Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence by John Henderson (review)

546 BOOK REVIEWS is only a partial bibliography and no indication in subsequent references to the first complete citation; see, for instance, the references to my own book on the friars (pp. 205, 457). This positivist approach makes it extremely difficult to follow a specific story; e.g., to learn about the cause célèbre of the 1220's, the heresy trial in Hildesheim of Henry Minnecke, the reader must turn to pages 304-305 and 330-331 . The subheadings are oflittle help;for instance,the eightpage section labeled,"The Condemnation of Henry Minnecke," starts with a single paragraph on this topic and then shifts in the next paragraph to marriage negotiations in Toul. I tended to lose sight of the forest. Finally, Pixton's presentation ofInnocent's reform program is too limited. The pope also sought to incorporate the new religious currents represented by SS. Francis and Dominic into the Church; thus the rapid spread of the mendicants should also be seen as part of the papal agenda. Surely, the friars' preaching transformed the laity's understanding of the Gospel. It is noteworthy that Pixton 's clerical heroes, Cardinal Conrad, Conrad of Hildesheim, and Archbishop Eberhard, were also among the friars' most important patrons. If Pixton had broadened his view, he might not have concluded: "Without an inner commitment to the principles articulated at the Fourth Lateranum.the German church of 1245 was not fundamentally different from that of 1200 or even 1500" (P- xv). John B. Freed Illinois State University Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. By John Henderson. (NewYork: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1994. Pp. xviii, 533. $85.00.) John Henderson's book is a long-awaited contribution to the history of confraternities and charity in Renaissance Florence. Many scholars have already consulted profitably his 1983 thesis at the University of London entitled "Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence: Lay Religious Confraternities from the Middle of the Thirteenth Century to the Late Fifteenth Century." Readers will not be disappointed with the range of knowledge and the number of issues addressed and all treated from numerous original sources from the Archivio di Stato and other archives of Florence. The author has pieced together complex data from thousands of documents relevant to confraternities and lay charity. Art, musical, and literary historians will henceforth consult this book with great profit on a wide range of topics. Also, highly useful is the appendix of the "Confraternities Meeting in Florence, 1240-1499," in which the author lists 163 Florentine confraternities (pp. 443-474). The author writes," [T]he organization ofthe book into two main parts (piety and charity) reflects the dual nature of charity" (p. 9). Part I surveys lay piety in Florence from 1250 to 1500 by first establishing confraternities as one of many forms of corporate organization in the High Middle Ages. Chapters 2 through 6 BOOK REVIEWS 547 trace the evolution of confraternities primarily through two forms, that of the laudesi and disciplinan, ending with a finely nuanced study of the confraternity of Orsanmichele. Part II introduces the reader to the complex world of Florentine charity and hospitals. Documents from Orsanmichele provide evidence for an extensive discussion of the systematic poor relief by this confraternity and other Florentine institutions. Noting the decline of large charitable confraternal institutions and the growing role of state supervision by the late fifteenth century, the author concludes with a discussion ofthe relationship ofthese corporate groups with other institutions and particularly with the state. In the introduction the author discusses a number ofbooks on European and Italian confraternities, which he organizes into the now conventional two schools, the religious-local and social-historical. He states his intention of making historiographie progress by combining the two schools, but does the book succeed in making a historiographie breakthrough beyond the two schools and convey a fundamentally novel view of either Renaissance confraternities or charity? It is apparent that, despite the fact that the question must be answered in the negative, the book remains a highly useful survey of the religious and charitable activity of the men of Renaissance Florence. It is arguable whether the book has an overall design beyond the juxtapositioning of...