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Eloquence and Education: A Humanist Approach to Hagiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Diana Webb
Diana Webb
Affiliation:
King's College, London
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Extract

We have learnt long since that the pioneers of humanism in early Renaissance Italy are not to be regarded as atheists, pagans, or even non-conformists. Some might be cynical about the institutional and political Church with which as Italians, and not infrequently as ecclesiastical employees, they were all too familiar, but they were not looking to disturb the Church in its role as one of the pillars of established society. If as intellectuals they were critical of the language and philosophical apparatus in which the Church had elaborated its doctrines, this did not usually imply scepticism of the revealed truths that were presumed to be enshrined in dogma or rejection of the rituals and practices of the Church, whatever dangers to the faith conservatives might claim to see in their classical enthusiasm. Among these familiar and respected practices, to the early humanists as to their contemporaries, was the veneration of the saints. Old saints were venerated and new saints made in fifteenth-century Italy as elsewhere, and occasionally they furnished subjects to a man classifiable by his education and professional expertise as a humanist.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 19 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 Much of what follows derives, somewhat altered, from a seminar paper given at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, in December 1977. I am grateful to Professor Denys Hay and to my colleague Dr J. L. Nelson for reading an intermediate version, and to Dr M. G. Dickson for comments and criticisms.

2 For ‘humanist religion’, treated largely in philosophical terms, see Trinkaus, C., In Our Image and Likeness, 2 vols, London 1969Google Scholar ; humanist lives of saints, including Vegio's, are discussed in ii, 616, 648, 843. See also the same writer's survey ‘Humanism, Religion, Society: Concepts and Motivations of Some Recent Studies’, Renaissance Quarterly, xxix (1976), 676–713Google Scholar . For humanist enthusiasm for the Fathers, see Stinger, C. T., Humanism and the Church Fathers: Ambrogio Traversari (1420–1431)) and Christian Antiquity in the Italian Renaissance, Albany, N.Y. 1977Google Scholar; and Gray, H. H., ‘Valla's Encomium of St Thomas Aquinas and the humanist conception of Christian antiquity’. Essays in History and Literature presented by the Fellows of the Newberry Library to Stanley Pargellis, ed. Bluhm, H., Chicago 1965, 37–51Google Scholar.

3 Ad fratrem Ludovicum de ordinis nostri forma et propagation, ed. Arbesmann, R., Analecta Augustiniana xviii (1965), 186–218Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 191.

5 See, e.g., the lite by Voragine, Jacopo da, Legenda aurea vulgo historia lombarda dicta, ed. Graesse, T., Dresden &: Leipzig 1846, 548–66Google Scholar.

6 Webb, D., ‘The decline and fall of eastern Christianity: a fifteenth-century view’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xlix (1976), 212Google Scholar, where this passage is quoted.

7 D. Webb, ‘Andrea Biglia at Bologna, 1424–7: a humanist friar and the troubles of the church’, ibid., 55.

8 The ‘sermon’ was printed by Torelli, L., Secoli Agostiniani vi, Bologna 1680, 604–15Google Scholar. Torelli evidently accepted the pope's authorship, as it seems did the editors of Ada Sanctorum, Maii, i, who in the same year published long excerpts from it, 488–92. Biglia's authorship is clearly stated by himself, Adfratrem Ludovicum, 186–7: ‘quod ante paucos dies de repertione ac translatione corporis beate Monice sermonem feci ex his vere verbis quibus Martinus summus pontifex apud fratres nostros designandis beati corporis reliquiis usus fertur’. For the later printings and propaganda use of the work, see Casamassa, A., ‘L'autore di un preteso discorso di Martino V,’ Miscellanea Pio Paschini, ii (=Laleranum, N.S. XV, 1948–1949), 109–25Google Scholar.

