St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan
Saints in Italian Preaching, c. 1240-1340
André
Vauchez
Académie
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris
Among the
saints of the Middle Ages, St. Francis of Assisi ranks among those about whom the greatest number of
medieval sermons can be found, especially in Italy. Most were written by Friars Minor, but some were the works
of members of other Mendicants orders –especially Dominicans – or of bishops
e.g. Federico Visconti, archbishop of Pisa. Moreover a certain number of
sermons – most of them are still unpublished - were written in Italy around the same period about other
saints – Anthony of Padua, Clare of Assisi, Louis of Anjou – or about lay saints connected with the Friars like Elizabeth of Hungary
or Pietro Pettinaio.
We shall
rely on those de sanctis sermons
which have been published in order to establish the kind of hagiographic
sources - Vitae, miracles, canonization processes, legendaries – medieval
preachers resorted to. We shall also analyze how they used these sources in
order to demonstrate the sainthood of the men and women whose merits they were
extolling: did these texts serve as mere exempla,
allowing the preachers to render their sermons more vivid and concrete? Or did
they occasionally prove to be genuine sources of inspiration?
No comments:
Post a Comment