Golden Legend

This thesis explores modalities in two hagiographical collections from the late Middle Ages; the Legenda Aurea and the Gilte Legende, by drawing inspiration from post-colonial hybridity theories. It conducts a close textual analysis by studying the use of pronouns in five saints’ legends where female saints transcend traditional gender identities and become men, and focuses on how they transcend, live as men, and die. The study concludes that the use of pronouns is fluid in the Latin Legenda Aurea, while the Middle English Gilte Legende has more female pronouns and additions to the texts where the female identity of the saints is emphasised. This is interpreted as a sign of the feminisation of religious language in Europe during the late Middle Ages, and viewed parallel with the increase of holy women at that time. By doing this, it underlines the importance of new words and concepts when describing and understanding medieval views on gender.

Chapter one discusses the most consistent theme in Voragine’s Jewish stories: conversion via miracles. Instead of yielding to philosophical or scriptural argumentation, Jews in the Golden Legend only convert after witnessing a miracle. While the role of the miraculous is central to Voragine’s entire work, it is highlighted repeatedly as the only method capable of changing the hearts of Jews. Such a view, most likely culled from the writings of the Paul and Augustine, runs counter to the disputation culture which was raging across Europe during the thirteenth century.
    Chapter two considers the embeddedness of the Jew in Christian culture. Instead of being the object of the miracles described in chapter one, Jews are present amongst Christians to witness them. This is a general theme that runs through Voragine’s stories in which Jews have intimate relationships with Christians and frequently make use of Christian ritual items. Instead of being outsiders separated from their Christian neighbors as many thirteenth-century papal decrees instructed, Jews are active members of Christian society in these stories. Even in the accounts in which Jews are designated as others, the target is either biblical Jews or the vitriol is heavily tamed.
    Chapter three attempts to position these themes and the views they represent within the wider intellectual culture of medieval Europe. Both major themes expressed in the Jewish stories reflect official ideological stances about the Jews found in the Christian tradition. It is with empathy for these views that Voragine—either consciously or unconsciously—chose his Jewish stories. As such, I argue that Voragine is not a mere storyteller, but an important medieval thinker reflecting deeply on the place of the Jews in medieval Europe.

The so-called "miracle of the black leg", in which Saints Cosmas and Damian miraculously perform the first leg transplant, was made famous by Jacobus de Voragine's "Legenda aurea" and has been a source of inspiration for artists and medical research for centuries. In this paper, I examine the earliest sources of this miracle and demonstrate that the earliest one, a hitherto unidentified early thirteenth-century French translation of a lost Latin source, tells a very different story. Most importantly, I argue that the well-known racial difference between the donor (a black man, identified as either a "maurus" or an "Ethiopian") and the (white) receiver of the miraculous leg transplant, first introduced in Jean de Mailly's "Abbreviatio in gestis sanctorum," is a thirteenth-century innovation that needs to be interpreted in the context of a new interest in the representation of different ethnicities in a Christian context.

[The PDF contains a preview; if you wish to read this essay, don't hesitate to message me or get more information about the volume at: http://www.arborsapientiae.com/libro/20900/que-ben-devetz-conoisser-la-plus-fina-per-margherita-spampinato-a-cura-di-mario-pagano-biblioteca-di-sinestesie-62.html]

Представления об экзорцизме в католической традиции XIII−XV века (на основе материалов доминиканского и францисканского орденов)
The movement of any science is carried out in accordance with the logic of development and the challenges of modernity. Now, after a lengthy atheistic view, a scientific interest in the history of religion. Exorcism is a private religious belief, subject exist in our days. In this perspective, the exorcism was never just a theological problem. The practice of exorcism "was socially characterized by processes of introspection and analysis in general, the hidden immediacy of uncertainty and chaos." Exorcism is a complex phenomenon, which fits both the traditional and the latest trends of historical science.