9 , Torelli, op. cit., 612–14Google Scholar. Evidence that the ‘translation’ of Easter 1430 may not have been all it seemed is provided by a narrative by Gamier, canon of Arrouaise, who claims to have taken the relics from Ostia to Arrouaise in 1162 (Ada Sanctorum, Maii, i, 481–8). The editors of the Ada saw this as the true beginnings of Monica's cult, which they described as ‘ignotus antiquioribus Martyrologis omnibus’ and as having spread from Arrouaise throughout Belgium, France and Germany, thence to the Augustinian Hermits and all churches (ibid., 473). An element of novelty in the cult in Italy is implied in ‘Martin VY observation that when the relics were borne into Rome, people did not know her name and when told she was Augustine's mother flocked to see and touch, so that the miracles began (, Torelli, op. cit., 610)Google Scholar. The evidence of votive images suggests that the cult as such was new in Italy at this period (Kaftal, G., Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting, Florence 1952, 749–52Google Scholar; idem , Iconography of the Saints in Central and South Italian Schools of Painting, Florence 1965, 793–6)Google Scholar. The traditional acceptance of her sanctity, thus deliberately revived and exploited in 1430, is attested by her appearance, nimbed, in several fourteenth-century cycles of her son's life (J. and Courcelle, P., Iconographie de saint Augustin: les cycles du XVe siécle, Paris 1965, 25–6Google Scholar, 43–4, 51, 66, 87, 88, 94.) I am indebted to Dr M. G. Dickson for this reference.

10 , Torelli, op. cit., 607.Google Scholar

11 Howell, A. G. F., S. Bernardino of Siena, London 1913, 358–9Google Scholar, prints Biglia's letter of attempted reconciliation to Bernardino; a letter of Barnaba to Biglia describes Bernardino's non-committal reaction on receiving it (Segarizzi, A., Per la bibliografia di Andrea Biglia, Venice 1920, 7)Google Scholar. Biglia's Liber de institutis, discipulis et doctrinafratris Bemardini Ordinis Minorum is printed, with some minor omissions, by Gaiffier, B. de, ‘Le Memoire d'Andre Biglia sur la predication de Saint Bernardin de Sienne’. Analecta Bollandiana, liii (1938), 308–58Google Scholar. See also , Webb, ‘Andrea Biglia’, 54–6Google Scholar. Biglia allegedly bitterly repented having written this attack on Bernardino : Piana, C., ‘I processi di canonizzazione su la vita di S. Bernardino di Siena’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum xliv (1951), 418, 424–5Google Scholar.

12 Ada Sanctorum, Maii, iv, 739–46.

13 ‘La vie de S. Bernardin de Sienne par Leonard Benvoglienti’, ed. Ortroy, F. Van, Analecta Bollandiana, xxi (1902), 53–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Der Briefwechsel des Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, ed. Wolkan, R., 1, i., Vienna 1909, 1–2, 6, 278–85, 388, 458–9Google Scholar; ‘La vie de S. Bernardin’, 55. Leonardo was an important witness at the canonisation process held at Siena in 1448 (Piana, art. cit.).

15 Tre lettere da Francesco Filelfo at suoi amid senesi, ed. Zeekauer, L., Siena 1898Google Scholar; Bruni, L., Epistolarum libri VIII, ed. Mehus, L., ii, Florence 1741, 95–6Google Scholar.

16 Carmina illustriumpoctarum italorum, vi, Florence 1720, 258–9.Google Scholar

17 Ada Sanctorum, Maii, iv, 739F.

18 The point is reinforced when a little later (741 E) Barnabá speaks of Bernardino's skill as a craftsman. Apart from organ-building and calligraphy ‘quaedam alia quae honeste delectabilia sunt ostendunt ut in otio cum dignitate maxima vitam degerit’.

19 Ibid., 740F.

20 Ibid., 741B.

21 Ibid., 742A. For Biglia's slurs on Bernardino's learning, see Gaiffier, de, ‘Le Memoire’, 315, 337, 346, 357Google Scholar.

22 Acta, 741F.

25 Ibid., 742E. The reference is to Livy, v. i.

24 Acta, 742F-743A.

25 Ibid., 744E-F.

26 A similar near-exclusive emphasis on Bernardino's maturity and on his miracles in life rather than after death is displayed by the anonymous Franciscan who wrote, drawing extensively on personal knowledge, some time after 1450 (‘Vie inedite de S. Bernardin de Sienne par un frere mineur, son contemporain’ , Analecta Bollandiana, (1906), 304–38)Google Scholar.

