Milan (Late Middle Ages)

Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the church itself artistically and architecturally stood apart from the parish community. It was often the largest and only stone-built building in a village; it was legally distinct being subject to canon law, as well as consecrated for the celebration of religious rites. The buildings associated with the ‘cure of souls’ were sacred sites or holy places, where humanity interacted with the divine.

In spite of the importance of the parish church, these buildings have generally not received the same attention from historians as non-parochial places of worship. This collection of essays redresses this balance and reflects on the parish church across a number of confessions – Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Anti-Trinitarian – during the early modern period. Rather than providing a series of case studies of individual buildings, each essay looks at the evolution of parish churches in response to religious reform as well as confessional change and upheaval. They examine aspects of their design and construction; furnishings and material culture; liturgy and the use of the parish church. While these essays range widely across Europe, the volume also considers how religious provision and the parish church were translated into a global context with colonial and commercial expansion in the Americas and Asia. This interdisciplinary volume seeks to identify what was distinctive about the parish church for the congregations that gathered in them for worship and for communities across the early modern world.

Contents:
The early modern parish church: an introduction
Andrew Spicer
Patrician and episcopal rivalry for the Milanese parish church: San Nazaro in Brolo during French and Spanish rule,
Philippa Woodcock
Exploring the features and challenges of the urban parish church in the southern Low Countries. The case of 16th-century Ghent
Anne-Laure Van Bruaene
The Counter Reformation and the parish church in western Brittany (France) 1500-1700
Elizabeth Tingle
The body of the faithful: Joseph Furttenbach’s 1649 Lutheran Church plans
Emily Fisher Gray
Staging the Eucharist, adiaphora, and shaping Lutheran identities in the Transylvanian parish church
Evelin Wetter
Parish temples of Geneva and the Swiss Romande
Andrew Spicer
'Which of them do belong to the parish or not’. The changing rural parish in the Dutch Republic after the Reformation
Arjan Nobel
Unitarian parish churches in early modern Transylvania
Maria Crăciun
Heaven on earth: churches in early modern Hispanic America
Andrew Redden
Franciscans and the parish in early modern Brazil
Ivan Cavalcanti Filho
Parish churches, colonisation and conversion in Portuguese Goa
Mallica Kumbera Landrus
Dutch churches in Asia
Andrew Spicer
'To build up the walls of Jerusalem’: Anglican churches in 17th-century Virginia
Carl Lounsbury
Parish churches in the early modern world - afterword
Beat Kümin

Il volume è dedicato ad uno dei maggiori lignaggi aristocratici dell'Italia settentrionale bassomedievale. I Rossi, la cui eminenza sociale e politica risale all'età comunale, costruirono nel Parmense un dominio di notevoli proporzioni, basato sul possesso territoriale e castrense ma anche su una vasta clientela rurale e urbana: e il potere del casato, benché ridimensionato in seguito alla crisi delle relazioni con gli Sforza nel 1482, trovò gli spazi per ricostituirsi su basi parzialmente diverse durante le guerre d'Italia. Le ricerche qui riunite esplorano la complessità del "piccolo stato signorile" rossiano, indagato nella sua costituzione interna, nei suoi rapporti con l'esterno e nei suoi aspetti artistici e culturali fra la metà del Trecento e l'inizio del Cinquecento.

The result of research on the history of mechanical engineering and design, this study identifies Leonardo’s innovative approaches to technical problems, correcting previous assumptions about his lack of technical knowledge as an engineer. Innovative strategies include his use of Euclidian and Archimedean geometry, dimetric parallel projection, consistency of scale, proportions of one-third throughout the structure, and proportional calculations of its force. The sophistication and precision of the drawing, compared with others by Leonardo and his contemporaries, locates it among his plans for a military treatise, re-dates it to a later period of 1490-93, and associates it with similar working methods across disciplines at the turn of the sixteenth century.

The reconstruction of the duchy achieved by Filippo Maria between 1412 and 1421 is a vantage point to observe some of the deep structures on which the Milanese State relied. The analysis of the oaths of allegiance to the prince shows that the Lombard political society of the early fifteenth century did not fully coincide with the urban élites, and reveals a plurality of subjects (rural lords, lineages, communities, factions) capable to undertake political initiative at different levels.

