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Religious Revivals in Mediæval Italy. See Chap. viii. p. 491 above.

It would be unscientific to confound events of such European importance as the foundation of the orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic with the phenomena in question. Still it may be remarked, that the sudden rise and the extraordinary ascendency of the mendicants and preachers were due in a great measure to the sensitive and lively imagination of the Italians. The Popes of the first half of the thirteenth century were shrewd enough to discern the political and ecclesiastical importance of movements which seemed at first to owe their force to mere fanatical revivalism. They calculated on the intensely excitable temperament of the Italian nation, and employed the Franciscans and Dominicans as their militia in the crusade against the Empire and the heretics. Again, it is necessary to distinguish what was essentially national from what was common to all Europeans in the Middle Ages. Every country had its wandering hordes of flagellants and penitents, its crusaders and its pilgrims. The vast unsettled populations of mediæval Europe, haunted with the recurrent instinct of migration, and nightmare-ridden by imperious religious yearnings, poured flood after flood of fanatics upon the shores of Palestine. Half-naked savages roamed, dancing and groaning and scourging their flesh, from city to city, under the stress of semi-bestial impulses. Then came the period of organized pilgrimages. The celebrated shrines of Europe—Rome, Compostella, Monte Gargano, Canterbury—acted like lightning-conductors to the tempestuous devotion of the mediæval races, like setons to their over-charged imagination. In all these universal movements the Italians had their share: being more advanced in civilization than the Northern peoples, they turned the crusades to commercial count, and maintained some moderation in the fakir fury of their piety. It is not, therefore, with the general history of religious enthusiasm in the Middle Ages that we have to do, but rather with those intermittent manifestations of revivalism which were peculiar to the Italians. The chief points to be noticed are the political influence acquired by monks in some of the Italian cities, the preaching of peace and moral reformation, the panics or superstitious terror which seized upon wide districts, and the personal ascendency of hermits unaccredited by the Church, but believed by the people to be divinely inspired.

One of the most picturesque figures of the first half of the thirteenth century is the Dominican monk, John of Vicenza. His order, which had recently been founded, was already engaged in the work of persecution. France was reeking with the slaughter of the Albigenses, and the stakes were smoking in the town of Milan, when this friar undertook the noble task of pacifying Lombardy. Every town in the north of Italy was at that period torn by the factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines; private feuds crossed and intermingled with political discords; and the savage tyranny of Ezzelino had shaken the fabric of society to its foundations. It seemed utterly impossible to bring this people for a moment to agreement. Yet what popes and princes had failed to achieve, the voice of a single friar accomplished. John of Vicenza began his preaching in Bologna during the year 1233. The citizens and the country folk of the surrounding districts flocked to hear him. It was noticed with especial wonder that soldiers of all descriptions yielded to the magic of his eloquence. The themes of his discourse were invariably reconciliation and forgiveness of injuries. The heads of rival houses, who had prosecuted hereditary feuds for generations, met before his pulpit, and swore to live thenceforth in amity. Even the magistrates entreated him to examine the statutes of their city, and to point out any alterations by which the peace of the commonwealth might be assured. Having done his best for Bologna, John journeyed to Padua, where the fame of his sanctity had been already spread abroad. The carroccio of the city, on which the standard of Padua floated, and which had led the burghers to many a bloody battle, was sent out to meet him at Monselice, and he entered the gates in triumph. In Padua the same exhortations to peace produced the same results. Old enmities were abandoned, and hands were clasped which had often been raised in fierce fraternal conflict. Treviso, Feltre, Beliuno, Conegliano, and Romano, the very nests of the grim brood of Ezzelino, yielded to the charm. Verona, where the Scalas were about to reign, Vicenza, Mantua, and Brescia, all placed themselves at the disposition of the monk, and prayed him to reform their constitution. But it was not enough to restore peace to each separate community, to reconcile household with household, and to efface the miseries of civil discord. John of Vicenza aimed at consolidating the Lombard cities in one common bond. For this purpose he bade the burghers of all the towns where he had preached to meet him on the plain of Paquara, in the country of Verona. The 28th of August was the day fixed for this great national assembly. More than four hundred thousand persons, according to the computation of Parisio di Cereta, appeared upon the scene. This multitude included the populations of Verona, Mantua, Brescia, Padua, and Vicenza, marshaled under their several standards, together with contingents furnished by Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, and Bologna. Nor was the assembly confined to the common folk. The bishops of these flourishing cities, the haughty Marquis of Este, the fierce lord of Romano, and the Patriarch of Aquileia, obeyed the invitation of the friar. There, on the banks of the Adige, and within sight of the Alps, John of Vicenza ascended a pulpit that had been prepared for him, and preached a sermon on the text, Pacem meam do vobis, pacem relinquo vobis. The horrors of war, and the Christian duty of reconciliation, formed the subject of his sermon, at the end of which he constrained the Lombards to ratify a solemn league of amity, vowing to eternal perdition all who should venture to break the same, and imprecating curses on their crops, their vines, their cattle, and everything they had. Furthermore, he induced the Marquis of Este to take in marriage a daughter of Alberico da Romano. Up to this moment John of Vicenza had made a noble use of the strange power which he possessed. But his success seems to have turned his head. Instead of confining himself to the work of pacification so well begun, he now demanded to be made lord of Vicenza, with the titles of Duke and Count, and to receive the supreme authority in Verona. The people, believing him to be a saint, readily acceded to his wishes; but one of the first things he did, after altering the statutes of these burghs, was to burn sixty citizens of Verona, whom he had himself condemned as heretics. The Paduans revolted against his tyranny. Obliged to have recourse to arms, he was beaten and put in prison; and when he was released, at the intercession of the Pope, he found his wonderful prestige annihilated.[1]

