The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy"When the city was filled with these bonfires, he then combed the city, and whenever he received notice of some public sodomite, he had him immediately seized and thrown into the nearest bonfire at hand and had him burned immediately." This story, of an anonymous individual who sought to cleanse medieval Paris, was part of a sermon delivered in Siena, Italy, in 1427. The speaker, the friar Bernardino (1380-1444), was one of the most important public figures of the time, and he spent forty years combing the towns of Italy, instructing, admonishing, and entertaining the crowds that gathered in prodigious numbers to hear his sermons. His story of the Parisian vigilante was a recommendation. Sexual deviants were the objects of relentless, unconditional persecution in Bernardino's sermons. Other targets of the preacher's venom were witches, Jews, and heretics. Mormando takes us into the social underworld of early Renaissance Italy to discover how one enormously influential figure helped to dramatically increase fear, hatred, and intolerance for those on society's margins. This book is the first on Bernardino to appear in thirty-five years, and the first ever to consider the preacher's inflammatory role in Renaissance social issues. |
Contents
The Public Career and Critical Fortune of Bernardino of Siena I | 1 |
The Medieval Popular Franciscan Sermon | 7 |
Christendom in Crisis | 21 |
The Making of a PreacherCelebrity | 29 |
Bernardinos Extant Works | 40 |
Bernardino and the History of the Persecuting Society | 45 |
The Witch the Sodomite the Jew and Bernardino | 49 |
Preparing the Great Witch Conflagration | 52 |
Popular Piety and Christian White Magic | 103 |
The Response to Bernardino | 105 |
Sodomy and Sodomites | 109 |
Scripture Science and Reason against Sodomy | 126 |
Bernardino and Vincenzo a Particular Friendship | 142 |
The Response of the Towns | 155 |
Repromulgating Canon Law | 169 |
The Campaign against Usury | 182 |
Bernardino and the Witches of Rome 1426 | 54 |
The Witch of Todi Matteuccia Di Francesco | 72 |
The Godmother of Lucca | 77 |
The Demonization of the Heretic | 80 |
The Power and Omnipresence of the Devil | 89 |
Bernardinos Guide to Sorcery Superstition and Folk Medicine | 95 |
The Destruction of the Pagan Well Fontetecta | 100 |
Common terms and phrases
activity Amedeo anti-Jewish anti-Semitism antisodomy audience Benvoglienti Bernardino da Siena Bernardino's lifetime Bernardino's preaching Bernardino's sermons canon Capistrano century Christian Church cited contemporary crime death Delcorno demons Devil doctors ebrei ecclesiastical elli Europe evil example exemplum faith fear fifteenth fifteenth-century Florence Florentine Forbidden Friendships Franciscan friar fuoco Gajano Giacomo heresy heretic Holy Homosexuality Ibid inquisitor Italian Italy Jesus Jewish moneylenders Jews John of Capistrano Judaeis Kieckhefer L'Aquila Latin treatise Maffeo Vegio magic male Matteuccia medieval mention Middle Ages moral nonetheless Origo Pacetti Padua papal peccato Perugia pope popular preacher predicazione prediche volgari Quattrocento question quia quod quoted reference Renaissance Roman Rome Saint San Bernardino Sancti Bernardini Senensis Scripture sermons sexual Sienese society sodomy specific story streghe Summa Summa theologica sunt tells Todi topic town University Press usurers usury Vegio Venice Vita Sancti Bernardini witch trial witchcraft woman women word