History 5341: Medieval Italy

John Howe

List 8:  Hagiography in Medieval Italy (Selected Topics)

Major Inventories

For Latin Texts: Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis [BHL], ed.. Société des Bollandistes.  Subsidia Hagiographica 6.  Brussels:  Bollandistes, 1898-1901.  Updated by the BHL Novum Supplementum, ed. Henri Fros.  Subsidia Hagiographica 70.  Ibid., 1986.  To the 9031 Latin hagiographical texts indexed in the original BHL, the Supplementum adds 1000s more, including unedited texts known through published manuscript catalogues.  It adds an index of authors.  The BHL lists saints, their feasts, texts (with incipit and explicit), and editions.  It does not attempt to classify lives or to date them in any but the most generic and relative fashion.  Nevertheless, as an identification tool this reference system is of such specificity and authority that hagiographical studies often include parenthetical BHL numbers as a scholarly courtesy.

Guy Philippart and his students François de Vriend, Bénédicte Legrain, and Michel Trigalet have produced an Index analytique
des Catalogues de manuscrits hagiographiques latins publiés par les Bollandistes, an open-access on-line search engine which allows searches by BHL number, manuscript locations, and other features. In this electronic version it is possible to sort by geographical region

            Fros, Henri.  "Inédits non rencensé dans la BHL."  Analecta Bollandiana 102 (1984): 163-96, 355-80. Fros lists texts, usually late medieval minor variants, which were omitted from the BHL and its Novum Supplementum.

For Italian Texts: Biblioteca agiografica Italians (BAI): Reperorio di testi manosccritti, secoli XIII-XV.  Edited by Jacques Dalarun and Lino Leonardi. 2 vols. + CD.   Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2003.

For Italo-Greek Texts:  Byzantine Hagiography has its own indices, which do not separate out the Italo-Greek contibutions from the others. Italo-Greek material has been edited, often with Italian translations, by a variety of little Italian research institutions.  Electronic copies of Middle Byzantine texts are available through the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database.  An overview of the range of Greek material is in John W. Nesbitt, “A Geographical and Chronological Guide to Greek Saint Lives.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 35(2) (1969):  444-489.

Regional: Hagiographies. Volumes 1-5 (1994-2012), edited by Guy Philippart; vol. 6- (2014-), edited by. Monique Goullet. Corpus Christianorum Hagiographies. Turnhout: Brepols, 1994-. Sixty+ collaborators survey hagiography by dividing it up into manageable pieces: by chronological periods, often pre-Constantinian, 314-750, 750-950, 950-1130, 1130-1220, 1220-1350, 1350-1450, and 1450-1550; by geographical areas, usually defined nationally and linguistically; and by language, in many cases treating Latin and vernacular hagiographical traditions separately.  The choice to publish the individual contributions as they arrive makes each volume a hodgepodge. 

General Bibliographies

D'Angelo, Edoardo. "Agiografia Latina del Mezzogiorno continentale d'Italia (750-1000)." In Hagiographies 4: 41-134.

D'Angelo, Eduardo. "Bibliotheca Hagiographica Umbriae (1130-1500)." In Hagiographies 6:107-34

Degli'Innocenti, Antonella. "Agiografia Latina dell'Italia centrale, 1130-1220." In Hagiographies  5: 731-98.

Everett, Nicholas. "The Hagiography of Lombard Italy." Hagiographica 7 (2000): 49-126.

Gioanni, Stéphane. "Hagiographie d'Italie (300-550): II. Les vies des saints latines composée en Italie de la paix constantinienne au milieu du VI^e siècle." In Hagiographies 5:371-445.  Discusses four saints with lives, not passions.

Golinelli, Paolo. Bibliografia agiografica italiana, 1976-1999. Rome: Viella, 2001.

Howe, John. List of Lives, esp. "Italy"

Lanéry, Cécile. "Hagiographie d"Italie (300-550): I. Les passions latines composée en Italie. In Hagiographies 5:15-369.

Limone, Oronzo. "Italia meridionale (950-1220)." In Hagiographies 2:11-60.

Licciardello, Pierluigi. "Agiografia Latina dell'Italia centrale, 950-1130." In Hagiographies 5: 447-729.

Re, Mario, "Italo-Greek Hagiography." In Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography. Edited by Stephanos Efthymiadis. 2 vols. Burlington:: Ashgate, 2011-2014. 1: 226-56, with primary sources pp. 248-53.

Tomea, Paolo. "L'agiografia dell'Italia Settentrionale (950-1130)." In Hagiographies 3:99-178.

