Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Maps
- Introduction: The End of the World and Its Rebirth (Rinascita) as the Rinascimento
- 1 Legitimacy: A Crisis and a Promise (c. 1250–c. 1340)
- 2 Civiltà: Living and Thinking the City (c. 1300–c. 1375)
- 3 Plague: Death, Disaster, and the Rinascita of Civiltà (c. 1325–c. 1425)
- 4 Violence: Social Conflict and the Italian Hundred Years’ War (c. 1350–1454)
- 5 Imagination: The Shared Primary Culture of the Early Rinascimento (c. 1350–c. 1475)
- 6 Courts: Princes, Aristocrats, and Quiet Glory (c. 1425–c. 1500)
- 7 Self: The Individual as a Work of Art (c. 1425–c. 1525)
- 8 Discovery: Finding the Old in the New (c. 1450–c. 1560)
- 9 Re-Dreams: Virtù, Saving the Rinascimento, and the Satyr in the Garden (c. 1500–c. 1560)
- 10 Reform: Spiritual Enthusiasms, Discipline, and a Church Militant (c. 1500–c. 1575)
- 11 Retreat: The Great Social Divide and the End of the Rinascimento (c. 1525–c. 1575)
- Epilogue: The Diaspora of the Rinascimento
- Bibliography: A Short List of Works Used
- Index
1 - Legitimacy: A Crisis and a Promise (c. 1250–c. 1340)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Maps
- Introduction: The End of the World and Its Rebirth (Rinascita) as the Rinascimento
- 1 Legitimacy: A Crisis and a Promise (c. 1250–c. 1340)
- 2 Civiltà: Living and Thinking the City (c. 1300–c. 1375)
- 3 Plague: Death, Disaster, and the Rinascita of Civiltà (c. 1325–c. 1425)
- 4 Violence: Social Conflict and the Italian Hundred Years’ War (c. 1350–1454)
- 5 Imagination: The Shared Primary Culture of the Early Rinascimento (c. 1350–c. 1475)
- 6 Courts: Princes, Aristocrats, and Quiet Glory (c. 1425–c. 1500)
- 7 Self: The Individual as a Work of Art (c. 1425–c. 1525)
- 8 Discovery: Finding the Old in the New (c. 1450–c. 1560)
- 9 Re-Dreams: Virtù, Saving the Rinascimento, and the Satyr in the Garden (c. 1500–c. 1560)
- 10 Reform: Spiritual Enthusiasms, Discipline, and a Church Militant (c. 1500–c. 1575)
- 11 Retreat: The Great Social Divide and the End of the Rinascimento (c. 1525–c. 1575)
- Epilogue: The Diaspora of the Rinascimento
- Bibliography: A Short List of Works Used
- Index
Summary
Pilgrimages in 1300
Imagine a German pilgrim in 1300 taking advantage of the jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1230–1303; pope 1294–1303) to travel over the Alps to visit Rome. The crusty old pope had promised the remission of one’s sins in return for a truly contrite confession by those who elected to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City that year, thirteen hundred years after the birth of Christ. Although his jubilee appears to have been an innovation, it was enough of a success that later popes regularly repeated it. They saw it as encouraging religious enthusiasm and stressing papal leadership in the West. It also enhanced the city of Rome’s reputation as a goal of pilgrims and pilgrimages. For a German the idea of a pilgrimage would have been familiar, as it had been a popular form of piety and religious fervor across the Middle Ages. Many made short trips to nearby holy shrines. But there was also a well-established circuit of more demanding pilgrimage routes that by the thirteenth century were equipped with inns and hospitals – serving as lodgings for travelers and pilgrims – that because of their popularity offered the relative security of traveling in groups with fellow pilgrims.
Actually, a generation or so earlier a German chronicler, the Franciscan monk Albert of Stade, wrote a chronicle that spanned the history of the world from the creation to his own day, but as he neared the present his story became more complex, including a section presented as a dialogue between two imagined characters, Birri and Firri. In the midst of discussing the genealogies of ruling German families, Firri abruptly asked Tirri, “My good Tirri, I want to go to Rome, give me an itinerary.” A willing and able interlocutor, Tirri proceeded to outline for Firri not one but several routes that would take him from Stade in northern Germany to Rome.
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- Information
- The Renaissance in ItalyA Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento, pp. 21 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014