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‎Sacred and the Secular in Renaissance Florence. Vallombrosan Exorcisms and the Rise of Observant Mendicancy‎

‎, Brepols, 2026 Hardback, Pages: 434, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:1 b/w, Language: English. ISBN 9782503585499.‎

‎Summary Seeking to heal people possessed by demons, stave off Lorenzo de' Medici's predations, and compete with the meteoric rise of Observant Mendicants - Franciscans and Dominicans - monks known as Vallombrosans performed multiple exorcisms in Florence and its countryside in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The accounts they wrote to publicize their efforts present an unusually lively survey of a little-studied sea change in late medieval religious life. In a religious landscape populated by Mendicant charlatans dressed as John the Baptist, concupiscent clerics, and pompous prelates, the Vallombrosans positioned themselves as committed to the decorous healing of Florentine peasants and nobles while weighing in on contemporary politics and claiming insight into Medici-related affairs such as the recent Pazzi Conspiracy. Yet traditional religious orders like the Vallombrosans and the Benedictines could not match the publicity, popularity, and secular political support garnered by Observant Mendicants in urban areas, and the latter's ascendance left religion at the end of the fifteenth century looking very different from what it had at its beginning. By the century's end, Observants predominated in influence, prestige, and patronage in cities across all of Europe. Sanctioning economic gain, addressing worldly moral dilemmas, and moving away from the older monastic focus on the dead and the afterlife, they shifted their focus to contemporary concerns. As over a traditional focus on communal life and monastic healing, Observants inaugurated individualistic forms of piety and fostered alternative forms of lay sociability and healing in the form of confraternities and urban hospitals. This rich study of the forces which impelled a group of Florentine monks to perform exorcisms opens a kaleidoscopic window onto religious practice, political and religious entanglements, and a decisive shift in religious and political life that transformed the fifteenth century. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Vallombrosa and its Historians Observance and Reform; Political Flattery Laxity and Reform; Creativity and Vitality Observant Mendicancy Country and City: Political Self-Fashioning Method Uniqueness and Representation: Historiographies of Exorcism Publicity, Instrumentality, and Religious Conviction Historiographies Sacred and Secular 'Church-State' Relations at Florence Threats to Medieval Monasticism Chapter 1. Exorcisms, Miracles, And Manuscripts: How Vallombrosans found their Calling Recognizing Demoniacs Vallombrosans and their Exorcisms Chapter 2. Lorenzo De' Medici: Commenda and Observant Reform, Conspiracy and Monastic 'Decline' Lorenzo and Commenda Obeisance and Submission Chapter 3: Internal Schism: Observance, Organization, and Reputation Reform and Schism The Shape of Reform Undermining the Salvini Chapter 4. Peasants, Mules, and City-Country Divides City and Country The Social Profile of a Rural Monastery Vallombrosa and the Laity Conversi Vallombrosa's Radical Beginnings Laypeople, Clerics, and Observant Orthodoxy Chapter 5. Observant Mendicants: Devotional Change and Religious Rivalry Observance Preaching Theatrics and Spectacularity Affect and Emulation Observant Franciscans Confraternities and Good Deaths Augustinians Dominicans Chapter 6: Florence: Humanism, Fat Prelates, and Political Counsel Civicism Humanism Florentinity and Peasant Culture Religion at Florence: Traditional Saints Fat Prelates and Murmuring Seculars: Florence's Diocesan Church Medici Devotions Secular Control of the Countryside Chapter 7. Restoring Order: Pastoralism, Statebuilding, and Peacemaking Pastoral Care Exorcism and Sin; Preaching by Proxy Confession, Concupiscence, and Female Piety Biblicism Domestic Disruption Discord and Resolution From Family to Community Peacemaking, Communal Distress and Violence Chapter 8. Conclusions, Epilogues, and Legacies The Politics of Religious Ritual: Lorenzo and Savonarola Archives and the Future of Early Modern Studies Appendix: Fifteenth-Century Exorcism Manuscripts Bibliography Index‎