman, whose monumental History of the Franciscan Order (1968) gives ample evidence of a certain affection, if not predilection, for these viri spirituales of the last years of the thirteenth and early decades of the fourteenth centuries.
It is well known that Giles of Assisi (d. 1263), one of the first companions of Francis of Assisi, became, within a few years of the death of his founder, a renowned hermit and mystic living at the hermitage of Monteripido outside the city of Perugia. One of the results of his long years of contemplation and reflection in solitude was the development of a reputation for having wisdom about the spiritual life in general and the religious life of the forma vitae fratrum minorum in particular. Indeed, so striking were his observations that some of his contemporaries – and later generations as well – began to conserve and gather into written collections some of his most memorable sayings (dicta).
Now, one of the most famous of these dicta was his outburst apparently against the learning and university studies being pursued by his Franciscan confrères, especially over the mountains in France.
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- Information
- The Franciscan Order in the Medieval English , pp. 229 - 254Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018