P. Delcorno, Medieval Sermon Studies (\"L\'agiografia su Bernardino santo\")

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auf dem Weg hin zu einer umfassenden Darstellung des Verhältnisses von Predigt, Performanz und Rezeption im Mittelalter vor. Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Ralf Lützelschwab

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L’agiografia su Bernardino santo (1450–1460). By Daniele Solvi. Quaderni di ‘Hagiographica’ 12 — Le vite quattrocentesche di S. Bernardino da Siena 2. Pp. XIV+374. Florence: Sismel — Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014. ISBN 978-88-8450-560-6 This book, edited by Daniele Solvi, is the first volume to be published as part of the important editorial project ‘Le Vite quattrocentesche di S. Bernardino da Siena’ (‘The fifteenth-century vitae of St Bernardino da Siena’). This project is coordinated by Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli and Daniele Solvi. Its ambitious plan is to provide scholars with the entire fifteenth-century hagiographical corpus of texts about the famous saint preacher of Siena. This will enable scholars to re-evaluate the complex construction and dissemination of the hagiographical profile(s) of this Franciscan preacher. According to the project’s plan, this volume will be preceded by another one dedicated to the hagiographical texts written during the process of canonization, that is between 1444 and 1450, and will be followed by two volumes on the later period. The book edited by Solvi focuses on the key period that immediately followed the canonization of Bernardino in 1450. This offers scholars the refreshing possibility of considering the multiplicity of texts that — together with sermons, laude, and images — shaped and popularized the profile of the new saint. The volume gathers together nine texts that were previously scattered in several publications, some of which were almost impossible to consult outside Italy, such as the journals La Verna and Bullettino di studi bernardiniani. The list of the texts immediately demonstrates the richness that this volume offers its readers as well as the considerable differences in terms of authorship, length, function, and context of each of these texts: 1. Sante Boncor, Fior novello (pp. 3–67); 2. Vita ‘Clementissimus’ (pp. 69–139); 3. Maffeo Vegio, De vita et obitu beati Bernardini (pp. 141–253); 4. Agostino Dati, Lezioni liturgiche per il Notturno (pp. 255–64); 5. Bartolomeo Facio, the section on Bernardino in his De viris illustribus (pp. 265–68); 6. Giannozzo Manetti, the section on the Sienese saint in his Adversus Iudaeos et gentes (pp. 269–79); 7. Vespasiano da Bisticci, the life of Bernardino in his Le vite (pp. 281– 89); 8. Legenda ‘Apparuit’ (pp. 291–348); 9. Antonino da Firenze, the chapter on Bernardino in his Chronicon (pp. 349–73). Each text is introduced by a very brief note on its author, the source of the present edition, and the bibliography of the studies. Apart from the vernacular works of Sante Boncor and Vespasiano da Bisticci, all the other texts are in Latin and are provided with a useful translation in Italian. This has been prepared by Solvi and scholars who collaborated with him: Arduino Maiuri, Gianluca Orsola, and Zeno Verlato. Unfortunately, as the editor of the volume explains in the introduction, it was not possible to provide a critical edition of the texts. Therefore, they still reflect the different levels of accuracy in previous editions. Hence, a critical edition remains among the desiderata, in particular for a text such as Boncor’s Fior novello (its 1912 edition is quite problematic, since it merges together two manuscripts without clear critical criteria). Nevertheless, the volume greatly facilitates the study of and the comparison among these hagiographical texts. A few examples taken from the first text published in this volume provide an idea of its richness and make clear the value of the sources collected in this volume to any scholar interested in medieval preaching. The Fior novello of Sante Boncor can be considered a rather eccentric hagiographical text on Bernardino da Siena. In fact, it combines a description of his life, death, and canonization with the picturesque account of a miracle post mortem of the new saint, in which indeed Boncor’s own preaching is brought to the fore. The life and the virtues of the new saint are briefly discussed in the first six chapters (with the curious detail about Bernardino who — in the last years of his life — continued to preach although ‘he had just a single tooth