[ENGLISH] Between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some communities and families of the northern contado of Milan chose to side with the Visconti, not only ensuring their support to the latter’s effort to frame the various forces of the area, but also reinforcing the defenses along the river Adda. As a reward, Bernabò, Gian Galeazzo and their successors granted these communities and families an advantageous tax exemption. It was indeed to defend such considerable privilege that the restless and diversified people of the Brianza hills grouped themeselves together, drawn by the centripetal influence of the most powerful families, who dubbed themselves Ghibellini. The granting of such tax exemption and the important role played by these bonds contributed to the birth of a new sense of identity in Brianza, built primarily upon the institutional structure of the granted privilege. A new sense of identity that was strengthened, on the one hand, by the newborn territorial "Universitas Montis Briantie" and, on the other hand, by the power of the Lords of Milan.

[ITALIAN] Fra Tre e Quattrocento alcune comunità e famiglie del contado a nord di Milano si schierano fermamente a sostegno dei Visconti, coadiuvandoli nel loro tentativo di inquadrare le variegate forze del territorio e garantendo la difesa del confine sul fiume Adda. Come ricompensa Bernabò, Gian Galeazzo e i loro successori concedono a queste comunità e famiglie delle vantaggiose esenzioni fiscali: sono proprio queste esenzioni ad accomunare le numerose comunità rurali e le irrequiete famiglie delle colline briantee, cementandone il fronte in difesa della comune condizione privilegiata. Le parentele più influenti del territorio, tutte fortemente di fede ghibellina, svolgono in questo senso un’azione centripeta, atta a far nascere e sviluppare in Brianza un senso d’identità nuovo, costruito sul comune carico fiscale, ma anche intimamente politico, legato da una parte alla neonata Università territoriale del Monte di Brianza e dall’altra al potere dei signori di Milano.

Il tema dell'aristocrazia territoriale e del suo ruolo nella costituzione del ducato visconteo-sforzesco è stato marginalizzato dalla storiografia politico-istituzionale in favore di un paradigma interpretativo centrato su un modello di stato territoriale a base urbana. Diverse ricerche recenti, tuttavia, hanno mostrato la necessità di complicare tale modello e di sottoporlo verifiche puntuali nelle sue articolazioni locali, rimarcando la pluralità di attori e di linguaggi politici che anima una dialettica non costringibile nell'alveo del rapporto preferenziale principe-città. Questo contributo si propone di sottolineare alcuni aspetti della complessa interazione fra i grandi casati signorili e un potere ducale non sempre in grado di preseguire un coerente sforzo di disciplinamento dell'aristocrazia, che mantiene almeno fino alla metà del XVI secolo un forte ascendente sulla società lombarda.

Leonardo is known for his description of warfare as a bestial madness (pazzia bestialissima, Codex Urbinas folio 59v), though he also stated that, “for the maintenance of the principle gift of nature, namely liberty, I will find the way to offend and defend while being besieged by ambitious tyrants” (Manuscript B folio 100r).  With the former comment, he describes the composition of a battle scene in his Treatise on Painting. In the latter case he introduces his intentions as a military engineer. He is in these cases the literary scholar and engineer, part of a humanist tradition of intellectual omini pratici (practical or skilled men). His latter comment recalls his draft proposal to Ludovico Sforza, lord of Milan, that, “I will make cannon, mortars and light ordinance of beautiful and useful forms that are out of common use…. I will build catapults, mangonels, trebuchets and other instruments of admirable efficiency not in general use” (Codex Atlanticus folio 1082r).  What precipitated Leonardo’s fascination with warfare, and an interest in writing a De re militari treatise (concerning military matters) was his move to Milan in the early 1480s. Although he was busy with the Virgin of the Rocks commission early in 1483, he also sought the patronage of the Sforza Court for engineering, sculpting, and painting projects. By 1489, he was in charge of several projects for the court, including a bronze equestrian monument in honor of Ludovico’s father, Francesco Sforza. In 1490, Ludovico sent Leonardo to Pavia with fellow artist-engineer, Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501), in order to direct structural repairs to the Cathedral. Around 1490, Ludovico supposedly asked Leonardo to write a paragone, a comparison of the arts (according to Giovan Paolo Lomazzo in 1584, Pedretti 1977, pp. 76 ff., Farago 1992, pp. 14-15). This could have been part of his lost treatise on painting and human movement that Luca Pacioli saw in 1496. It was during Leonardo’s first ten years in Milan, that he began to develop the most diverse projects of his career, including an active studio with apprentices, painting commissions, a massive equestrian monument, architectural plans for the rebuilding of Milan, stage sets, a model for the crossing tower (tiburio) of Milan Cathedral, designs for festivals, and treatises on subjects such as painting, anatomy (Windsor Anatomical manuscripts), statics, mechanics (Manuscript Madrid I), and military engineering. Ludovico actively and indirectly encouraged Leonardo, who was part of the general plan to make Milan the “Athens of Italy.” For seventeen years, both men shared this humanist interest, along with that of military engineering. The best evidence of Leonardo’s treatise on the military arts is in the Codex Atlanticus, and the present exhibition has offered the first opportunity for the public to view these drawings as a group. In this selection we see his fascination with the subject and his desire to produce in 1487-92 a beautiful and useful manuscript worthy of the Sforza Court.

