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The Virgin’s grandmother: the unusual legend of St Ismeria

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.002

1873-1279

Catherine Lawless,

Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

Abstract This article will examine an unusual legend contained in Florentine fifteenth-century manuscripts concerning St Ismeria, the 'grandmother' of the Virgin. Unlike more well-known versions of the Holy Kinship of Christ, where Ismeria is described as the sister of St Anne and grandmother of St John the Baptist, in this legend she is instead firmly described as St Anne's mother and thus the grandmother of the Virgin and the great-grandmother of Christ. Most of the legend is concerned with Ismeria's life of penitential piety as a wife and widow and has little in common with standard legends of the Virgin or of St Anne, but has strong resonances within the world of late medieval Florentine piety and the type of 'new' sanctity defined by Vauchez, where sanctity is earned by a life of penitence rather than with blood martyrdom. The contents of the codices which house the legends are typical of medieval vernacular writings and contain more traditional lives of the Virgin and accounts of the Holy Kinship. The way in which these legends lay side by side with such contradictory material suggests a fluidity in the way holy narratives were accepted. Keywords: IsmeriaZibaldoniSanctityWidowhoodFlorenceNovelle Notes 1 F. Zambrini, Storia di Santa Ismeria avola della Vergine Maria, testo inedito del buon secolo di nostra lingua (Imola, 1869). 2 Zambrini also reads the name as 'Madonna Santa Smeria', losing the initial vowel, a common phonetic shift. F. Zambrini, Le opere volgari a stampa dei secoli XIII e XIV (Bologna, 1878), 975. MS Panciatichiano 40, f. 79r gives the name as Ysmeria, 'fue molto bellissima del suo corpo effue grande amicha didio.' MS Riccardiano 1052 also gives her name as Smeria (f. 93r). As the earlier version appears to be MS Panciatichiano 40, the form Ismeria is used here, preferring 'I' to 'Y'. 3 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (hereafter BNCF), MS Panciatichiano 40, f. 80v: 'perche yddio lavea lasciata dopo la morte del suo chompagnio e preghava yddio chella traesse di questa vita.' 4 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 80v: 'Allora disse lo spedalingho sapea bene per chella dicea quelle parole ynpercio che sapea bene chella era santissima donna e ssapea bene siachome la vergine Maria era sua nipote e pensava bene che lla madre di Cristo vivendrallei a quello spedale. E questo spedaliingho era grandissimo amicho di Dio.' 5 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 81r: 'Allora ella chiamo lo spedalingho e disse lui yo vi priegho che voi mifaccate rechare una choncha daqua.' 6 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 81r: 'e preghollo che per la sua chortesia e mandasse un pescie in quella choncha accio che lo quello povero mangiasse cherano passati pasati giorni ch eno avea mangiato.' 7 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 81r: 'E conpiuta chebe la sua orazione e questa choncha fue tutta piena di pescii [. . .] a tutte quani glinfermi dellospedale. E incontanente che tutti glinfermi dello spedale nebero mangiato tutti furono gheriti e ssanati.' 8 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 81r: 'ynpercio chella avea paura della vana gloria di questo mondo.' 9 BNCF MS Pantiachiano 40, f. 81v. 10 Jacobus de Voragine, The golden legend. Readings on the lives of the saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2 vols (Princeton, 1993), vol. 1, 21–7 (25). Jacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2 vols (Florence, 1998), vol. 1, 38–48 (44). 11 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 23–6 (24); Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 683–7 (685). 