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in his mouth’ [‘solo tenesse uno dente ne la boca’, p. 10]). The death of Bernardino and his last words are depicted in great detail by Boncor (chapter 7–12), who presented himself as a direct witness of these events. Bernardino’s final discourse (‘uno sermone di lagrime pieno’) is a long prayer that expresses the perfect Eucharistic devotion of the saint while receiving the viaticum (pp. 11–14). This section results in a pocket-sized ars moriendi and begs comparison with other biblical and hagiographical scenes. Commenting on Bernardino’s farewell words to his friars, Boncor suggested parallels with Jacob, Francis of Assisi, and Christ (cf. p. 13). The second main section of the Fior novello provides an analytic and triumphalist description of the canonization process as well as of the solemn celebration for the new saint (chapters 13–34). Then, the celebrations for the new saint held in many Italian cities allow Boncor to introduce his own preaching in Venice and the detailed account of a miracle post mortem of St Bernardino (chapters 35–53). This miracle was deeply interlocked with the self-fashioning of Boncor, who portrayed himself as a follower of Bernardino and as a preacher who continued the salvific ministry initiated by the saint. Surprisingly, the religious message of Bernardino’s preaching was here reduced to his preaching against vanities in general and female wigs in particular. With an obsessive insistence, Boncor attacked the ‘damned, diabolic, and dissolute tresses of hair’ (‘le maledette e diaboliche e scostumate treze de capilli’, p. 39) as one of the main instruments of the devil. In the footsteps of his predecessor, Boncor repeatedly preached against them and, in just a few weeks organized, not one but two bonfires of vanities on Campo San Polo, which is a large square close to the Franciscan convent in Venice. The two bonfires are repeatedly recalled in the text; evidently their success represented a reason of great pride for Boncor. However, among his audience, a twenty-two year old girl named Lena dismissed the preacher’s warnings and continued to wear a wig. Shortly after the sermons of Boncor, as a sort of divine punishment, Lena fell ill with the bubonic plague. While her parents already despaired of her life and prepared her funeral (they bought her funeral dress while she was still alive), her future father-in-law, Tommaso, prayed for the intercession of St Bernardino in order to obtain her healing. This passage of the text makes clear the connection between Bernardino and Boncor. In the words of Tommaso, the Sienese was presented as the first preacher who harshly condemned ‘these damned tresses’ in Venice and the first who organized a bonfire of vanities, while Boncor was a faithful disciple of Bernardino who continued this mission: ‘Tu [Bernardino] fosti il primo che in questa cità abominasti e vituperasti queste stomacoxe treze e tu seminasti in questa citade nostra la dottrina contro queste false treze e tu prima comenzasti ad abruxare, e ora seguisse questo frate Santi [Boncor] como vero conforme e seguitatore de la toa santissima dottrina’ (p. 43). An echo of the sermons Boncor preached on this topic might be found in other points of this account, in which he intertwined passages of what seems his model sermon against the vanity of wigs and ‘false tresses’, which are labelled as a ‘diabolic and infernal crest helmet’, ‘diabolic crown’, ‘noxious and diabolic chain’ (‘cimero diabolico e infernale […] corona diabolica […] pestifera catena e diabolica’, pp. 46–47). Once the girl miraculously recovered, her tress wig was given directly to Boncor (‘a me fo portata la treza de la ditta Lena’, p. 54). He asked a notary to certify the account of the miracle. Then, in one of his sermons in front of thousands of people, Boncor publicly announced the miraculous healing of Lena while Tommaso provided an altar of the Franciscan church with a painting that depicted in detail the whole story of this miracle (‘la istoria dipinta per ordine, sicomo narrato’, p. 56). This scene closes the peculiar text of Boncor and, in a single passage, one finds gathered a hagiographical account, a sermon, an image, and the lively urban context of Venice in the summer of 1450. This is just an example of the abundance of material on preaching present in this volume. The text of Sante Boncor — which still needs to be systematically analysed — is clearly characterized by an explicit (insolent even) interplay between the new saint and the actual preacher-hagiographer, who exploited the authority of Bernardino to enhance his own profile. In other cases, the function of the texts is less apparent or — perhaps — more sophisticated. For instance, Agostino Dati, a Sienese layman, was keen to underline the civic dimension of St Bernardino, as this aspect was directly functional to the construction of his portrait as new patron of Siena. It will be the

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task of scholars to uncover and fully appreciate the different strategies of appropriation and representation of the new saint that characterize the texts in this collection. The brief notes that introduce each vita are just an entry point for this. The main purpose of the volume is in fact ‘to provide scholars with a useful working tool’, as the editor points out (p. VII). Undoubtedly the volume offers some rich material to scholars interested in medieval preaching and hagiography. Henceforth, this volume — and those planned to complete this editorial project — ought to be found on the shelf of everyone studying late medieval preaching and fifteenth-century Italian religious culture. Together with the collections of sermons of Bernardino da Siena and the edition of his canonization process edited in an exemplary manner in 2009 by Letizia Pellegrini, the vitae collected by Daniele Solvi shed light on and provide a new insight into the fascinating panorama of late medieval preaching. Furthermore, this volume confirms that — even for a famous preacher such as Bernardino — still many aspects need to be discovered or to be fully appreciated. L’agiografia su Bernardino santo (1450–1460) will help the scholarship on fifteenth-century preaching to enlarge its perspective and to move forward significantly. University of Leeds, UK Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany

Pietro Delcorno