This article covers in detail the bibliographical production on the Italian differential presence in the south of the Iberian Peninsula in the late medieval centuries. Following the academic conventions of a  long-established historiographical tradition, it tackles the subject by taking into consideration the political realities in both peninsulae, Castile and Grenade on the one hand, and the Italian Mercantile Republics on the other, paying special attention to Genoa, Venice and Florence. Lastly, it suggests new research lines from underused sources and the most recent trends in historiography.

The repertoire of Milanese Motetti missales has often aroused interest among scholars from an historical point of view, while there are surprisingly few analytical investigations concerning this corpus. The case of Franchino Gaffurio (1451-1522), surely one of the most prominent figures of the Milanese scene, is particularly striking: paradoxically, the importance of his contributions as a theorist and author of treatises has almost completely obscured his role as a composer. This article presents a first attempt to delineate Gaffurio’s motet style. Some of his motets in Librone 1 of the Veneranda Fabbrica are considered, examining the texts he choose to set, and giving special attention to the formal solutions he adopted, as well as to issues of intertextuality pointing both inside and outside his oeuvre (Ockeghem, Josquin). A number of questions concerning both the Gattungsgeschichte of the motet and the personal style of the first native Italian composer of the Renaissance are pondered.

After Manfred's defeat and death (february 26, 1266), the papacy sent several representatives in the city-States of central and northern Italy to help pulling down the Ghibelline regimes. This article gives a detailed account of one of these missions, namely Bernard de Castanet and Bartolomeo of Trevi's intervention at Cremona and Piacenza in 1266-1267. These two papal chaplains were tenacious and successful in their bid to put an end to Oberto Pallavicini's long-time domination. A good number of narrative and official sources shed light on the "nuncii"'s determined action in the political milieu. A major achievement was the establishment of "consortia fidei et pacis" in both Cremona and Piacenza. These civic associations controlled the municipal institutions for the sake of the catholic faith and in the name of the struggle against heresy. Most of all, they secured the obedience of both cities to the Roman Church. The new political order was thus founded on spiritual imperatives. Finally, the papal chaplains managed to settle a general peace agreement between the main Lombard cities under the authority of the Apostolic See (The "Peace of Romano"). Bernard de Castanet played the biggest part in the course of events and revealed his political skill as well as firmness in defending papal theocracy. This first mission opened the way to his ecclesiastical career, despite his probable humble origin.

Après la défaite et la mort de Manfred (26 février 1266), la papauté envoya plusieurs représentants dans les cités-Etats de l'Italie centrale et septentrionale pour contribuer au renversement des régimes gibelins. Cet article retrace en détail l'une de ces missions, celle menée par Bernard de Castanet et Bartolomeo de Trevi à Crémone et à Plaisance en 1266-1267. A force de tenacité, ces deux chapelains pontificaux parvinrent à mettre un terme à la longue domination du vicaire impérial Oberto Pellavicini. Un assez grand nombre de sources narratives et officielles éclairent l'action des "nuncii" dans la mêlée politique au sein des deux communes. Leur intervention culmina avec l'établissement de "consortia fidei et pacis". Ces associations civiques exerçaient un contrôle sur les institutions communales  au nom de la foi catholique et du combat contre l'hérésie. Surtout, elles assuraient l'obéissance des villes à l'Eglise romaine. Le nouvel ordre politique était ainsi fondé sur des impératifs spirituels. Pour finir, les chapelains pontificaux réussirent à instaurer une paix générale entre les principales villes de Lombardie, sous l'autorité du Siège apostolique ("Paix de Romano"). D'un bout à l'autre de l'intervention, Bernard de Castanet eut le premier rôle. Il fit ainsi la preuve de son habileté politique comme de sa fermeté à défendre la théocratie pontificale. Cette première mission couronnée d'un succès sans doute inespéré favorisa la suite de sa carrière ecclésiastique et contribua, dans cette perspective, à compenser la modestie de ses origines.