12 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 292–301 (299); Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 1133–53 (1150). See also the account of the death of St Giles (Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 147–9 (149), Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 887–90 (890)). 13 A. Vauchez, 'Le forme del meraviglioso e il potere soprannaturale nel medioevo', in: Santi, profeti e visionar. Il soprannaturale nel medioevo (Bologna, 2000), 7–16 (10). 14 G. De Luca, Scrittori di religione del Trecento: volgarizzamenti, 4 vols (Turin, 1977), vol. 4, 720–1. This is a publication of the fourteenth-century Florentine text contained in BNCF MS Magliabechiano XXXV, 175. 15 Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, 68 vols (Antwerp, Brussels and Paris, 1643–1940), 1 February, 257–61 (260). 16 For the ubiquity of miracles involving the production of food, see P.-A. Sigal, 'Miracle', in: Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, ed. A. Vauchez and others, 2 vols (Cambridge, 2000), vol. 2, 958. For some examples of food (usually bread) miracles see Voragine's lives of St Laurence (Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 63–74 (68); Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 754–63 (762–3)), and St James (Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 3–10 (9); Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 1, 650–62 (661)), and the life of Apollonio in Domenico Cavalca, Vite dei santi padri, ed. B. Sorio and A. Racheli, 2 vols (Trieste, 1858), vol. 1, 56–60. 17 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 44–58 (50–1); Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 718–44 (729–30). 18 'The legend of Saint Clare', in: The lady. Clare of Assisi: early documents, ed. R.J. Armstrong O.F.M.Cap. (New York, 2006), ch. 10, 295. 19 Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo zibaldone, ed. A. Perosa (London, 1960), 2. 20 C. Bec, Les Livres des Florentins (1413–1608) (Biblioteca di 'Lettere Italiane' Studi e Testi 29, Florence, 1984); G. Ciappelli, 'Libri e letture a Firenze nel XV secolo: Le "ricordanze" e la ricostruzione delle biblioteche private', Rinascimento, 2nd series 29 (1989), 267–92 (267–8). 21 D. Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance: the patron's oeuvre (London, 2000), 69–93. 22 Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance, 69–93; and A. Petrucci, Writers and readers in medieval Italy. Studies in the history of written culture, ed. and trans. Charles M. Radding (London, 1995), 140, 187, 199. 23 For a description of the codex, see B. Maracchi Bigiarelli, I Manoscritti Pantiachiani della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, 2 vols (Rome, 1962). 24 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS Riccardiano 1052, f. 95v: 'questo libro è di Francesco di Nicholo di Teri di Lorenzo Teri fiorentino: chi l'achatta lo renda.' 25 B. Casini, I 'Libri d'Oro' della nobiltà fiorentina e fiesolana (Florence, 1993), 75. Francesco's date of birth is not given in Casini, but his parents married in 1464. The family lived in the quarter of S. Maria Novella, gonfalone Leon Bianco. In 1427, Teri di Lorenzo Teri, aged 38, lived in the same gonfalone. He declared 7 bocche dependent upon him. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Catasto, vol. 77, 144, in D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Census and property survey of Florentine domains in the province of Tuscany, 1427–1480. Machine readable data file: Online catasto of 1427 version 1.1 (Online Florentine Renaissance Resources, Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1996), ; accessed 3 September 2010. Margherita's patronymic is a common one, thus making it difficult to find further information on her. 26 The other hand was responsible for the Precepts of Cato; didactic material on the Mass, original sin and redemption; the credo of Dante; laude; Niccolò Cieco, Ternario a Eugenio IV; the Legend of St. Cecilia, the Meditationes Vitae Christi; the Dodici venerdì di Papa Clemente; and a canto carnascialescho of drunken soldiers. 