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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture In the Roman Catholic church 20. August is the feast day not only of St. Bernard of Clairvaux but also of another Bernard, St. Bernardo Tolomei (d. 1348). This Sienese nobleman and contemplative was born in 1272 and given the baptismal name Giovanni. After studying law he joined the Confraternity of the BVM attached to Siena's hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. In 1313, seeking to combine Marian veneration with a more ascetic lifestyle, he took the name Bernardo and together with other nobles withdrew to a family property in the Accona desert of central Tuscany where they lived eremitically in shallow caves. In 1319 the group, which had grown larger, received from the bishop of Arezzo permission to form a monastic community under the Benedictine Rule but wearing white in honor of the BVM. Their monastery, Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto, was erected on the site within the same year. The monks, as they now were, elected their abbot annually and a Patrizi and a Piccolomini each served for a year before Bernardo was elected for the first time in 1321. He was re-elected annually for the remainder of his life. This initial Olivetan community found willing adherents elsewhere and before his death Bernardo had established ten priories, all called Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto and all strictly bound to the mother house; the latter came to be distinguished from the others onomastically by means of the adjunct "Maggiore". In 1344 the Benedictine congregation so formed was formally recognized as an order by Clement VI. In 1348 Bernardo moved to the priory at Siena to assist in the care of his monks who had been stricken by the Black Death. He died there in the same year (traditionally, on 20. August, the _dies natalis_ of his hero St. Bernard of Clairvaux). He was buried at the Sienese priory; the location of his gravesite is now unknown. In 1462 the Olivetans at the mother house were said to be venerating his relics there. Bernardo's cult was confirmed by the Congregation of Rites in 1644. He was canonized papally in 2009. Some medieval images of St. Bernardo Tolomei: a) as depicted in a detail of a fifteenth-century fresco honoring the three founders of Olivetans and preserved, above the monks' door, in the cattedrale della Natività di Maria of the territorial abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore outside of Chiusure, a locality of the _comune_ of Asciano (SI) in southern Tuscany: http://tinyurl.com/o3zzeaq b) as depicted (bottom register at far left; next to him, St. Bernard of Clairvaux with Carlo Marsuppini) as depicted by Filippo Lippi in his mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin (ca. 1441-1445), commissioned by Marsuppini for the chiesa di San Bernardo in the Olivetan monastery in Arezzo and now (except when traveling) in the Pinacoteca Vaticana: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Filippo_Lippi_001.jpg Detail view: http://www.rinascimentointerradarezzo.it/mostra/arezzoartemoderna_files/vergine1.jpg c) as depicted (at far right, lower register) by Vecchietta / Lorenzo di Pietro (so Diana Norman in 2012; prev. attrib. to collaborators) in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (1450s; restored, 1989-1990) in the baptistry of Siena's cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Assunta: http://www.operaduomo.siena.it/images/galleria/battistero.jpg Another view (the fresco is on the right face of the entrance arch to the recess for the main altar): http://oi58.tinypic.com/jb37s1.jpg Can anyone point to a better online view than these? In print there's one in Diana Norman, " '_Santi cittadini_': Vecchietta and the Civic Pantheon in Mid-Fifteenth-Century Siena", in Timothy B. Smith and Judith Belle Steinhoff, edd., _Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena_ (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 115-140, p. 124. d) as depicted by Vecchietta / Lorenzo di Pietro in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (ca. 1456) in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena: http://tinyurl.com/oh7dpsv Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion