adornment of Orsanmichele demonstrates—while the existence of confraternities ensured that charitable activity remained rooted in the world of religion. Perhaps most important, religion was also the nodal point in the formation of urban identities. The greatest festival in the Florentine civic calendar was, after all, held on the days around thefeast of Saint John the Baptist, while the figure of the FlorentineSaint Zenobius was the source of enormous urban pride, asUgolino Verino’s praise testifies. That the David expressed a political message through the language of religion was not surprising.
But while the Church provided the warp and the weft for the tapestry of Florentine life, Rinaldo Orsini also presided over an institution that was more than just an abstract framework for daily existence. Even though he himself often remained in the background (perhaps as a consequence of the horrors of Savonarola’s period of ascendancy), Orsini was responsible for binding the Church ever more closely to the conduct of secular life. Like all other archbishops, he had hundreds, if not thousands, of priests, monks, friars, nuns, and tertiaries under his control, and he did his utmost to encourage ever greater numbers ofpeople to enter the religious life in one form or another. It was his job, in a sense, to make the boundary between the religious and the secular as porous as possible, and, by and large, he succeeded.
Thanks to the campaigning of Orsini and his underlings, sons often found that the religious life offered an attractively secure alternative to a worldly career, particularly in larger families, while poverty frequently made it necessary for dowry-less daughters to be placed in a convent. It would have been of some delight to the shy archbishop that Michelangelo’s older brother, Lionardo, for example, became a Dominican friar, while his niece, Francesca (Buonarroto’s daughter), was put into a convent after her father’s death until her uncle could raise a suitable dowry. This arrangement did not always result in harmony within the home or within the cloister. It was not uncommon for daughters to react very badly to the idea of being shut away in a convent. In 1568, a fourteen-year-old Sienese girl attempted to poison her entire family by grinding up a mirror and mixing the mercurial powder into the salad at dinner as a means of dodging the wimple. Similarly, monks and friars often found that while the religious life made financial sense, it did not lead inevitably to humility and piety. After the death of his mother,Filippo Lippi’s sister was no longer able to provide for him, and he was placed in a Carmelite convent at the tender age of eight.On reaching maturity, however, Lippi discovered that his cloistered existence did not sit at all well with his nigh-uncontrollable lust, and both his superiors and his patrons struggled unsuccessfully to keep him in check.
As Orsini was aware, however, the fact that a great many families had members in holy orders meant there was a good deal of crossover between the religious and the secular. This was not merely a matter of conventional exchange, of conversations in the street or chats after Mass. Sex was also a big part of the equation, and in this respectBoccaccio’s Decameron offers some useful insights.Although monks and friars are sometimes presented as unwitting go-betweens, they more frequently appear in Boccaccio’s tales as extremely active participants in wild sexual games. In one story,a Tuscan abbot conceives a passionate love for the wife of the pious Ferondo but is only able to extract from her a promise to satisfy his lusts when her sex-averse husband is in Purgatory, where he will realize the errors of his ways. Cleverly, the abbot drugs Ferondo so that he appears dead, then removes him from the tomb where he has been buried and locks him in a vault. When heawakes, Ferondo is convinced that he is in Purgatory. The abbot, meanwhile, cavorts with
But while the Church provided the warp and the weft for the tapestry of Florentine life, Rinaldo Orsini also presided over an institution that was more than just an abstract framework for daily existence. Even though he himself often remained in the background (perhaps as a consequence of the horrors of Savonarola’s period of ascendancy), Orsini was responsible for binding the Church ever more closely to the conduct of secular life. Like all other archbishops, he had hundreds, if not thousands, of priests, monks, friars, nuns, and tertiaries under his control, and he did his utmost to encourage ever greater numbers ofpeople to enter the religious life in one form or another. It was his job, in a sense, to make the boundary between the religious and the secular as porous as possible, and, by and large, he succeeded.
Thanks to the campaigning of Orsini and his underlings, sons often found that the religious life offered an attractively secure alternative to a worldly career, particularly in larger families, while poverty frequently made it necessary for dowry-less daughters to be placed in a convent. It would have been of some delight to the shy archbishop that Michelangelo’s older brother, Lionardo, for example, became a Dominican friar, while his niece, Francesca (Buonarroto’s daughter), was put into a convent after her father’s death until her uncle could raise a suitable dowry. This arrangement did not always result in harmony within the home or within the cloister. It was not uncommon for daughters to react very badly to the idea of being shut away in a convent. In 1568, a fourteen-year-old Sienese girl attempted to poison her entire family by grinding up a mirror and mixing the mercurial powder into the salad at dinner as a means of dodging the wimple. Similarly, monks and friars often found that while the religious life made financial sense, it did not lead inevitably to humility and piety. After the death of his mother,Filippo Lippi’s sister was no longer able to provide for him, and he was placed in a Carmelite convent at the tender age of eight.On reaching maturity, however, Lippi discovered that his cloistered existence did not sit at all well with his nigh-uncontrollable lust, and both his superiors and his patrons struggled unsuccessfully to keep him in check.
As Orsini was aware, however, the fact that a great many families had members in holy orders meant there was a good deal of crossover between the religious and the secular. This was not merely a matter of conventional exchange, of conversations in the street or chats after Mass. Sex was also a big part of the equation, and in this respectBoccaccio’s Decameron offers some useful insights.Although monks and friars are sometimes presented as unwitting go-betweens, they more frequently appear in Boccaccio’s tales as extremely active participants in wild sexual games. In one story,a Tuscan abbot conceives a passionate love for the wife of the pious Ferondo but is only able to extract from her a promise to satisfy his lusts when her sex-averse husband is in Purgatory, where he will realize the errors of his ways. Cleverly, the abbot drugs Ferondo so that he appears dead, then removes him from the tomb where he has been buried and locks him in a vault. When heawakes, Ferondo is convinced that he is in Purgatory. The abbot, meanwhile, cavorts with
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