Ussani, Vincenzo. "Index Latinitatis Italicae Medii Aevi Antiquioris per Litterarum Ordinem Digestus." Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange) 6 (1931): 1-96. This provisional index of sources for a proposed Dizionario Latino dell' alto medioevo presents 1175 alphabetized items written from the fifth through the tenth century.  An appended "Index Chronicus" arranges the pieces century by century, and identifies them with short titles that include passio, vita, miracula, etc. (pp. 91-96).

Spanó Martinelli, Serena. "Italia fra il 1450 e il 1550." In Hagiographies 2: 61-82.

Secondary Literature: Saints of the Communes

 Benevenuti.Papi, Anna.  Pastori di Popolo:  Storie e leggende di vescovi e di città nell’Italia Medievale.  Politica e storia 7.  Florence:  Arnaud Editore, 1988

Canetti, Luigi.   Gloriosa Civitas:  Culto dei santi e società cittadina a Piacenza nel Medioevo.  Cristianesimo antico e medievale, vol. 4.  Bologna:  Pàtron Editore, 1993.

Frugoni, Chiara.  “The City and the ‘New’ Saints.”  In City States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy.  Edited by Anthony Molho et al.  Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991.  Pp. 71-91.

 Golinelli, Paolo.  Antichi e nuovi culti cittadini al sorgerre dei Comuni del nord-Italia.”  Hagiographica 1 (1994): 159-80.

[Orselli, Alba Maria.  L’idea et il culto del santo patrono cittadino nella letteratura latina cristiana.  Bologna: Zanichelli, 1965.]   

McCluskey, Karen E.  New Saints of Medieval Venice, 1200-1500: A Typological Study. London: Routledge, 2020.                 

 Picard, Jean-Charles.  Le souvenir des évêques.  Sépultures, listes épiscopales et culte des évêques en Italie du Nord, des origines au X^e siècle.  Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 208.  Rome: École française de Rome, 1988.

Golinelli, Paolo.  “Istituzioni cittadine e culti episcopali in area matildica avanti il sorgere dei Comuni.”  In Culto dei santi, istituzioni e classi sociali in éta preindustriale.  Edited by Sofia Boesch Gajano e Lucia Sebastiani.  L’Aquila / Roma:  L.U. Japadre Editore, 1984.  Pp. 141-97.

Papi, Anna Benevenuti.  Pastori di Popolo:  Storie e leggende di vescovi e di città nell’Italia Medievale.  Politica e storia 7.  Florence:  Arnaud Editore, 1988. 

Vauchez, André.  Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages.  Translated by Jean Birrell.  New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Vauchez, André.  The Laity in the Middle Ages.  Translated by Margery J. Schneider. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1993.

Review Together: 1) André Vauchez, “Une nouveauté du XII^e siècle:  Les saints laïcs de l’Italie communale.”  In L’Europa dei secoli XI e XII fra novità e tradizione:  Sviluppi di una cultura.  Atti della decima Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 25-29 agosto 1986. Pubblicazioni dell’Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevali 12.  Milan:  Vita et Pensiero, 1989.  Pp. 57-80; 2) André Vauchez, “Lay People’s Sanctity in Western Europe:  Evolution of a Pattern (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries).”  In Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe.  Edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell.  Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. 21-32.

Webb, Diana (ed.). Saints and Cities in Medieval Italy. Manchester Msedieval Sources. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007

Zarri, Gabriella. Le sante vive: Profezie di corte se devozione feminilile tra ‘400 e ‘500. Turin: Rosenberg et Sellier, 1990.

Primary Sources: Mendicants                            

[Dominic et al.]  The Dominican Tradition.  Edited by Phyllis Zagano and Thomas C.

McGonigle.  Spirituality in History Series.  Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2006.  

 [Dominic et al.]  Early Dominicans:  Selected Writings.  Edited by Simon Tugwell. Classics of Western Spirituality.  New York:  Paulist Press, 1982.

 [Francis]  St. Francis of Assisi:  Writings and Early Biographies.  English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis.  Edited by Marion A. Habig.  Chicago, Illinois:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1983. 

 [Francis] Francis of Assisi:  Early Documents.  Edited by Regis J. Armstrong, J. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short.  3 vols.  Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999.

 [Francis]  Scripta Leonis Rufini et Angeli Sociorum S. Francisci.  Edited by Rosalind Brooke. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977.

 [Francis]  A Poor Man’s Legacy: An Anthology of Franciscan Poverty. Edited by Cyprian J. Lynch.  St. Bonaventure NY:  The Franciscan Institute, 1988.

 [Nicholas of Tolentino]  Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino.  Edited by Nicola Occhioni. Collection de l’École française de Rome 74.  Rome:  Padri Agostiniani di Tolentino and École française de Rome, 1984.