27 Libri de nativitate Mariae. Pseudo-Matthaei evangelium textus et commentarius, ed. Jan Gijsel (Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum 9, Turnhout, 1997). 28 The 'P' family of the Pseudo-Matthew: Gijsel, Pseudo-Matthaei evangelium, 15. 29 Libri de nativitate Mariae. Libellus de nativitate sanctae Mariae textus et commentarius, ed. Rita Beyers (Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum 10, Turnhout, 1997). Paschasius Radbertus, Abbot of Corbie (d.865), Epistola XLIX. Hieronymi ad Chromatium et Heliodorum, and Epistola L, De nativitate sanctae Mariae in: Patrologia latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1841–64) (hereafter PL), vol. 30, 297–304 and 307–15, with attribution to Jerome. On Paschasius Radbertus, see E.F. Rice Jr., St Jerome in the renaissance (Baltimore, 1985), 39. 30 Hroswitha of Gandersheim, Historia nativitatis laudabilisque conversationis intactae Dei genitricis, quam scriptam reperi sub nomine sancti Jacobi fratris Domini, in: PL 137, 1065–80. 31 Petrus Comestor, Historia scholastica, PL 198, 1562–4. 32 In general on the Golden legend see Colloque international sur la Legenda aurea, ed. B. Dunn-Lardeau (Montreal, 1986); A. Boureau, La Légende dorée. Le Système narratif de Jacque de Voragine (Paris, 1984) and S.L. Reames, The Legenda aurea. A re-examination of its paradoxical history (Madison, 1985). For changes and insertions in particular, see A. Vauchez, 'Jacopo da Voragine e i santi del XIII secolo nella "Legenda aurea"', in: Ordini mendicanti e società italiana XIII-XV secoli (Milan, 1990), 92–115, originally published in Jacopo da Voragine. Atti del I Convegno di studi indetto dal Centro studi Jacopo da Voragine (Varazze, 13–14 aprile 1985), ed. G. Farris and T.B. Delfino (Varazze, 1987), 53–77. 33 BNCF, Fondo Principale, MS, II, III, 415. There is an example of how to confess which purports to be written by a nun, on f. 34v–35r: 'E non sono patiente ne obediente adio e alle sue creatore concio dovrei e potrei essere spesso volte e alcuna volta sono cagione discandalo e di male essemplo alle sorore mie per lo mio peccato.' 34 It contains, in addition to the Life of the Virgin, the Lament of the Virgin attributed to St Bernard, a treatise on how to pray, li quindici gradi della Nostra Donna, the Gospel of the Birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, an explanation of the Ten Commandments, the legend of St George, words from the Gospel which teach the reader how to love God and how to bear tribulation, a treatise upon the desires of the flesh, the lives of St Ursula and St Clement, the Gospel of St John, the Exemplum of St Albert, and the Seven Words of Christ from the Cross. 35 For the way in which codices were written by one copyist and added to by another, often a friend or family member of the first, and passed through families for generations, see Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance, chapter 6. 36 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana MS 1048. For St Scholastica, see D.H. Farmer, Oxford dictionary of saints (Oxford, 1987), 428–9. 37 The catalogue, by S. Morpurgo, I Manoscritti della R. Biblioteca Riccardiana di Firenze (Rome, 1900), 466, gives the inscription as '1469. Questa di messer Pagholo Ruciellai. O tu che lleggi, priegha Idio per me pechatore'; but in fact it reads 'Questa di Luigi di Donato di Pagholo di Messer Pagholo Ruciellaj'. Two hands have been identified: the work of the first included the 1469 inscription and was responsible for f. 1–79v; the second hand is late fifteenth-century and was responsible for f. 80v–81v. The Life of the Virgin considered here is on f. 50r-79r and is the work of the 1469 hand. 38 L. Passerini, Genealogia e storia della famiglia Rucellai (Florence, 1861), tavola XVI. 39 BNCF, Fondo Magliabechiano, MS Magliabechiano XXXVIII.70, f. 185r. In addition to the Life of the Virgin, there are Miracles of the Virgin, the Ordine della Vita Cristiana of Fra Simone da Cascia, a treatise on the religious life by Fra Cherubino, the Catechism, the Credo of Dante, and a sermon of St Augustine on prudence. 