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Piety, Penance, and Popular Reading in Devotion to the Virgin Mary and Her Miracles: Italian Incunabula and Early Printed Collections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
‘Those folk are all men [and women] of my kidney who delight in miracles and fictitious marvels, whether hearing or telling about them’, exclaimed Erasmus’s Folly. As for saints,
Each one of these is assigned his [or her] special powers … so that one gives relief from toothache, another stands by women in childbirth.… There are some whose influence extends to several things, notably the Virgin, mother of God, for the common ignorant man comes near to attributing more to her than to her son.
Reformers saw such cults as detracting from the centrality of Christ in Christian devotion. One of the reforming factors of anticlericalism in the early sixteenth century was the search for a more direct route to salvation, a more direct line to God than through the mediating authority of the perhaps all too earth-bound priest. Increasingly often in pre-Reformation Europe the mediating influence of Mary or of a favourite saint was felt to be more effective than that of the priest. Both lay and religious found Mary, the mother of God, more accessible than a judgemental Christ. Despite the teaching of the Church, Mary did appear to come between Christ and his people, as often illustrated by the iconography of the Madonna of Mercy upon whose mantle the arrows rained down by Christ or God the Father were broken.
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References
1 Erasmus, D., Praise of Folly, tr. Radice, B. (1971), 125–9 (emphasis added)Google Scholar.
2 See Chavasse, Ruth, ‘The Virgin Mary: consoler, protector and social worker in Quattrocento miracle tales’, in Panizza, Letizia, ed., Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (Oxford, 2000), 154, 158, 159 fig.10.Google Scholar
3 Black, C.F., Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1989), 217–23 Google Scholar; Levi, Ezio, ‘I miracoli della Vergine nell’arte del medio evo’, Bolletino d’arte, 12 (1918), 24 Google Scholar and fig. 20, showing confraternity participation in the final journey of the accused to the gallows in the story of ‘Il miracolo del ladro Elbo’, who was saved by the intervention of the Virgin. This miracle is also depicted in the cycle of Marian miracles in the Lady Chapel, Winchester Cathedral.
4 Levi d’Ancona, M., The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (New York, 1957), 57.Google Scholar
5 Miracoli della gloriosa Vergine Maria (Florence, 1545): BL, 4823.3.43, MS interlinear addition, no pagination.
6 ‘Seeing Salvation’, London, National Gallery exhibition, 2000; catalogue published as Gabriele Finaldi, ed., The Image of Christ (2000).
7 Levi, ‘Miracoli’, 25; The illustrated Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (CDROM: BL, 2000) lists known incunabula editions.
8 Compare Miracoli (Florence, 1495), fol. f2; BL, LA 27465. Florence, church of Santo Spirito, Velluti chapel, ‘Madonna del Soccorso’ (unknown Florentine artist, ?1490s).
9 James, M.R. and Tristram, E.W., ‘The wall paintings in Eton College chapel and in the Lady Chapel of Winchester cathedral’, Walpole Society Proceedings, 17 (1929), 1–43 Google Scholar; The Treasures of Eton, ed. James McConnell (1976), 116–30. de Worde, Wynkyn, The Miracles of Our Lady (Westminster, 1496): Glasgow, University Library, Bv.3.4.Google Scholar
10 For BL and Italian library copies see Illustrated Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue, and Indice generale degli incunaboli, vol. 4 (Rome, 1965).
11 Examples are Miracoli (Venice, 1491): BL, IA 22345 (title page ‘Annunciation’ and ‘Christ raising Lazarus’); Miracoli (Brescia, 1496), title page ‘The Holy House of Loreto’. See Chavasse, Ruth, ‘Latin lay piety and vernacular lay piety in word and image: Venice, 1471-carly 1500s’, Renaissance Studies, 10 (1996), 330–1 Google Scholar. Smith, Margaret M., The Title Page: Its early Development, 1460–1510 (2000)Google Scholar was published after this paper was completed, but is relevant for my comments on illustrations as title pages.
12 Milan and Vicenza editions published by Lavagna, Achate, and da Reno have a verse colophon where in similar wording the publisher claimed to be ‘master of these sweet songs’. Florentine editions are characterized by a larger number of legends, 75 rather than 61–2.
13 See Levi, ‘Miracoli’, esp. 1–3. I am also indebted to research carried out by Anna Frost on literary sources while she was a postgraduate student at King’s College London, and presented in an unpublished paper at the Institute of Historical Research, 1990, which supported my research into the iconography of the Madonna del Soccorso altarpicccs.
14 The possibility remains of discovering Italian MS sources. Since presenting and submitting this paper I have received references to MSS in Florence from Catherine Lawless, for which I am most grateful: Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 1408 (15th century), fol. 108v, has the opening story of the printed editions; ibid., MS 1451 (15th century), fol. 62v, has the same opening miracle story. These and other Florentine MSS have yet to be checked for their precise relation to the printed editions.
15 Modena, Musco Civico, Sala dell’arte sacra: three sides of ‘acquasantiera’ decorated with scenes from the legend of the knight and the devil, probably work of Niccolò, younger assistant to Wiligelmo. Venturi, Adolfo, Storia dell’arte italiana, 3: L’arte romanica (Milan, 1904), 157–60.Google Scholar
16 Esp. Miracoli (Florence, 1545), fol. Aiir; also Miracoli (Milan, 1496), opening story (no foliation).
17 Florence, Archivio di stato, Corporazioni religiose soppresse dal governo francese, 122, pezzo 37, Memoriale G, tavola di Santo Spirito, 1598, fols or-v refers to masses to be said or sung especially for the feast of the Immaculate Conception and most often sponsored by women.
18 See n.21 below.
19 Miracoli (Florence, ?1482): Poppi, Biblioteca Comunale, Inc. 701. See Chavasse, ‘The Virgin Mary’, 140, 158n.3.
20 Miracoli (Vicenza, 1476) – Stonyhurst College, BV VIII 10 (I am grateful to the Revd F.J. Turner, S.J., for enabling me to consult this copy); Miracoli (Venice, 1491)-BL, IA 22345. Catherine Gill, ‘Women, texts, and religious culture in Trecento and Quattrocento Italy’, paper delivered for session ‘Women and Pcvotional Books in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe’ of The Renaissance Society of America conference, Florence 2000, refers to confraternities or churches acting as lending libraries.
21 Vicenza, 1481: Verona, Biblioteca Civica, Inc. 644.
22 Florence, 1545: BL, 48.a.43.
23 del Basso, Giovanni Maria, ‘Il sigillo delle monache: autorità e modello’, in Zarri, Gabriella, ed., Donna, disciplina, creanza Christiana dal XV al XVII secolo (Rome, 1996), 347–66 Google Scholar, and my review in Renaissance Studies, 12 (1998), 604.
24 For the Narni story see Miracoli (Venice, 1491), ch. xxx, for the widow ch. xlvii. The painter story is usually ch. 9 or 10 in Italian collections; it was also depicted in the Lady Chapel of Winchester cathedral: Chavasse, ‘Latin lay piety’, 331, illustrated at 341 fig. 13 from Miracoli (Venice, 1505).
25 Examples are Bernardino Benali and Matteo Codeca da Parma (Venice, 1491) – BL, IA 22345; Lazzaro Suardi (Venice, 1490) – Verona, Biblioteca Civica, Inc. 168; and Achate of Vicenza.