La figura dell’animale è stata ignorata per molto tempo da parte degli storici, tuttavia da un paio di decenni lo studio di animali non umani costituisce una vera e propria sfida per gli studiosi contemporanei. Agli animali non umani si conferisce sempre maggior importanza anche negli studi umanistici. In particolar modo gli studiosi hanno rivolto il proprio interesse al Medioevo, un periodo nel quale la figura dell’animale è onnipresente in campi differenti, tra cui l’araldica, il folclore, la toponimia; lo studio dellʼanimale non umano è sempre più presente nell’analisi di proverbi, canzoni e imprecazioni.
Dalla caduta dell’Impero Romano d’Occidente ci sono voluti diversi secoli per una rifioritura economica, sociale e culturale. Il primato della cultura per tutto il Medioevo, fino all’inizio dell’Umanesimo, era detenuto dalla Chiesa. In questo arco di tempo uno dei generi letterari più popolari in ambito religioso è senz’altro l’exemplum.
Una delle raccolte di exempla medievali è la Legenda aurea, che è anche una collezione di agiografie, scritta in latino e molto popolare tra i predicatori di Duecento e Trecento, in particolare degli ordini mendicanti, quali i francescani e i domenicani che inserivano frammenti di exempla nei loro sermoni o nelle loro prediche. L’autore dell’opera è Iacopo da Varagine o, in alcuni casi, si preferisce l’alternativa Varazze.
Iacopo da Varagine visse nel Duecento, ma non si conosce data esatta della sua nascita e della sua morte. Ciò che si sa di lui è che fu arcivescovo di Genova e che dedicò tutta la sua vita all’attività pastorale, ai sermoni e allo studio, e insegnò teologia.  La sua opera di maggior rilievo fu appunto la Legenda aurea.
La Legenda aurea fu compilata nella seconda metà del Duecento, tra gli anni ’60 del XIII secolo e il 1298.  Nell’arco del Trecento, in particolare dopo il volgarizzamento, la Legenda aurea divenne un vero e proprio bestseller e lo testimoniano l’ottantina di codici conservati prima del XIV secolo e intorno a 1320 manoscritti in totale. Data la sua crescente popolarità a partire dai primi anni del Trecento, si è cominciata a tradurre la Legenda aurea nei vari dialetti del volgare della Penisola, potendo così avere un pubblico più ampio.  La versione in volgare che andremo ad analizzare è quella pubblicata a Venezia nel 1475 a cura di Niccolò Manerbi, nell’edizione moderna del 1993 a cura di Giorgio Varanini e Guido Baldassarri.
In questo lavoro sarà da prima trattata la figura dell’animale in generale nel mondo cristiano, in modo da poter capire come essa è stata realizzata nella Legenda aurea. In seguito si effettuerà un’analisi più approfondita del ruolo animale in quell’opera. L’ordine delle figure degli animali da analizzare andrà da quelli più citati a quelli che lo sono di meno. Nel caso diverse specie di animali siano menzionate in egual numero, allora si procederà per ordine alfabetico.
Data la vastità del numero di animali, in realtà zoonimi, che “popolano” la Legenda aurea, ne saranno analizzati solamente sei che compaiono negli exempla apostolici. Sono stati presi in considerazione quelli che sono stati giudicati i simboli di maggior importanza nell’ambito cristiano. Andando per ordine: pecora (agnello, ariete e pecora), cane, pesce, serpente (ma si farà anche un breve excursus sul “dracone”), gallo e verme. Tuttavia prima di addentrarci in un’analisi più approfondita, andremo a trattare la figura dell’animale non umano in generale e di seguito esamineremo il genere dell’exemplum, entrando poi nel dettaglio con la Legenda aurea.

The Dominican friars in northern France produced an extensive programme of theological writing, notable both for its erudition, and its all-encompassing treatment of varied theological topics. Despite an abundance of Byzantine patristic material discussing the veneration of images, Thomas Aquinas produced a very slight discourse on imagery in his Summa Theologiæ. This thesis argues that the traditionalist nature of Dominican scholarship made the friars reluctant to afford religious imagery a greater space than the Latin Church Fathers had allowed. However, Dominican preaching and devotional writing discussed imagery at much greater length. The Nine Ways of Prayer describe St. Dominic’s habit of prayer before images of Christ crucified, and the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine shows several miracles involving images. In writings for novices and laity, the friars discussed imagery at far greater length.
This thesis aims to trace categorisations of sacred objects in Dominican writing, seeing how the image was treated differently from relics, the idols of ‘pagans’, and the consecrated Eucharist. This methodology combines historiographies of popular piety and spirituality. Such a method allows the historian to see how scholastic methods of categorisation seeped into popular piety. The thesis argues that because images depicted human emotion, religious imagery, especially crucifixes that showed Christ dying, they were useful to promoting Dominican piety. This interior piety which focussed on interior penitence and the emotional focus on Christ’s Crucifixion was a trend promoted by the friars, and was a fundamental departure from the more practical nature of lay piety. Relics and the Eucharist could be ‘spiritualised’, evoking personal devotion as well as working marvellous wonders. Images were physical matter, concrete objects which reminded the devotee that Christ had taken human form. This materiality marked the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy after the Fourth Lateran Council against various dualist heresies. In this manner, the image was vital both to Dominican piety, and to the Order’s doctrinal mission.