40 On the legend in Florence in particular, see P. Divizia, 'I quindici segni del Giudizio: appunti sulla tradizione indiretta della Legenda aurea nella Firenze del Trecento', in: Studi su volgarizzamenti italiani due-trecenteschi, ed. P. Rinoldi and G. Ronchi (Rome, 2005), 47–64. 41 M.M. Mulchahey, 'First the bow is bent in study…': Dominican education before 1350 (Toronto, 1998), 196; R.W. Gaston, 'Affective devotion and the early Dominicans: the case of Fra Angelico', in: Rituals, images, and words. Varieties of cultural expression in late medieval and early modern Europe, ed. F.W. Kent and C. Zika (Turnhout, 2005), 87–117 (99–100). 42 BNCF, Fondo Conventi Soppressi, MS C.5. 43 BNCF, Fondo Palatino, MS 97, f. 190v: 'Finite le leggende nuove de santi composte et ordinate de fra Jacopo da Voragine dell ordine de frati predichatori da scribbe da mano di Mariano Conegholi cominciate adi vn di settenbre e finite adi xi di febraio MCCCCXXX sechondo il corso di Pisa'. 44 Matt. 12:46–7, 13:55; Mark 3:31; John 7:3; Gal. 1:19. 45 Matt. 12:46–50; Mark, 3:31–5 and Luke, 3:19–21. The context is slightly different, although the message is the same, in John, 7:1–5. 46 Saint Jerome. Dogmatic and polemical works, ed. J.N. Hritzu (Fathers of the Church 53, Washington DC, 1965), 6. 47 Epiphanius, De nativitate Deiparae, in: Patrologia graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols (Paris, 1857–66) (hereafter PG), vol. 120, col. 220. 48 Gijsel, Pseudo-Matthew, 15. 49 Jerome, De perpetua verginitate adversum Helvidium, in: PL, vol. 22, 193–216. 50 Haymo of Auxerre, Historiae sacrae epitome, in: PL, vol. 117, 823. 51 Pseudo-Matthew, from the fourteenth-century MS in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MS Laurentianus Gaddianus 208, in I vangeli apocrifi, ed. M. Craveri (Turin, 1990),110–11. This was published by Tischendorf as his version 'B', and included by Gijsel as of the 'R' family. Gijsel, Pseudo-Matthew, 95, 183-4. 52 Epiphanius, De nativitate, PG, vol. 120, 189. 53 St Augustine, Sermo XXV. De jejunio, et ubi fuit institutum, PL, vol. 40, 1276: 'Nam dum illa sancta Elisabeth, quae filia fuit sanctae Ismarae, quae quidem Ismara soror fuit carnalis sanctae Annae matris Dominae nostrae'. 54 Peter Lombard, In epistolam ad Galatas, PL, vol. 192, 101–2. 55 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 150; Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 900–17 (901). 56 Pietro de Natali, Catalogus sanctorum (London, 1519), cviii. 57 T. Brandenbarg, 'St Anne: a holy grandmother and her children', in: Sanctity and motherhood. Essays on holy mothers in the middle ages, ed. A. Mulder-Bakker (New York, 1995), 31–65 (44) 58 Fulbert of Chartres, Sermo VI. In ortu almae Virginis Mariae inviolatae, PL, vol. 141, 326. 59 BNCF MS Panciatichiano 40, f. 31–31v: 'Questa santa Anna fu pizorchia di Smeria e questa Smeria fu madre di santa Elisabetta. La quale santa Elisabetta fu madre di santo Giovanni batista e santa Anna ebbe tre mariti. Lo primo fu Giovacchino di li quale ebbe la vergine Maria — madre di Cristo e dopo la morte di Giovacchino prende Cliofa di li quale Cliofa ebi un altra figliuola che ebi nome Maria che fu moglie d'Alfeo di li quale ebbe [. . .] Quattro figliuoli [. . .] santo Jacopo magior e santo Giovanni Evangelista.' Riccardiano MS f. 1052, f. 9r: 'Sant' Anna laqual sant' Anna fu sirochia di Madonna santa Smeria la quale Smeria fu madre a santa Elisabeta la quale santa Elisabetta fu madre dello glorioso avochato per noi