In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Vainglorious Death: A Funerary Fracas in Renaissance Brescia
  • Roisin Cossar
Vainglorious Death: A Funerary Fracas in Renaissance Brescia. Translated and annotated by J. Donald Cullington. Edited and introduced by Stephen Bowd. (Tempe:Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2006. Pp. lxx, 232. $48.00.)

This volume, an edited, facing-page translation of two pamphlets written by humanists in Brescia in the early sixteenth century, reveals the intense concern [End Page 944] with funeral customs that prevailed among laypeople and religious alike in that period. The pamphlets were written in support of a statute passed by the civic government some years earlier, curtailing funeral expenses, the number of mourners, and the services held after a death. The statute was met with derision by local Dominicans, who claimed that these limits on funeral rituals violated the freedom of the Church, since part of the statute involved a restriction on the number of clerics and religious who could attend a funeral. The two pamphlets were then written in response to the Dominicans' own statement against the statute, which is also included in the volume (as appendix 2).

Stephen Bowd's introduction to the texts of the pamphlets spans the historical context in which they were created, including the individuals involved in the dispute as well as the themes of Christian humanism and sumptuary legislation. He also locates the dispute within the history of Brescia itself, discussing the impact of the prevailing political regime (Brescia had been under Venetian governance since 1426) on the religious and social climate in the city. Furthermore, Bowd argues that the pamphlets, which both sustain that social rank should not be taken into account in the organization of funeral ceremonies (since, as one author stated, ". . . all bodies equally . . . rot and decay. . ." (p. 127), nevertheless reflect a growing "backlash against any loosening up of the social hierarchy" (p. lxviii) in Brescia, as elsewhere on the peninsula at this time. The pamphlets are therefore valuable sources for an understanding of the religious and social culture of an often overlooked Renaissance city.

The two texts translated here are, first, one pamphlet produced anonymously (although the humanist Elia Captiolo is the presumed author) entitled "A defense of the Brescians' statute for reducing the rivalry and the expenses of funerals." The second pamphlet is by Carlo Valgulio, and was published with the title "That the Brescians' statute about funeral expenditure with perfect logic makes no distinction of rank among citizens, and that what are commonly regarded as honors are not so." Two appendices are included in the volume, the first, "General regulation for funerals of the dead" and the second, "An enquiry as to whether the statutes about death disbursements quoted below go against church freedom." Both texts are substantially and appropriately annotated with footnotes explaining the sources of the writers' quotations, and with references to the historiography. The appendices are, first, the civic statute in question, "General regulation for funerals of the dead," and second, the Dominicans' response to that statute, "An enquiry as to whether the statutes about death disbursements quoted below go against church freedom." The volume includes an index but no bibliography.

The texts raise issues ranging from the role played by members of religious orders in the Renaissance city to the status of the Jews (plans for their expulsion from Brescia are mentioned), to the idea of honor in the early sixteenth century. Certainly, as Bowd argues, the texts display the continuing idea of the funeral as a "public ritual designed to reflect prevalent civic mores and reinforce the social status and solidarity of the corpse's family" (p. xv). It would [End Page 945] also be most interesting to compare these texts to testamentary records from the same period to see whether testators followed the instructions in the statute, which specifically forbade the organization of feasts to commemorate the anniversaries of one week and one month after a death. Such feasts were a significant part of the commemoration of the dead in Lombardy and elsewhere from at least the fourteenth century, and their disappearance would have created a significant void in the lives of those left behind when a family member or friend died.

Roisin...

pdf

Share