27 ‘La vie de S. Bernardin’, 55.

28 Ibid., 66–7.

29 Ada Sanctorum, Aprilis, i, 482–514.Google Scholar

30 ‘La vie de S. Bernardin’, 62–3.

31 Ibid., 66, 67, 72.

32 Ibid., 72.

33 Bernardino himself clearly stressed the matter-of-factness of his own nature to those who knew him; the anonymous Franciscan reports how, if he heard that anyone had had visions or uttered prophecy, Bernardino said ‘Non ego tanti sum meriti, sed divinis horis et sanctarum litterarum studio et eorum que necessaria sum ad predicationis officium iugiter insisto, et in huiusmodi puritate studeo permanere.’ (‘Vie inedite’, 315).

34 On Vegio's life and works see, basically, Raffaele, L., Maffeo Vegio: elenco delle opere, scritti inediti, Bologna 1909Google Scholar. Vegio's mature hagiographical works are all contained in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Ottobuoniano Latino 1253; reference below is made to editions, where applicable. Of little critical value, Consonni, C., Un Umanista Agiografo, Maffeo Vegio da Lodi, 1407–1458, Ravenna 1910Google Scholar, prints extracts from some of the works, drawing also on the closely related contents of Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS 3341. Vegio's hymns from his offices for the saints are printed from Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253 by , Raffaele, op. cit., 213–22Google Scholar.

35 De educatione liberorum et eorum Claris moribus libri sex, eds Sister Fanning, M. W. and Sister Sullivan, A. G., Catholic University of America Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, 1, fasc. i 1933Google Scholar, fasc. ii 1936. The first expression of Vegio's devotion to Monica seems to have been a poem in her praise written at Florence and dedicated to Eugenius IV in 1441 : , Raffaele, op. cit., 122Google Scholar.

36 Bigne, M. de la, Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum et Antiquorum Scriptorum Ecdesiasticorum, xxvi, Lyons 1677, 688–744.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 689.

38 Ibid., 697.

39 Ibid., 732.

40 De educatione liberorum, 2–3.

41 Ibid., 4, ‘quae in id usque temporis, nisi quantum vulgo aliquando acceperam, me latterat’.

42 Ibid., 4–5.

43 Ibid., 115.

44 Ibid., 123–5.

45 Confessions, ix, viii. For Augustine's own interpretation of this incident, cf. Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo, London 1967, 164Google Scholar.

46 De educatwne liberorum, 125–6. For another view o f Vegio's use of the Confessions in this work and its limitations, see Courcelle, P., Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans le tradition litteraire, Paris 1963, 349–50Google Scholar; he also discusses the use made of the Confessions by thirteenth-century writers on education, 320–2.

47 For such writers and their sources see the work of Arbesmann, R., esp. ‘Jordanus of Saxony's Vita S. Augustini, the source for John Capgrave's life of St Augustine’, Tradilio, i (1943), 341–53Google Scholar; ‘The “Vita Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi” in Cod. Laurent. Plut. 90 sup. 48’, ibid., xviii (1962), 319–55 ; ‘The edition of the Vita S. Augustini in Boston Public Library MS 1483’, Revue des etudes augustiniennes, xi (1965), 43–54Google Scholar. For the use made of the Confessions by Augustinian apologists, including Henry of Friemar and Jordan of Saxony, see , Courcelle, Les Confessions, 324–7Google Scholar.

48 Arbesmann, R., ‘Henry of Friemar's “Treatise on the Origins and Development of the Order of the Hermit Friars and its true and real title”’, Augustiniana, vi (1956), 39, 90–2.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., 97: ‘mortua autem matre and Ostia Tiberina’.

50 Liber Vitasfratrum, eds Arbesmann, R. and Humpfner, W., New York 1943, 193, 407Google Scholar. The letter to Perpetua is in Acta Sanctorum, Maii, i, 480–1.

51 Legenda Aurea, ed. , Graesse, 553Google Scholar. , Courcelle, op. cit., 322–4Google Scholar, analyses Jacopo's use of the Confessions.

