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
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|