A partir del texto De bello demonum, se estudia el uso que ahí se les da a ciertos pasajes de la hagiografía, ejemplificado en el caso de san Germán. El conocimiento de las milagrerías contra los demonios del obispo de Auxerre se debía a la popularidad de los compendios hagiográficos bajomedievales, como la Legenda aurea. En las traducciones y adaptaciones castellanas de esta obra, la vida de este santo fue asumida como una lectura medular para hacer saber de los demonios y sus maldades contra los fieles cristianos. Con base en estos hechos, se analiza la transformación que sufrió la narrativa demonológica de esta vita en los Flores sanctorum pretridentinos impresos (ca. 1480, ca. 1497 y el de Pedro de la Vega de 1580); y en los Flores sanctorum postridentinos de Alonso de Villegas y Pedro de Ribadeneira. La transformación del discurso demonológico en estos últimos, con sus importantes matices, es resultado de una postura contestataria y defensiva en el contexto de la Reforma.

Istaknuta je važnost ikonografske i ikonološke analize reljefnih
prikaza na stećcima. Da bi takva istraživanja bila moguća, neophodna je tehnička, grafička i foto-dokumentacija s neizostavnom
naznakom orijentacije spomenika. Slijedeći načela teorije o kopiranju u srednjem vijeku, uz izvore koje donosi Legenda aurea,
te usporedbom s prikazima arhitekture u Beatusovu komentaru
Apokalipse, ukazano je na moguće značenje motiva podignute
desne ruke s koncentričnim krugovima "vojvodskih figura", samostalnoga motiva ruke s mačem i motiva arkada s potkovičastim lukovima.
Ključne riječi: dokumentacija; ikonologija; Radimlja; Zlatna legenda; Beatus.

Nonostante  l’enorme diffusione in ambito volgare della Legenda aurea, la fortunata compilazione agiografica portata a termine da Iacopo da Varazze fra il 1260 ca. e il 1298, i suoi volgarizzamenti italiani restano ancora poco studiati e quasi tutti inediti. Il contributo analizza i diversi approcci dei traduttori al testo latino attraverso il confronto fra tre traduzioni complete: la traduzione fiorentina trasmessa dal ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Can. it. 367 (fine XIV sec.), la traduzione toscana trasmessa dal ms. Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Pal. 97 (dat. 1429-1430), e quella del ms. Philadelphia, UPL, Rare Book & Manuscript Library Collections, it. 434 (dat. 1459). L’analisi, effettuata su un campione selezionato di esempi che toccano il livello strutturale, lessicale e sintattico, mette in luce la diversità di approccio e di competenza dei singoli traduttori, ma anche le soluzioni convergenti – in particolare nella scelta di un lessico per lo più privo di latinismi – che dimostrano la consapevolezza del ruolo di ‘mediatori culturali’ nella divulgazione di un testo agiografico a un pubblico di credenti e indocti.

The translation of the Legenda aurea
Despite the extraordinary circulation in the vernacular languages of the Golden Legend, the popular hagiographic collection compiled by Iacopo da Varazze between 1260 and 1298, its Old Italian translations remain little studied and largely unpublished. This paper analyzes translators’s different approaches to the Latin text by comparing three complete translations: a Florentine version transmitted by the MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Can. it. 367 (late 14th century), a Tuscan version transmitted by the MS. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Pal. 97 (dat. 1429-1430) and the translation of the MS. Philadelphia, UPL, Rare Book & Manuscript Library Collections, It. 434 (dat. 1459). The analysis, carried out on a selected sample concerning the structural, lexical and syntactic degree, puts in evidence the diversity of approach and competence of individual translators, but also points out the common solutions – in particular in the choice of a vocabulary mostly devoid of Latinisms – that demonstrate their awareness of the role of ‘cultural mediators’ in the presentation of a hagiographical text to an audience of believers and indocti.