52 Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253, fos. 86–119. Use of the Confessions at a much earlier date for the construction of a life ol Monica is illustrated by Gautier of Arrouaise (Ada Sanctorum, Maii, i, 474–80 ; , Courcelle, op. cit., 296Google Scholar n. 7; cf. above, p. 22, n. 9). Like Vegio, Gautier arranges passages from the Confessions in chronological sequence.

53 Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253, fos. 52–76V.

54 Ibid., fo. 68v.: ‘Cuius est tanta ingenii vis, tanta eloquii copia. qui tarn multa tamque ingentia ut ille, etsi ferrea sibi vox divinaque mens esset, plene posset feliciterque dicendo complecti? Cuius unquam christianorum visum est ingenium altius, iudicium nobilius, studium vigiliantius, doctrina fecundior, eloquentia artifiosior’ etc. etc.

55 Ibid., fo. 69:‘…cuius causa talem ilium qualem quisque novit accepimus’.

56 Ibid., fo. 69v.

57 Ibid., fo. 76V.

58 Casamassa, A., ‘Le pietra tombaledi Maffeo Vegio’, Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia, ii, 1948, 402–3.Google Scholar

59 Antoniados libri IV, in Bigne, Maxima Bibliotheca, xxvi (773–7).

60 Vita Coclestini V, in Seppelt, F. X., Monumenta Coelcstiniana: Quellen zur Ceschichte des Papstes Coelestini V (=Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Ceschichte, xix), Paderborn 1921, 185–208Google Scholar.

61 Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253, fos. 78–85V . , Consonni, Un Umanista, 47–51Google Scholar, prints some extracts, fairly considerably rearranged and paraphrased. The dating is Raffaele's (Majfeo Vegio, 84).

62 For the early sources for Celestine, see Ortroy, F. van, ‘S. Pierre Celestin et ses premiers biographes’, Analecta Bollandiana, xvi (1897), 365–87Google Scholar. For Niccolo, Vegio's source was the Vita by Pietro da Monte Rubeano (1326), Ada Sanctorum, Septembris iii, 644–63.

65 Vila Coetestini, 185.

64 Ortroy, Van, art. cit., 386.Google Scholar

65 Vita Coelestini, 190–1, 193; Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253, fos. 81–81v.

66 Vita, 193–4; Ottobuon. 1253, fo. 80.

67 Vita, 188; Ottobuon. 1253, fo. 78V.

68 Ibid., fo. 78V.

69 Vita, 186.

70 Ibid., 188–9.

71 Ibid., 187–8.

72 Ortroy, Van, ‘S. Pierre Célestin’, 386.Google Scholar

73 Vat. Ottobuon. Lat. 1253, fo. i8iv. The Vita is printed in Ada Sanctorum, Maii, iv, 749–66. For other MSS see Pacetti, D., De sancti Bemardini Senensis operibus. Ratio criticae editionis, Quaracchi 1947, 212Google Scholar. For Vegio's use of the official process of canonisation, see , Piana, ‘I processi’, 105–10Google Scholar; also Gaiffier, B. de, ‘Le Vie de S. Bernardin du manuscript de Range-CIoftre,’ Analecta Bollandiana, lxxi (1953), 286Google Scholar, and the further references there given.

74 Ada Sanctorum, Maii iv, 751C-D.

75 Ibid., 750–1.

76 Ibid., 750A-B.

77 Ibid., 751B-C.

78 Ibid., 754–5.

79 Ibid.,758E-759A.

80 Ibid., 759c.

81 Ibid., 762–6.

82 Ibid., 766C-D.

83 Brown, P., ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in late Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies, lxi (1971), 80–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayr-Harting, H., ‘Functions of a twelfth-century reclusel’, History, lx (1975), 337–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Meiss, M., ‘Scholarship and Penitence in the Early Renaissance: the image of St. Jerome’, Pantheon, xxxii (1974), 134–40Google Scholar (reprinted in The Painter's Choice, New York. 1976, 189–202Google Scholar ) is a brief but suggestive study.