This contribution first analyzes the circulation of hagiographic texts in Milan between the 14th and 15th century. It then considers three terza rima poems dedicated to the principal exponents of the Milanese court and written between the end of the Visconti reign and the beginning of the Sforza period. Finally, the author reconstructs the circumstances which led Filippo Maria Visconti to commission a life of John the Baptist to Francesco Filelfo.

Pur assistendo a un forte aumento della presenza di mercenari nelle file degli eserciti viscontei, gli anni di Luchino e dell’arcivescovo Giovanni furono caratterizzati dalla sopravvivenza dei tradizionali obblighi militari imposti alle popolazioni urbane e rurali. Il celebre decreto visconteo riportato da Galvano Fiamma, secondo il quale il populus era esentato dall’obbligo di occuparsi della guerra, ma avrebbe dovuto interessarsi solo alle sue pacifiche attività rurali, artigianali e commerciali, ha influenzato pesantemente tutta la storiografia successiva. Tuttavia, almeno fino al dominio di Gian Galeazzo gli obblighi militari da parte dei sudditi non cessarono affatto ma, semmai, furono più o meno stringenti in base alle esigenze e alle politiche dei signori, nonché ai rapporti, per lo più contrattuali, che essi stabilivano con le varie comunità. Attraverso l’analisi delle richieste signorili di contingenti armati alle città ed alle comunità del territorio è possibile esplorare l’evoluzione dello "stato visconteo", da semplice congregazione di singole entità territoriali, al tentativo di trasformalo in un organismo strutturato e quanto più uniforme. Tuttavia, il quadro che si presenta è particolarmente complesso, poiché, nel caso del codominio di Galeazzo II e Bernabò, due signorie avevano politiche e progetti divergenti sull’impiego militare dei cives e dei comitatini. Possiamo quindi osservare che, se ai tempi di Luchino e dell’arcivescovo Giovanni, i Visconti non erano ancora riusciti del tutto a strappare alle comunità il controllo della funzione militare, lasciando quindi ampi margini alla periferia del dominio nell’organizzazione e mobilitazione delle milizie, con Galeazzo II e soprattutto con Bernabò tali spazi furono erosi. Fino ad arrivare al progetto di Gian Galeazzo di creare una sorta di milizia unica in tutte le città del suo dominio.

[ENGLISH] Over the last few decades, a number of works have explored extensively the military organisation of late medieval Italian states, especially with regards to the condotte system and the development of standing armies. Having considered these two lines of research, this essay sheds light on the complementary military role played by local inhabitants in border areas such as the river Adda – which in the fifteenth century came to divide the duchy of Milan and the Venetian Terraferma. The analysis of a series of rural communities in the Milanese district, in particular, points out the correlation between the defensive role played by the inhabitants of the frontier and long-term political and military practices promoted by a number of local families. This paper shows that they took an active part in the defence of Milan’s territory: first by recruiting locally armed groups among relatives and clients, and secondly through the surveillance of the new frontier with Venice from their fortified estates.

[ITALIAN] Quello dell’organizzazione militare nel Rinascimento italiano è un tema molto studiato, specie con riguardo alla dinamica strutturale delle condotte e all’affermarsi di contingenti statali permanenti. Avendo considerato questi due aspetti, il presente contributo intende mettere in luce il ruolo complementare giocato a fianco delle armi e degli officiali dello stato da parte dagli abitanti di una frontiera come quella dell’Adda – confine fra ducato di Milano e Terraferma veneziana nel Quattrocento. Lo studio di alcune comunità del territorio milanese affacciate sulle rive occidentali del fiume, in particolare, mostra come la partecipazione degli abitanti della frontiera alla difesa dello stato fosse direttamente correlata a pratiche politiche e militari di lungo periodo facenti capo a una serie di eminenti parentele rurali. Una partecipazione che si esprimeva da una parte nell’arruolamento di squadre armate fra parenti e clienti, e dall’altra nella sorveglianza dei confini offerta da torri e proprietà fortificate.