dinanzi a Cristo san Giovanni batista [. . .] e questa gloriosa santa Anna diasi chellebbe tre mariti chel primo si sancto Joachino del quale Joachino nebbe la gloriosa madre Vergine Marie madre del nostro Singnor Jesu Cristo del quale Cleofa nebono unaltra figliuola la quale ebbe nome Maria la qual Maria fu moglie dun chebbe nome Alfeo del quale Alfeo e Maria ne naque e ingenere quarto figliuoli [. . .] el primo fu san Jachopo minore e san Simone fu el sechondo santo Tadeo fu il terzo el quarto fu Giusepo Giusto. E dopo la morte del Cleofa chebe per marito Salamone del qual Salamone nebe unaltra figliuola la quale ebe nome Maria e fu maritata a Zebedeo del qual Zebedeo e Maria nenacque due filiuoli chel primo fu santo Jachopo magiore e santo Joannes Evangelista.' 60 The only other account of Ismeria as the mother of St Anne is in the visions of the nineteenth-century mystic, Anne-Catherine Emmerich, written down by the German Romantic poet Klemens Maria Brentano: 'I can never understand why I have so often heard that Emerentia was the mother of Anna, for I always saw that it was Ismeria'. Anne-Catherine Emmerich, Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Christian classics ethereal library, ; accessed 24 December 2007. However, Emmerich's visions have nothing in common with the life of Ismeria apart from that, and it seems unlikely that they shared the same source. Instead, Emmerich's account is similar in other respects to the Carmelite legends tying the birth of the order to St Anne's visit to Mount Carmel, but replaces Emerentiana or Emerentia with Ismeria. On some of Emmerich's sources, see A. Weeks, 'Between God and Gibson: German mystical and romantic sources of the Passion of the Christ', German Quarterly, 78 (2005), 421–40. 61 For instance, MS Riccardiano 1052, f. 95v; BNCF MS Palatino 41 at the end of the codex; BNCF MS Palatino 141, f. 107v; L. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, 2 vols (Rome, 1889), vol. 1, 127; For further examples, see Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance, 71–2. 62 BNCF MS Palatino 9, at end of codex: 'redetelo.' 63 BNCF MS Palatino 117, f. 2, 'Questo libro chiamatto fiore di vertù è di Cristofano di fuccio di goro ispeziale, sia preghatto chi lo legie trarne fruto e righuardalo e rendalo.' See Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 106–7. 64 BNCF MS Palatino 105, back of codex, 'Quando voy avete tenuto questo libro in vostra piaciere e diletto, portalo in Firenze in quella via che si chiama borgho tegholaia apresso a santo spirito, domanda dove istà Franc. Giemmi (?) overo Nicholò orafo suo gienero, e sarà ben dato.' Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 97. 65 BNCF, MS Palatino 41. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 44. See also BNCF MS Palatino 100, back of codex, 'il quale priegha caischuno che lo leggie che prieghi idio per lui che gli dia grazia di fare la volontà di dio. Amen.' Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 93–4. 66 BNCF MS Palatino 29, which contains the works of Hugh of St Victor and St Augustine. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 28. See Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance, 70. for Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana MS 1556, which passed through generations of the Arrighi family. 67 BNCF MS Palatino 67, f. 103. 'Io chimenti di domenicho che ll'ò ischritta, mi truovo già dapresso a ssenttant' anni, e parmi esserci stato un dì. Chonforto e' giovani che la legeranno a ffare penitenzia mentre che ssono in vita perchè non vi dorrà poi la partita.' The codex also includes the life of St John the Baptist, the prophesies of St Brigid of Sweden and the Confessionals of St Antoninus. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 69–70. 68 BNCF MS Palatino 25. The codex contains St Augustine's City of God. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 26. 