Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual: Studies in Italian Urban Culture ed. by Samuel Cohn et al. (review)

This book examines various aspects of ritual in Italian urban culture from the thirteenth through to the seventeenth century via fourteen essays from leading experts in the field. In the Introduction by Samuel Cohn and in a historiographical overview by Marcello Fantoni, both authors admit that everything in Italian urban culture of the period is ritualistic in nature. They argue for the overturning of an older historiography that dismissed the place of ritual in a secular Italian Renaissance, while fully acknowledging more recent work by historical anthropologists and historians such as Edward Muir on Venice and Richard Trexler on Florence who have pointed to the significance of ritual life in the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. The volume extends the discussion of this earlier period to the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when republics have become principalities and rituals take on new forms designed to mesh with the new world view of Catholic reform and papal supremacy.

The first section of the book focuses on the republics and examines the rituals involved in ‘Consensus and Social Identity’. The essays cover the rituals involved in electing the Signoria, the supreme governing council of Florence (Ilaria Taddei), guild rituals (Franco Franceschi), the rhetorical language the Florentine government used to communicate its vision of a unified territorial state with recently acquired territories (Fabrizio Ricciardelli), and peacemaking oaths sworn against political factions in Genoa and the papal states (Carlo Taviani). Every day political activity is highly ritualised, the authors in this section argue. While I do not disagree, I wonder if seeing every action involved in every aspect of a group’s collective activity as heavily laden with ritual meaning risks making ritual routine?

The second section on ‘Family and Gender’ investigates the rituals of baptism and marriage in innovative ways. Guido Alfani’s discussion points to the crucial changes imposed on baptism and marriage rituals by the Council of Trent, which reduced the role of godparenthood, which was so vital to extending Italians social networks and relationships. Creatively, they responded by utilising the maximum number of witnesses allowable at weddings (ten) to fill the gap. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber suggests that the appearance of female nudes on the inside lids of Florentine wedding chests in the 1440s is the result of another adaptation: when the wedding chest became the property of the husband instead of forming part of the bride’s trousseau. These nudes were a constant, albeit, hidden, reminder to the wife of her subordination to her husband in marriage.

The next three essays focus on the theme of death and violence, with William Caferro’s fascinating essay on the rituals of honour and insult performed during wars in fourteenth-century Italy. They formed part of a shared dialogue between enemies framed around rituals of shaming, disrespect, and defamation through visual images, while at the same time dead soldiers who were the heads of defeated armies could be buried with great honour by the conquering army and its citizens. John A. Marino examines the funeral exequies for the King of Spain, Phillip II, in 1598, in Spain and repeated in many other countries and cities, including ducal Florence, which led to numerous narrative paintings commemorating his life and exploits, reflecting some similarities but also differences in the type of ritual traditions that were being created. Andrea Zorzi’s essay emphasises that youthful violence towards executed bodies and traitors has to have the support of the community for it to continue. Changes in ritual practice in Savonarolan Florence that emphasised a good death and Christian burial led to the elimination of these ritual acts by the end of the sixteenth century.

By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the power of papal Rome and Venice were reflected in their civic and power rituals...