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<i>Angelo Clareno Francescano: Atti del XXXIV Convengo internazionale Assisi, 5–7 ottobre 2006</i> (review)

2011; The Catholic University of America Press; Volume: 97; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cat.2011.0012

1534-0708

Patrick Nold,

Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Reviewed by: Angelo Clareno Francescano: Atti del XXXIV Convengo internazionale Assisi, 5–7 ottobre 2006 Patrick Nold Angelo Clareno Francescano: Atti del XXXIV Convengo internazionale Assisi, 5–7 ottobre 2006. Edited by Enrico Menestò. [Atti dei Convengi della Società internazionale di studi francescani e del Centro interuniversitario di studi francescani. Nuova Serie, Vol. 17.] (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo. 2007. Pp. x, 430. €48,00 paperback. ISBN 978-8-879-88053-4.) The annual Franciscan Studies Conference in Assisi reliably produces high-quality conference proceedings on important subjects. No exception is the volume dedicated to Angelo Clareno (†1343) whose Liber Chronicarum (c. 1320s) of Franciscan history, with its poverty controversies and persecution of “Spiritual” Franciscans, set a template for subsequent accounts. The collection starts in earnest with Paolo Vian’s “parallel lives” treatment of Angelo Clareno and Ubertino da Casale. Vian shows how two Spirituals could have opposing reactions to Popes Boniface VIII, Clement V, and John XXII; the difference is explained by a general fight-or-flight approach to the world: The eremitical Angelo wanted to observe literally the Franciscan Rule outside the order, the mendicant Ubertino struggled to do so within it. David Burr scrutinizes Angelo’s commentary on the Rule with regard to the notion of obedience. Burr notes the irony that Angelo spent a “number of years . . . dodging his Franciscan superiors and at times the pope as well” (p. 30), but nevertheless emphasized obedience in his commentary. In fact, Angelo considered the Rule a divine revelation and thought that one must obey God rather than men. Felice Accrocca concentrates on the History of the Seven Tribulations of the Franciscan Order or Liber Chronicarum and skeptically considers G. L. Potestà’s thesis about its redaction. Potestà hypothesized a two-step composition: The first redaction contained only six tribulations (cf. Job 5:19:“In six tribulations he shall deliver you, and in the seventh, evil shall not touch you”) and ended with Clement V in 1314. Angelo then revised his work during the turbulent pontificate of John XXII, adding a seventh tribulation with a touch of evil. Accrocca finds this explanation too tidy and cautions against discarding the old single redaction theory. Marco Bartoli’s piece, “The Eschatological Dimension of the Dispute between the Spirituals and Conventuals,” notes that it was not a feature of the Council of Vienne debates and only appeared in the 1320s after a papal commission condemned statements from Olivi’s Apocalypse Commentary (1297) that implied an identification of the Roman Church with the Whore of Babylon, and a supersession of previous ages of the Church by the last one. Bartoli’s explanation for this absence is that much of the order, until then, subscribed to a historical vision [End Page 355] not much different from that of the Spirituals—and he looks at some Franciscan apocalypse commentaries (as Burr had done in the uncited Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom [Philadelphia, 1993]) to fortify this point. Roberto Lambertini, with typical insightfulness, investigates the wide semantic range of the term Fraticelli in the aftermath of John XXII’s Sancta Romana that condemned Angelo Clareno’s group with this label. Jürgen Miethke’s “Pope John XXII and the Poverty Controversy” is a bibliographically updated version of the narrative in his Ockhams Weg zur Sozialphilosophie (Berlin, 1969). Miethke is old-school in seeing two discrete Franciscan controversies: a practical one over the observance of poverty with Spirituals like Angelo and a theoretical one with Michaelists like Ockham over Christ’s poverty. Miethke’s piece is on the whole stimulating, but its second part is stronger than the first, where no mention is made of the bull Quorundam Exigit (whose enforcement links the two controversies). For the theological debate, Miethke vehemently reasserts the primacy and reliability of Michaelist sources against recent revisionists who can only be grateful for his hard questions. The volume is brought to conclusion by Potestà—the world expert on Clareno—who gives an elegant and intellectually generous summing up of the papers. This Assisi conference must have been a memorable occasion; the commemorative volume is certainly a “must-have.” Patrick Nold University at Albany, SUNY Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University...