Renaissance Florence in the Rhetoric of Two Popular Preachers: Giovanni Dominici (1356-1419) and Bernadino da Siena (1380-1444) (review)

236 Short Notices Parergon 21.1 (2004) sources in informing rather than simply illustrating larger political, social and cultural developments. What is especially striking about the essays is their freshness and range. Lachaud and Saul, for example, raise interesting points with respect to the manner in which supply may have run ahead of demand. Keen’s introduction is a gem, rich in insight and illuminating perspective. He raises the important question of how far the growth of literacy in this period, far from ‘downgrading the importance of ceremony and of the visual in culture generally’, actually served ‘to extend the range, the potential and the capacity for elaboration of the visual in culture through interplay with the written word’ (4). John Watts’s concluding chapter likewise draws attention to the lack of visibility the English state – the public rather than the private face of the monarchy – in the later middle ages. The book includes a number of choice illustrations, but it prompts the reader to look again at the surviving images of the age, especially perhaps in the catalogues of the exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Victoria and Albert Museum, namely J. Alexander and P. Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400 (1987) and R. Marks and P. Williamson (eds), Gothic: Art for England 14001547 (2003). Michael Bennett University of Tasmania Debby, Nirit B.-A., Renaissance Florence in the Rhetoric of Two Popular Preachers: Giovanni Dominici (1356-1419) and Bernadino da Siena (13801444 ) (Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies 4), Turnhout, Brepols, 2001; hardback; pp. xiv, 344; RRP EUR65.00; ISBN 2503511635. A lot has been written on Renaissance Florence. Dominici and Bernardino have each given rise to a body of literature, both historic and recent, and sermon studies are a recognised area with its own conference groups and journals. Nirit Debby takes a somewhat novel approach to this existing material by looking in the texts of the sermons for information about social life and attitudes in Renaissance Florence. In order to assess the status of what the sermons say, Debby talks about how the texts have been generated and come down to the present day. Some were transcribed by anonymous members of the audience. Bernardino also wrote out at least two courses of sermons himself, in Latin, which have been published Short Notices 237 Parergon 21.1 (2004) with his collected works. Much of Dominici’s work remains in manuscript form and Debby includes here as an appendix ten of the 47 sermons that make up MS Ricc. 1301. These 88 pages are in Italian. Elsewhere in the book, Debby gives quotes in English, and gives the original as a footnote. Debby also takes care to contextualise the relationship between preacher, audience, and the Florentine state. Chapters Three to Six run through a series of topics and compare the thoughts of the two preachers on each: factions, vendetta, education, women, homosexuality , merchants, usury, and Jews. This device doubles the amount of source material Debby can use. She does not conclude by making a simplistic distinction between the two, or use them to stand for opposing emblematic values. Dominici, a Dominican, preached more on politics and culture, took a rigid line, and was prepared to take on the Pope or the State in which he was operating, which led to some trouble for him. He held various offices including that of Cardinal, and reputedly had begun his career with a terrible stutter which was cured by St Catherine of Siena. Bernardino, a Franciscan, dealt with morality and economics, and was smoother in his manner and sometimes employed as a peacemaker. He refused office and remained an itinerant preacher, though he was sufficiently pragmatic to have thought up the idea of the Monte di Pietà, as an alternative to the services of Jewish moneylenders. Both men were leaders of the Osservanza movements in their respective orders, and sought a return to older and less liberal values. Both preached to the crowd and had no time for intellectuals or the studia humanitatis. For what Debby has to say about Quattrocento Florence, it is best to turn to her book itself, because it is in...