Orders of Friars (Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians)

Franciscain d’origine ombrienne Matthieu d’Aquasparta (v. 1240-1302) est maître en théologie à l’université de Paris au moment de la censure de 1277. Il rejoint ensuite la Curie pontificale en 1279. Doté de talents politiques certains il est brièvement ministre général de l’ordre franciscain avant d'être créé cardinal par Nicolas IV en 1288. Il obtient la charge de grand pénitencier et devient un soutien fidèle de Boniface VIII. Depuis le début du XXe siècle la pensée du théologien avait surtout fait l'objet d'études construites à partir de l'édition progressive de ses Questions disputées. Cet ouvrage propose une biographie complète de Matthieu d’Aquasparta au prisme de ses textes universitaires grâce à l’analyse de sa bibliothèque personnelle de ses manuscrits de travail légués aux couvent d'Assise et de Todi et de ses Quodlibets encore inédits.

When Saint Dominic (c. 1174-1221) came to Rome to seek papal approval of the Order of Preachers he founded two houses on the periphery of the city - a nunnery at S. Sisto in structures rebuilt by Pope Innocent III and a priory next to the early Christian basilica of S. Sabina. The Dominicans modified and enlarged the existing buildings according to their needs. Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1182-1226) also came to consult the Pope but he did not make any foundations in Rome. In 1229 Pope Gregory IX ordered the Benedictine monks of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea to cede to the Franciscans their hospice of S. Biagio in Trastevere where Saint Francis had stayed. The friars built the church and friary of S. Francesco a Ripa there. Later Gregory IX took over the Benedictine monastery itself where he established the Franciscan nunnery of S. Cosimato in 1234. Moving into the more densely inhabited parts of the city the Friars Minor built a new friary and church at S. Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline Hill from c. 1248-1252 onwards. The Dominicans in 1266 acquired a convent near the Pantheon where they constructed the Gothic church of S. Maria sopra Minerva. In 1285 the Colonna family established a Franciscan nunnery at S. Silvestro in Capite. In the context of the origin and evolution of the two Mendicant Orders this book traces the history of these thirteenth-century Dominican and Franciscan foundations focussing on their location in Rome the history of each site their architecture and the medieval works of art connected with them. Popes and cardinals members of important families and Franciscan Tertiaries contributed generously to their construction and decoration. The book ends with Saint Catherine of Siena who lived near S. Maria sopra Minerva where she was buried.

The Sacro Monte (Holy Mountain) at Varallo is a sanctuary in the Italian Alps west of Milan. It was founded in the late fifteenth century by a Franciscan friar with the support of the town’s leading families. He designed it as a schematic replica of Jerusalem to enable the faithful to make a virtual pilgrimage to the Holy City if they could not undertake the perilous journey to visit it physically. The Sacro Monte consists of a sequence of chapels containing tableaux of life-size painted terra-cotta figures with fresco backgrounds recounting the life and Passion of Christ. A century later in the era of the Counter-Reformation a ‘second wave’ of Sacri Monti was constructed in the north-western Alps modelled on Varallo but dedicated to other devotional themes like the Rosary or the life of St Francis. All these sanctuaries like Varallo were the result of local initiatives initiated by the clergy and the leaders of the communities where they were situated. Like Varallo they were the work of artists and craftsmen from the alpine valleys or from nearby Lombardy. Long dismissed as folk art unworthy of serious critical attention the Sacri Monti are now recognised as monuments of unique artistic significance. In 2003 UNESCO listed nine of them in its register of World Heritage Sites. This book studies their development as the products of the religious sensibilities and the social economic and political conditions of the mountain communities that created them.

This study analyzes in detail the Novum opus dominicale of John Waldeby a member of the convent of the Augustinian friars in York. This unedited collection of some sixty sermons for Sundays and major feasts is extant in two manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford) MSS Laud misc. 77 and Bodley 687. The present study places the work and the preacher within the wider context of mendicant preaching as mass communication in the Middle Ages. In doing so it focuses on the educational environment which encompasses conventual education and preaching to the laity and on the library in which this model sermon collection was compiled and used identifying the role and meticulous design of the mendicant library collection. Through a detailed examination of sermon form in conjunction with Robert of Basevorn’s Forma praedicandi it tries to disentangle the intricate considerations involved in the processes of sermon composition and reveals the strategies of interpretation and communication in the use of exempla and imagery in preaching. It investigates the careful organization of Waldeby’s work as a cycle of sermons for an entire year. In this way it makes possible a deeper understanding of a wide range of complex issues from composition to reception through the prism of this important fourteenth-century sermon collection.

This book discusses the significance of the Carmelite liturgy as practised in the Kraków convent over a period of some four hundred years. Specifically it examines the liturgical contents of five medieval Carmelite choir books from the Kraków convent and another choir book from this collection which is now in Wroclaw and discusses their contents (especially their significant feasts) in terms of the Carmelite order's historical self-understanding and established liturgical tradition. Carmelite Liturgy and Spiritual Identity outlines the role of liturgy in the life of the Kraków convent and in relationship to the apostolic activity of these mendicant friars. It argues that the order's unique liturgical tradition one which remained distinctive even after the Council of Trent was crucial to their self-understanding. It also articulates how the liturgical practices of the Kraków Carmelites made a significant contribution to the spiritual life of the city and its people.