Da Francesco ai "Catalogi Sanctorum." Livelli istituzionali e immagini agiografiche nell'ordine francescano (secoli xiii-xiv) by Roberto Paciocco (review)

BRIEF NOTICES143 From the point of view of the history of philosophy his study may not add very much to Fernando's stature, but his expert knowledge of the circle surrounding Cardinal Bessarion (Fernando's most important patron) enables him to provide our first picture of Fernando's last four decades, as a papal subdeacon—a minor member of the papal curia—sitting on papal commissions on controverted doctrinal points concerning the Fraticelli and Lullism, and also as the author of a series of works on philosophy, law, and (in one case) on medicine, none of which, however, seems as interesting as the De artificio. Monfasani's discussion ofFernando's career and writings is supported by a valuable series of unpublished documents, not only from the Vatican Archives but also from Bologna, Siena, and Vienna. J. N. Hillgarth (Pontifical Institute ofMediaeval Studies) Paciocco, Roberto. Da Francesco ai "Catalogi Sanctorum. " Livelli istituzionali e immagini agiografiche nell'ordine francescano (secoli xiii— xiv). [Collectio Assisiensis 20.] (Assist: Edizioni Porziuncola. 1990. Pp. 204. Lire 30,000.) This book follows the development of the Franciscan hagiographie tradition from the earliest biographies of Francis of Assisi to the end of the fourteenth century. With the mid-thirteenth century Bonaventura's Legenda maior replaced all previous lives of Francis in an attempt to create anew a unified founding myth for a rapidly fracturing order. But by the end of that century accommodation to local pressures for a more traditional form of sainthood had manifested itself in the many "minor" Franciscan saints in the catalogues under discussion. The author provides a description of the manuscript of one such: Oxford, Bodleian MS. Canon. Misc. 525, dated 1385 to 1393, and an edition of its "De sacris beatorum fratrum tumulis." As background to his study Paciocco traces the notion of sainthood from the pontificate of Innocent III, where a saint's moral virtues were stressed as much as or more than the miracles performed by that person both in vita and post mortem. Such an emphasis, the author notes, fitted well with the papal attempt to combat heresy. The saint's imitation of the Gospels was a clear-cut counter to the heterodox evangelical movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Yet already with the canonization of Francis of Assisi and the biographies commissioned around that event, 1 and 2 Celano and his de Miraculis, we see the gradual shift away from the moral virtues of the historical Francis toward an emphasis on Francis the mythic thaumaturge. At the same time a "civic sainthood" emerged around Italian cities' desire to honor their own Franciscans. Despite such local pressures, however, the papacy steadfastly resisted canonizing any Franciscans between Francis himself in 1228 and Anthony in 1232 and Louis of Toulouse in 1317. 144BRIEF NOTICES With the fourteenth century, however, came a comparative flood of Franciscan sancti minores. The catalogues discussed here list 124 new saints, of which 58 had cults that extended no further than the walls of their own convents. Why this sudden upsurge? While Paciocco notes the "decadence" and decentralization of the order in the fourteenth century and offers some analysis of the types of saints, their geographical divergence, their social and cultural background, and their status in the hierarchy, he fails to give the reason for their numbers. True, we are witnessing a resurgence of an original Franciscan impulse, one that would also give rise to the Spiritual and Observant movements; yet what larger forces could lead to so many and such examples? Here Paciocco's attention to broader trends within church and society, so carefully drawn for twelfth-century antecedents and so attentive of much current research, fails to draw conclusions from his own materials. Nevertheless, Paciocco provides an interesting case text, a useful prosopographical index of fourteenth-century Franciscan saints, and a good bibliography , though mostly of European historians. This work will thus be of interest to the advanced student of both the Franciscans and of sainthood in the later Middle Ages. Fresh insights are few, but careful attention to one current of this history is welcome. Ronald G. Musto (Itálica Press, New York) Parrow, Kathleen A. From Defense to Resistance: Justification of Violence during...