
The Preacher's Demons
Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy
Franco Mormando(Author)
University of Chicago Press
Published on 1. May 1999
Book
Hardback
380 pages
978-0-226-53854-9 (ISBN)
Description
"When the city was filled with these bonfires, he then combed the city, and whenever he received notice of some public sodomite, he had him immediately seized and thrown into the nearest bonfire at hand and had him burned immediately." This story, of an anonymous individual who sought to cleanse medieval Paris, was part of a sermon delivered in Siena, Italy, in 1427. The speaker, the friar Bernardino (1380-1444), was one of the most important public figures of the time, and he spent forty years combing the towns of Italy, instructing, admonishing, and entertaining the crowds that gathered in prodigious numbers to hear his sermons. His story of the Parisian vigilante was a "recommendation." Sexual deviants were the objects of relentless, unconditional persecution in Bernardino's sermons. Other targets of the preacher's venom were witches, Jews, and heretics. Franco Mormando takes the reader into the social underworld of early Renaissance Italy to discover how one enormously influential figure helped to dramatically increase fear, hatred, and intolerance for those on society's margins. This book on Bernardino considers the preacher's inflammatory role in Renaissance social issues.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
667 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-53854-9 (9780226538549)
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Schweitzer Classification