[1] The most interesting accounts of Fra Giovanni da Vicenza are to be found in Muratori, vol. viii., in the Annals of Rolandini and Gerardus Maurisius.

The position of Fra Jacopo del Bussolaro in Pavia differed from that of Fra Giovanni da Vicenza in Verona. Yet the commencement of his political authority was very nearly the same. The son of a poor boxmaker of Pavia, he early took the habit of the Augustines, and acquired a reputation for sanctity by leading the austere life of a hermit. It happened in the year 1356 that he was commissioned by the superiors of his order to preach the Lenten sermons to the people of Pavia. 'Then,' to quote Matteo Villani, 'it pleased God that this monk should make his sermons so agreeable to every species of people, that the fame of them and the devotion they inspired increased marvelously. And he, seeing the concourse of the people, and the faith they bare him, began to denounce vice, and specially usury, revenge, and ill-behavior of women; and thereupon he began to speak against the disorderly lordship of the tyrants; and in a short time he brought the women to modest manners, and the men to renunciation of usury and feuds.' The only citizens of Pavia who resisted his eloquence were the Beccaria family, who at that time ruled Pavia like despots. His most animated denunciations were directed against their extortions and excesses. Therefore they sought to slay him. But the people gave him a bodyguard, and at last he wrought so powerfully with the burghers that they expelled the house of Beccaria and established a republican government. At this time the Visconti were laying siege to Pavia: the passes of the Ticino and the Po were occupied by Milanese troops, and the city was reduced to a state of blockade. Fra Jacopo assembled the able-bodied burghers, animated them by his eloquence, and led them to the attack of their besiegers. They broke through the lines of the beleaguering camp, and re-established the freedom of Pavia. What remained, however, of the Beccaria party passed over to the enemy, and threw the whole weight of their influence into the scale of the Visconti: so that at the end of a three years' manful conflict, Pavia was delivered to Galeazzo Visconti in 1359. Fra Jacopo made the best terms that he could for the city, and took no pains to secure his own safety. He was consigned by the conquerors to the superiors of his order, and died in the dungeons of a convent at Vercelli. In his case, the sanctity of an austere life, and the eloquence of an authoritative preacher of repentance, had been strictly subordinated to political aims in the interests of republican liberty. Fra Jacopo deserves to rank with Savonarola: like Savonarola, he fell a victim to the selfish and immoral oppressors of his country. As in the case of Savonarola, we can trace the connection which subsisted in Italy between a high standard of morality and patriotic heroism.[1]

[1] The best authorities for the life and actions of Fra Jacopo are Matteo Villani, bks. 8 and 9, and Peter Azarius, in his Chronicle (Groevius, vol. ix.).

San Bernardino da Massa heads a long list of preachers, who, without taking a prominent part in contemporary politics, devoted all their energies to the moral regeneration of the people. His life, written by Vespasiano da Bisticci, is one of the most valuable documents which we possess for the religious history of Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century. His parents, who were people of good condition, sent him at an early age to study the Canon law at Siena. They designed him for a lucrative and important office in the Church. But, while yet a youth, he was seized with a profound conviction of the degradation of his countrymen. The sense of sin so weighed upon him that he sold all his substance, entered the order of S. Francis, and began to preach against the vices which were flagrant in the great Italian cities. After traveling through the length and breadth of the peninsula, and winning all men by the magic of his eloquence, he came to Florence. 'There,' says Vespasiano, 'the Florentines being by nature very well disposed indeed to truth, he so dealt that he changed the whole State and gave it, one may say, a second birth. And in order to abolish the false hair which the women wore, and games of chance, and other vanities, he caused a sort of large stall to be raised in the Piazza di Santa Croce, and bade every one who possessed any of these vanities to place them there; and so they did; and he set fire thereto and burned the whole.' S. Bernardino preached unremittingly for forty-two years in every quarter of Italy, and died at last worn out with fatigue and sickness. 'Of many enmities and deaths of men he wrought peace and removed deadly hatreds; and numberless princes, who harbored feuds to the death, he reconciled, and restored tranquillity to many cities and peoples.' A vivid picture of the method adopted by S. Bernardino in his dealings with these cities is presented to us by Graziani, the chronicler of Perugia: 'On September 23, 1425, a Sunday, there were, as far as we could reckon, upwards of 3,000 persons in the Cathedral. His sermon was from the Sacred Scripture, reproving men of every vice and sin, and teaching Christian living. Then he began to rebuke the women for their paints and cosmetics, and false hair, and such like wanton customs; and in like manner the men for their cards and dice-boards and masks and amulets and charms: insomuch that within a fortnight the women sent all their false hair and gewgaws to the Convent of S. Francis, and the men their dice, cards, and such gear, to the amount of many loads. And on October 29 Fra Bernardino collected all these devilish things on the piazza, where he erected a kind of wooden castle between the fountain and the Bishop's palace; and in this he put all the said articles, and set fire to them; and the fire was so great that none durst go near; and in the fire were burned things of the greatest value, and so great was the haste of men and women to escape that fire that many would have perished but for the quick aid of the burghers.' Together with this onslaught upon vanities, Fra Bernardino connected the preaching of peace and amity. It is noticeable that while his sermon lasted and the great bell of S. Lorenzo went on tolling, no man could be taken or imprisoned in the city of Perugia.[1]