Owing to the fame of Masaccio’s depiction of the “St. Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow” in the Florentine Brancacci chapel, its forerunners in San Piero a Grado and Assisi were barely considered for their own sake. Consequently, important implications have been overlooked. By focusing on iconographical details and the respective local contexts, the current study proposes that both the San Piero and the Assisi examples are dependent on apocryphal writings, mediated via the Golden Legend. Furthermore, the results suggest a locally specific double function; a dualism which consists in the fact that 1) each not only to propagates the Petrine primacy, but is also intended to 2) attract pilgrims in San Piero, or to 3) serve as a church- and order political statement in Assisi.

This paper explains and sources the complex iconography of the 15th-century Flemish trypich of episodes in the life of Saint James (Santiago) and the pilgrimage to his tomb in Compostela. The painting in the school of Dirk Bouts, is in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

To its admirers, the Legenda aurea is a powerful expression of medieval belief. To the evangelical pamphleteers of early modern England, it was a symbol of all the failings of unreformed religion. For historians, it is a convenient shorthand for popular hagiography before the Reformation. These readings, however, understate the Legenda's often ambiguous place in early modern devotional life. This article seeks to complicate the Legenda's history in late medieval and early modern England. It argues that the concept and the act of translation rendered Jacobus's text more complex than the historiographical shorthand allows. Translation contributed to the Legenda's power as a devotional work, was a means by which it found its use, impact and wide audience, and was central to how reformers remembered both the text itself and its author. The translated Legenda was not the exception to the narrative of the long Reformation, but an emblem of it.

ITA: Il contributo prende in esame l’inedito volgarizzamento di un leggendario, databile alla metà del XV sec., ad opera di Giovanni Cherichi «cittadino fiorentino» (Firenze, Bibl. Riccardiana 1390). Nel suo prologo il volgarizzatore dichiara di aver tratto in volgare le 31 vitae che compongono la raccolta da un codice intitolato «la storia aurea», parte in lingua francese e parte in latino, e di aver tradotto dal francese. Esclusa qualsiasi ipotesi di diretta dipendenza del volgarizzamento dalla compilazione di Iacopo da Varazze, si individuano le fonti della raccolta nella tradizione dei leggendari francesi studiati da Paul Meyer e, in tempi recenti, da Jean-Pierre Perrot; in particolare, si dimostra che la fonte diretta della prima sezione del «libro» tradotto dal Cherichi (I-XVII) coincide con il primo nucleo della tradizione dei leggendario, il cosiddetto «légendier A», e intrattiene anche interessanti rapporti con il ramo franco-italiano di questo leggendario.

ENG: This contribution examines an unpublished legendary translated into Tuscan vernacular by Giovanni Cherichi «cittadino fiorentino», dated to the mid-fifteenth century (Firenze, Bibl. Riccardiana 1390). In a brief prologue, Cherichi informs the reader that he translated this collection of 31 vitae from a codex entitled «la storia aurea», written partly in French and partly in Latin, and that his source was French. After ruling out the possibility of a direct dependence of the translation from Iacopo da Varazze’s Legenda aurea, we identify the sources of the collection in the tradition of French collections of saints’ lives, previously studied by Paul Meyer and, more recently, by Jean-Pierre Perrot. In particular, it is shown that the direct source of the first section of Cherichi’s «libro» (I-XVII) is the most ancient group of lives of the French legendaries, the so-called «légendier A»; this section appears to be related to the Franco-Italian branch of the tradition.

Il s'agit de proposer un état des lieux de nos connaissances sur le couvent de San Domenico de Gênes entre le XIIIème et le XIVème siècle. Il est clair que le couvent abrita quelques grandes figures dominicaines (Jacques de Voragine, Giovanni Balbi, Jacques de Cessole au premier chef) sur un segment chronologique relativement étroit. Cela nous autorise-t-il pour autant à le qualifier de "cénacle culturel" de première importance ? La pénurie documentaire concernant les dominicains génois n'aide pas à collecter les informations, ni à se prononcer favorablement ou défavorablement sur l'impact intellectuel du couvent génois sur la carrière des frères ou de certains frères sur le rayonnement du couvent. Reste que l'on peut, entre les silences laissés par les archives, s'intéresser aussi aux traces dominicaines laissées à même les manuscrits, et notamment les manuscrits en langue romane dont les dominicains auraient d'une manière ou d'une autre supervisé l'importation et la copie. Une histoire sociale des formes, plutôt que des hommes, en somme.