medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (28. May) is the feast day of:

Ubaldesca (d. 1205).  The most authentic form of U.'s Vita is a 
sixteenth-century Italian translation of a lost Latin original 
seemingly written written shortly after 1261; the latter also served as 
the base for two expanded early modern Vite, also in Italian, that 
underlie most of accounts of U. circulating today.  According to this 
translation, probably written before 1586 and first published in 1996, 
U. was born of humble parentage in the Pisan suburb of Calcinaia.  At 
the age of fourteen she entered the convent of San Giovanni in Pisa's 
Chinzica quarter.  She spent the remainder of her life here, seemingly 
as a lay sister, living a life of virtue and of extreme self-denial and 
interacting with the Pisan public when begging for alms on the city's 
streets.  Of the few lifetime miracles ascribed to her, the best known 
is an instance of changing water into wine.  She is said to have died 
in 1206; this date is surely in Pisan style, which from 25. March 
onward was a year in advance both of other Tuscan calendars and of the 
modern calendar.  In terms of the latter the year of her death would 
then be 1205.  Late in life, U. was regarded as a living saint; post-
mortem miracles expanded her cult among her fellow Pisans. 

By 1207 San Giovanni had come under the control of the Hospitallers of 
the nearby church and convent of San Sepolcro.  Later in the thirteenth 
century it was functioning as a women's hospital and, though the Vita 
gives no indication of this, it may already have done so in U.'s 
lifetime.  When U. was in extremis, her monastery's chaplain, a priest 
of San Sepolcro, made arrangements for her exequies and for the burial 
of her remains at the latter church.  She was henceforth both a city 
saint and a Hospitaller one, celebrated liturgically on 28. May; though 
she seems never to have been canonized, Sixtus V recognized her as 
Blessed when in 1586 he authorized the translation of some of her 
relics to Malta.  Pisan calendars, etc. consistently call her Saint.  
To judge from their respective indices, neither the (old) _Catholic 
Encyclopedia_ nor the _Enciclopedia Cattolica_ nor the _New Catholic 
Encyclopedia_ makes any mention of her (the first two similarly omitted 
U.'s contemporary, Bona of Pisa, of whom perhaps more tomorrow).   

U. is also the patron saint of her birthplace, now Calcinaia (PI).  In 
1924, relics of U. that had remained at San Sepolcro were translated to 
Calcinaia's church of San Giovanni Battista, where they are on display 
in the effigy shown here:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/90595/90595A.JPG         
The aforementioned calendrical difficulty nothwithstanding, Calcinaia 
has elected to treat this year as the 800th anniversary of U.'s passing 
into eternal life (Calcinaia's writers, who work for a secular 
authority, call it an anniversary of her death).  For details of the 
ongoing festivities, see:
http://www.comune.calcinaia.pi.it/manifestazioni.php
http://www.comune.calcinaia.pi.it/news.php?news=623
(note the Hospitaller attire in both pictures.)

Returning twenty kilometers or so to Pisa, herewith some views of the 
church of San Sepolcro as it appears today:

Exterior:
http://www.pisaonline.it/toscana/pisa/images/tour48.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro_JPG.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(21)_jpg.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(23)_jpg.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/lk99r

Interior:
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(5)_jpg.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(10)_jpg.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(12)_jpg.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(11)_jpg.jpg
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(3)_jpg.jpg
Crucifix:
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/images/SanSepolcro%20(7)_jpg.jpg

Other views, including some sculptural details, are in the expandable 
thumbnails towards the foot of this page:
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini/Pisa_Chiesa_di_San_Sepolcro.htm

The fundamental work on U.'s life and cult is now Gabriele Zaccagnini, 
_Ubaldesca, una santa laica nella Pisa dei secoli XII-XIII_ (Pisa: 
GISEM - ETS, 1996).  This includes the _editio princeps_ of U.'s Vita 
in its unexpanded Italian translation, a brief document that may also 
be read on the Web here:
http://dante.di.unipi.it/ricerca/html/vbv.html
See also Laura Corti, "Santa Ubaldesca da Calcinaia", in Bruno Laurioux 
and Laurence Moulinier-Brogi, eds., _Scrivere il Medioevo.  Lo spazio, 
la santità, il cibo.  Un libro dedicato ad Odile Redon_ (Roma: Viella, 
2001), pp. 191-204.

Best,
John Dillon

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