69 J. Ferrante, To the glory of her sex. Women's roles in the compositions of medieval texts (Bloomington, 2007), 39. 70 BNCF, MS Palatino 76, f. 78v; Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 77–8. 71 BNCF, MS Palatino 120, f. 48v, 90v, 46v, 287v. 72 K. Gill, 'Women and the production of religious literature in the vernacular, 1300–1500', in: Creative women in medieval and early modern Italy. A religious and artistic renaissance, ed. A. Ann Matter and John W. Coakley (Philadelphia, 1994), 64–104. 73 BNCF, MS Palatino 49. The codex contains the sermon of St Bernard on the Song of Songs. Gentile, I Codici Palatini, vol. 1, 50. 74 Discussed by Kent, Cosimo de' Medici and the Florentine renaissance, 428, note 154. 75 A. Benventui Papi 'In Castro Poenitentiae'. Figure e modelli femminili nella rappresentazione della santità (sec.XII–XIV). Santità e società femminile nell'Italia medievale (Italia Sacra, Studi e Documenti di Storia Ecclesiastica 45, Rome, 1990). 76 D. Webb, 'Women and home: the domestic setting of late medieval spirituality', in: Women in the church, ed. W.J. Sheils and D. Wood (Studies in Church History 27, Oxford 1990), 159–73, for European examples. 77 S. Connell, 'Books and their owners in Venice 1345-1480', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 35 (1972), 163–86 (172). 78 Gill, 'Women and the production of religious literature', 64–104. 79 Gill, 'Women and the production of religious literature', 69. 80 Gill, 'Women and the production of religious literature', 76. 81 Gill, 'Women and the production of religious literature', 74; Cavalca, Vite dei santi padri, 329–87. 82 Johannes de Caulibus, Meditationes vitae Christi. An illustrated manuscript of the fourteenth century, ed. I. Ragusa and R.B. Green (Princeton, 1961), 140–2. 83 A.W. Keitt, Inventing the sacred. Imposture, inquisition, and the boundaries of the supernatural in Golden Age Spain (Leiden, 2005), 24. 84 Examples of this type of saint are Eugenia/Eugenius, Margaret-Pelagia, Apollinaris/Apollinare, Marina, Euphronsyne. See Cavalca, Vite dei santi padri, 261–5; 266–7; 305–7; Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 1, 534–5; 611–15. 85 H. Delehaye, The legends of the saints, trans. Donald Attwater (Dublin, 1998), 51: 'Niente di vero ha l'historia, e più che altro deve riguardarsi come una novella sacra.' F. Zambrini, Il propugnatore. Studi filologici storici e biografici di varii soci della Commessione pe' testi di lengua, 20 vols (Bologna, 1868–87), vol. 2, 124. 86 G. Allaire, 'Introduction', in: The Italian novella, ed. G. Allaire (London, 2003), 1–13 (1). 87 Boccaccio, Decameron, trans. G H. McWilliam (Harmondsworth, 1973) 523 (day seven, first story). 88 C. Lawless, 'Franco Sacchetti on "Modern Saints" (c.1365)', in: Medieval Italy. Texts in translation, ed. Katherine L. Jansen, Joanna Drell and Frances Andrews (Philadelphia, 2009), 385–9. 89 S. Reynolds, 'Social mentalities and the cases of medieval scepticism', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series 1 (1991), 21–41 (30). 90 C. Klapisch-Zuber, Women, family and ritual in renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (London, 1985), 117–31; I. Chabot, '"La sposa in nero". La ritualizzazione del lutto delle vedove fiorentine (secoli XIV–XV)', Quaderni Storici, 86 (1994), 421–62, and 'Widowhood and poverty in late medieval Florence', Continuity and Change, 3 (1988), 291–311. For approaches which suggest widows exercised power in organising networks of their own familial ties and commemorations, see E.G. Rosenthal, 'The position of women in renaissance Florence: neither autonomy nor subjection', in: Florence and Italy. Renaissance studies in honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, ed. P. Denley and C. Elam (London, 1988), 369–81. 91 Klapisch-Zuber, Women, family and ritual, 117. 92 G. Niccolini da Camugliano, Chronicles of a Florentine family (London, 1933), 70. 