This essay deals with the birth of a practical documentation relating to the current managing of direct taxation in several communes of the principality of Savoy-Achaea, in Piedmont (particularly Moncalieri, Pinerolo and Turin), between the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century. The increase in the tax burden of the prince on communities stimulated the development of the structure and contents of municipal accounting records. On the one hand there was a gradual tendency for writing the majority of the collection and audit operations carried out by municipal officers. On the other hand, the accounting records were organized as a coherent system of thematic registers, tied to one another by functional links and intertextuality. After 1330 a municipal finance crisis caused an increase of political functions attributed to accounting records, as an instrument of control over the fiscal behaviour of citizens; an effect of this situation was the production of registers dedicated to lists of tax evaders.

abstract – Leonardo da Vinci's town planning studies and projects for the urban renewal of Milan under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza are influenced by both the specific characteristics and morphology of Lombard cities and the organic ground of a philosophical and political conception that he possibly derived – on the basis of some classical sources, such as Vitruvius and St. Augustine – through the combination of the knowledge of Alberti's architectural mastery and a personal acquaintance with the colleague Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

One of the main goals of this paper is to dissociate and disentangle the concepts of power and authority in light of the late medieval insurrections and fights in the commune of Milan and, then, to comprehend the ambivalent and ambiguous dimension of authority. Analyzing these historical events, I will try to show that authority does not always or necessarily belong to the government, nor can it only be an instrument of this one. In fact, it is more interesting to explore the other side of this question: how the usage of authority could become an instrument of counter-power. In this sense, I will examine how and why some rebellions challenged the power basing their claims not only on an attack against the official authority but vindicating an alternative one. That is, how and why the category of authority could turn into the source of legitimacy for insurrection.

Che cos’è una fazione nel Quattrocento? Il libro cerca di rispondere a questa domanda ripercorrendo le vicende di Parma, città nota ai contemporanei per la forza delle sue divisioni interne e per la vivacità dei contrasti che ne agitavano la vita politica, in piazza e nei Consigli cittadini.
La ricostruzione analitica della società politica parmense del XV secolo consente di procedere oltre la tradizionale visione storiografica dei partiti tardomedievali come portatori di insensata violenza, evidenziando come il disordine abbia le sue regole; e permette al tempo stesso di mettere in discussione il concetto di fazione come aggregato informale e fluido trasmessa agli storici del tardo medioevo e della prima età moderna dall’antropologia e dalla sociologia post-strutturaliste.
L’indagine mette a fuoco una pluralità di forme e di livelli d’azione dei gruppi politicizzati: le quattro «squadre», partiti cittadini dotati di un alto profilo istituzionale e stabilmente legati ai potenti casati signorili del contado; le «conventicole e sette», reticoli informali e lobbies che si coagulano intorno ad obiettivi aperti e chiusi nell’ombra dei giochi cortigiani e sulla grande scena del sistema degli stati italiani; le vecchie ma sempre incombenti metafazioni dei guelfi e dei ghibellini, ancora disponibili in pieno Quattrocento per chi sappia sfruttarne a fini politici il grande potenziale simbolico e l’intatta capacità di ridestare solidarietà antiche e profonde.

L'A. indaga il rapporto di Petrarca con i potenti delle signorie italiane del Trecento, riferendosi in particolare all'ultimo ventennio della sua vita, quello trascorso nell'Italia centro-settentrionale tra la Milano viscontea e la Padova carrarese. In entrambe le realtà, Petrarca, pur intrattenendo rapporti con diversi signori e letterati di corte, restò sempre estraneo alle vicende della società locale, ricorrendo spesso alla definizione di peregrinus per delineare la sua condizione.
(da http://www.mirabileweb.it/mel/-le-signorie-trecentesche-e-francesco-petrarca-app/654136)

This article analyzes the fall of the city of Grenade, capital of the last Muslim State of Medieval Spain, the Nasri Kingdom of Grenade, and last episode of a crusader war that lasted ten years (1482-1492). Two letters sent to the Republic of Lucca and the Duchy of Milan provide new details about how the surrender and delivery of the city to the Christian conquering forces of Castile took place. A comparison with other surviving letters and sources permit a detailed analysis of the contents.