[1] See Vespasiano, Vite di Uomini Illustri, pp. 185–92. Graziani, Archivio Storico, vol. xvi. part i. pp. 313, 314.

The same city was the scene of many similar displays. During the fifteenth century it remained in a state of the most miserable internal discord, owing to the feuds of its noble families. Graziani gives an account of the preaching there of Fra Jacopo della Marca, in 1445: on this occasion a temporary truce was patched up between old enemies, a witch was burned for the edification of the burghers, the people were reproved for their extravagance in dress, and two peacemakers (pacieri) were appointed for each gate. On March 22, after undergoing this discipline, the whole of Perugia seemed to have repented of its sins; but the first entry for April 15 is the murder of one of the Ranieri family by another of the same house. So transitory were the effects of such revivals.[1] Another entry in Graziani's Chronicle deserves to be noticed. He describes how, in 1448, Fra Roberto da Lecce (like S. Bernardino and Fra Jacopo della Marca, a Franciscan of the Order of Observance) came to preach in January. He was only twenty-two years of age; but his fame was so great that he drew about 15,000 persons into the piazza to listen to him. The stone pulpit, we may say in passing, is still shown, from which these sermons were delivered. It is built into the wall of the Cathedral, and commands the whole square. Roberto da Lecce began by exhibiting a crucifix, which moved the audience to tears; 'and the weeping and crying, Jesu misericordia! lasted about half an hour. Then he made four citizens be chosen for each gate as peacemakers.' What follows in Graziani is an account of a theatrical show, exhibited upon the steps of the Cathedral. On Good Friday the friar assembled all the citizens, and preached; and when the moment came for the elevation of the crucifix, 'there issued forth from San Lorenzo Eliseo di Christoforo, a barber of the quarter of Sant Angelo, like a naked Christ with the cross on his shoulder, and the crown of thorns upon his head, and his flesh seemed to be bruised as when Christ was scourged.' The people were immensely moved by this sight. They groaned and cried out, 'Misericordia!' and many monks were made upon the spot. At last, on April 7, Fra Roberto took his leave of the Perugians, crying as he went, 'La pace sia con voi!'[2] We have a glimpse of the same Fra Roberto da Lecce at Rome, in the year 1482. The feuds of the noble families della Croce and della Valle were then raging in the streets of Rome. On the night of April 3 they fought a pitched battle in the neighborhood of the Pantheon, the factions of Orsini and Colonna joining in the fray. Many of the combatants were left dead before the palaces of the Vallensi; the numbers of the wounded were variously estimated; and all Rome seemed to be upon the verge of civil war. Roberto da Lecce, who was drawing large congregations, not only of the common folk, but also of the Roman prelates, to his sermons at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, interrupted his discourse upon the following Friday, and held before the people the image of their crucified Saviour, entreating them to make peace. As he pleaded with them, he wept; and they too fell to weeping—fierce satellites of the rival factions and worldly prelates lifting up their voice in concert with the friar who had touched their hearts.[3] Another member of the Franciscan Order of Observance should be mentioned after Fra Roberto. This was Fra Giovanni da Capistrano, of whose preaching at Brescia in 1451 we have received a minute account. He brought with him a great reputation for sanctity and eloquence, and for the miraculous cures which he had wrought. The Rectors of the city, together with 300 of the most distinguished burghers upon horseback, and a crowd of well-born ladies on foot, went out to meet him on February 9. Arrangements were made for the entertainment of himself and 100 followers, at public cost. Next morning, three hours before dawn, there were already assembled upwards of 10,000 people on the piazza, waiting for the preacher. 'Think, therefore,' says the Chronicle, 'how many there must have been in the daytime! and mark this, that they came less to hear his sermon than to see him.' As he made his way through the throng, his frock was almost torn to pieces on his back, everybody struggling to get a fragment.[4]

[1] See Graziani, pp. 565–68.

[2] Graziani, pp, 597–601.

[3] See Jacobus Volaterranus. Muratori, xxiii. pp. 126, 156, 167.