93 Niccolini da Camugliano, Chronicles of a Florentine family, 78–9. 94 Bonaccorso Pitti, 'Ricordi', in: Mercanti scrittori: ricordi nella Firenze tra medioevo e rinascimento — Paolo da Certaldo, Giovanni Morelli, Bonaccorso Pitti, e Domenico Lenzi, Donato Velluti, Goro Dati, Francesco Datini, Lapo Niccolini, Bernardo Machiavelli, ed. V. Branca (Milan, 1986), 358: 'E sendo rimasa la detta Lisa vedova e reda del detto Luigi di Bonaccorso Pitti, la tolse per moglie Bartolomeo, e fine che quella eredità non uscisse di casa nostra.' 95 For praise of Anna the Prophetess as a widow of God, see San Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari inedite. Firenze 1424, 1425 — Siena 1425, ed. P. Dionisio Pacetti (Florence, 1935), 249–50; Giovanni Dominici, Regola del governo di cura familiare, ed. D. Salvi (Florence, 1860), 104. 96 Two Florentine lives of the Virgin, when describing the virtuous life of Joachim, narrate how he divided his goods into three, giving one part to: 'orfani, e alle vidue e alpellegrinii e a poveri.' Florence, BNCF, Fondo Principale, MS II, III, 415, f. 18v, and MS Palatino 120, f. 10: 'La seconda parte esso dava alipoveri e ale veddove e ali orfani e a pelegrini.' 97 Donato Velluti, La cronaca domestica, ed. I Del Lungo and G. Volpi (Florence, 1914), 98. 98 Giovanni Morelli, 'Ricordi', in: Mercanti scrittori, ed. Branca, 156–8. 99 Velluti, La cronaca domestica, 149–50: 'per onore di me e perchè di lei avea grande bisogno'. 100 D. Osheim, 'Conversion, conversi, and the Christian life in late medieval Tuscany', Speculum, 58 (1983), 368–90. 101 K. Gill, 'Open monasteries for women in late medieval and early modern Italy: two Roman examples', in: The crannied wall. Women, religion and the arts in early modern Europe, ed. C.A. Monson (Ann Arbor, 1992), 15–47 (18). 102 R.C. Trexler, Power and dependence in renaissance Florence. Vol. 2: the women of renaissance Florence (Asheville, 1998), 13. 103 J. Henderson, Piety and charity in late medieval Florence (Oxford, 1994), 25; and The renaissance hospital. Healing the body and healing the soul (New Haven, 2006), 187, 217–18. 104 Henderson, The renaissance hospital, 217–18. 105 D. Webb, Pilgrims and pilgrimage in the medieval west (London, 2001), 125; Anja Grebe, 'Pilgrims and fashion: the function of pilgrims' garments', in: Art and architecture of late medieval pilgrimage in northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. S. Blick and R. Tekippe (Leiden, 2005), 3–28 (24). 106 Henderson, The Renaissance hospital, 10. 107 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, no. 169, 318–22; Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 1180–7. On the theme of reluctant marriage, see D. Elliott, Spiritual marriage. Sexual abstinence in medieval wedlock (Princeton, 1993). 108 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, no. 157, 225–6; Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 2, 1071–2. 109 St Bridget of Sweden, ed. by Johannes Jørgenson, 2 vols (New York, 1954), vol. 1, 55. 110 The life of Umiltà of Faenza is found in Acta Sanctorum, 5 May, 203–5. A translation by Elizabeth Petroff is in Medieval saints. A reader, ed. M. Stouck (Peterborough, Ontario, 1999), 454–63. 111 M. Goodich, 'The contours of female piety in later medieval hagiography', Church History, 50 (1981), 20–32 (24). 112 Granger Ryan, Golden legend, vol. 2, 304. 113 Henderson, The renaissance hospital, 172–3. There was a chapel dedicated to St Elizabeth of Hungary in S. Maria Nuova, recorded in the eighteenth century, but it is not known when it was originally dedicated. G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine divise ne' suoi quartieri, 10 vols (Florence, 1754–62), vol. 8, 179. 114 D. Weinstein and R. Bell, Saints and society. The two worlds of western Christendom 1000–1700 (Chicago, 1982), 114. 115 Benvenuti Papi, 'In castro poentientiae', 504.