[Mary of Venice]  La Santità imitabile:  “Leggenda di Maria da Venezia” di Tommaso da Siena.  By Fernanda Sorelli.  Miscellanea di studi e memorie 23.  Venice:  Deputazione di storia patria per le Venezie, 1984. 

 Secondary Literature: Mendicants

 Bourreau, Alain.  “Vitae fratrum, Vitae patrum:  L’ordre dominicain et le modèle des Peres du desert au XIII^e s.”  Mélanges de l’École françaises de Rome.  Moyen âge - temps modernes 99 (1987): 79-100.

 Brufani, Stefano. "I Santi mendicanti." In Forme e modelli della santità in Occidente dal tardo antico al medioevo, edited by Massimiliano Bassetti, Antonella Degl'Innocenti, and Enrico Menestò. Spoleto: CISAM, 2012.  Pp. 57-96.

 Carney, Margaret.  The First Franciscan Woman: Clare of Assisi and Her Form of Life.  Quincy IL:  Franciscan Press, 1993.

 Cohen, Jeremy.  The Friars and the Jews:  The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism.  Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1982.

 Fleming, John V.  Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages. Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1977.

 Gelber, Hester Goodenough.  “A Theater of Virtue: The Exemplary World of St. Francis of Assisi.”  In Saints and Virtues.  Edited by John Stratton Hawley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.  Pp. 15-35.

 Goodich, Michael.  Vita Perfecta:  The Ideal of Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century.  Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 25. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1982.                                    

 Lawrence, Clifford Hugh.  The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society.  The Medieval World.  London and New York:  Longman, 1994. 

Manselli, Raoul.  “Agiografia francescana tra interpretazione teologica e religiosità popolare.”  In Convegno internazionale:  Agiografia nell’occidente cristiano secoli XIII-X (Roma, 1-2 marzo 1979).  Atti dei convegni lincei 48.  Rome:  Accademia nazionale dei lincei, 1980.  Pp. 45-56.

 Mulchahey, Marian Michèle.   "First the Bow is Bent in Study-- " : Dominican Education before 1350.  Studies and Texts 132.  Toronto:  Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998.

Paciocco, Roberto.  Da Francesco ai Catalogi Sanctorum. Livelli isituzionali e immagini agiografiche nell'Ordine Francescano (secoli XIII-XIV).  Collectio Assisiensis 20.  Assisi:  Edizioni Porziuncola, 1990.

 Raitt, Jill (ed.).  Christian Spirituality:  High Middle Ages and Reformation.  World Spirituality 17.  New York:  Crossroad, 1988.

Review Together: 1)  Bernard.Hamilton, “Ideals of Holiness: Crusaders, Contemplatives, and Mendicants.”  The International History Review 17 (1995):  693-712; 2), Barbara Rosenwein and Lester Little. “Social Meaning in the Monastic and Mendicant Spiritualities.”  Past and Present 63 (1974), 4-32.

 Review Together: 1) Laura Ackerman Smoller. "Dominicans and Demons: Possession, Temptation, and Reform in the Cult of Vincent Ferrer," Speculum  93 (2018): 1010-1047. P. 1012n offers a current bibliography on medieval Dominicans and hagiography.2) John Van Engen,  “Dominic and the Brothers: Vitae as Life-Forming Exempla in the Order of Preachers.” In Christ among the Medieval Dominicans. Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies 7. Notre Dame:  University of Notre Dame Press, 1998. Pp. 7-25.

 Sorrell, Roger D.  St. Francis of Assisi and Nature:  Tradition and Innovation in Western Christian Attitudes toward the Environment.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1988.

 Thompson, Augustine.  Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233.  Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1992.

 Thomson, Williell R.  Friars in the Cathedral:  The First Franciscan Bishops, 1226-1261. Toronto:  Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975. 

 Toynbee, Margaret R.  Saint Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonization in the Fourteenth Century.  British Society of Franciacan Studies 15.  Manchester:  Manchester University Press, 1929.

 Trexler, Richard C.  Naked before the Father:  The Renunciation of Francis of Assisi.  Humana Civilitas 9.  New York:  Peter Lang, under the auspices of the CMRS, UCLA, 1989.

 Vauchez, André.  “L’ideal de sainteté dans le mouvement féminin  franciscain aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles.”  In Movimento religioso femminile e francescanesimo nel secolo XIII:  Atti del VII    Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 11-13 ottobre 1979.  Assisi: Società internazionale di studi francescani, 1981.  Pp. 315-37.

 Vauchez, André.   Ordini mendicanti e società italiana, XIII-XV secolo.  Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1990.