"L'Aquila, magnifica citade": Fashioning a Center of Franciscan Observance in the Abruzzo Region

Pavla Langer

Abstract
As one of the crucial protagonists of the Franciscan reform movement and the first Observant friar to be canonised, Bernardino of Siena was an ideal figurehead to promote this Franciscan branch's legitimacy. His sudden death in 1444 brought the central Italian city of L'Aquila – the second most important center in the Kingdom of Naples – into the possession of his remains. This article sheds light on the Franciscan Observants' contribution to the pietas civica of L'Aquila with Bernardino and his cult as its focal point during the second half of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. The promotion and planning of the burial church and convent of San Bernardino as well as the construction of a lavish tomb monument for the saint are examples for the integration of mendicant convents into the religious topography of a city. We shall present some instances of the Observants' participation in discourses on civic values related to the studia humanitatis. For example, the concept of magnificenza was introduced to foster the building project of San Bernardino, a complex that became pivotal for L'Aquila's civic cultural identity as well as for the brethren's attempt to fashion the city into a second centre of Franciscanism alongside Assisi.

Bernardino's death in L'Aquila

[1] Bernardino degli Albizzeschi (1380–1444) – better known as Bernardino of Siena – was a popular itinerant preacher and among the most prominent figures of the Franciscan Observance in the first half of the fifteenth century.¹ He disseminated the Franciscan reform movement and shaped it in his capacity as a superior of the Order. His public sermons made him popular, and his preaching style found many followers amidst the friars.

[2] In various hagiographical texts, Bernardino was referred to as "lustrator sapientie"² for promoting study within the Order. His role as a model Observant and a "speculum praedicatorum"³ was highlighted in Observant Franciscan literature. Traces of this image are manifest in Bernardino's iconography; the open book and a spectacle case pending from his cingulum became common attributes – along with the obligatory monogram of the name of Jesus – pointing to the Sienese saint's preaching and his learnedness (Fig. 1). Even if some biographers have stressed Bernardino's studies of the trivium (among the septem artes liberales) or have compared his eloquence to ancient authors, he himself cannot be considered a 'humanist' in a strict sense.⁴

1 Neapolitan painter, Bernardino da Siena, ca. 1465–1475, panel, 1.85 × 1.05 m. Santa Chiara in via Vitellia, Rome (photo: Roberto Sigismondi © Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome)

[3] On May 20, 1444, Bernardino died after a brief illness in L'Aquila in the Franciscan conventuals' convent of San Francesco. Since his fama sanctitatis was already well established during his lifetime, his corpse was jealously kept in the city, and very soon after his death he was proclaimed one of the patron saints of L'Aquila.⁵ In fact, Bernardino's companion friars had tried to bring his remains secretly back to Siena. Upon this failed furto sacro, the Sienese council sent ambassadors to L'Aquila, to request the body of Bernardino and to promote a joint campaign for his canonisation. Although divided over the question of the custody of the body, the authorities of both cities nevertheless cooperated in promoting the canonisation, jointly documenting Bernardino's miracles and sharing the expenses of the procedure (1445–1449).⁶ In addition to the efforts of the two civic communities, a number of influential secular and clerical authorities supported the process through petitions. Most prominent among them was Alfonso I, King of Naples and hence ruler of the Aquilano region, who wrote several favourable letters and was credited in official documents as one of the main advocates of the causa Bernardini.⁷

[4] In the absence of Bernardino's body, a prolific iconography developed in Siena. Veristic representations of the elderly friar with emaciated facial features were installed at civic sites where Bernardino had left a mark during his lifetime. By contrast, in L'Aquila the cult had no particular iconographic impact but was centred mainly on the periodically displayed mummified body itself, from which contact relics were obtained, and, to a lesser extent, on the cell where Bernardino had died.

Giovanni da Capestrano

[5] The most important and fervent promoter of Bernardino's cult and canonisation – celebrated on the occasion of the Holy Year 1450 – was the Observant friar Giovanni da Capestrano (1386–1456). He was a preacher himself and had been friends with Bernardino. Giovanni considered L'Aquila his second home, which was only about 50 km from his Abruzzese birthplace.⁸ He zealously collected material for the canonisation process, participated in most of its sessions and encouraged the production of images of Bernardino.⁹ In his function as a superior of the Observants and a scholar of jurisprudence, Giovanni was also interested in normalising the canonisation procedure. Most likely it was he who commissioned the jurist Martino Garati of Lodi to write the short treatise Tractatus de canonizazione sanctorum (1445–1448), since it was dedicated to Giovanni by the author.¹⁰ Even if the text is not innovative and is rather a compilation of medieval commonplaces on the topic, it is remarkable as one of the first theoretical texts specifically dealing with canonisation, interestingly initiated from within the Franciscan Order.

Vita Sancti Bernardini

[6] By 1449, when the investigations for the canonisation process had concluded, two hagiographical texts on Bernardino by Sienese authors already existed: a Vita by Barnabò da Siena (1445) and another biography by Leonardo Benvoglienti (1446), which was written at the suggestion of Giovanni da Capestrano.¹¹ Nevertheless, Giovanni – elected general vicar of the Cismontane Observants in the same year – felt the need to compose new authoritative texts for use within the religious community. Consequently, he produced a liturgical Office for Bernardino's annual feast as well as an account of his life, the Vita Sancti Bernardini.

[7] The Office dedicated to the liturgical celebration of the saint's dies natalis is one of the most important texts in Bernardino's "hagiographic dossier".¹² In the opening hymn of the Vespers some cities connected to Bernardino's memory are mentioned: among them are Siena, where he grew up and found his path to religious life, as well as L'Aquila, where he died and where his body worked miracles through divine virtus.¹³ In fact, these two cities prove to be crucial in all of the Offices for Bernardino that have come down to us.¹⁴ While Bernardino is presented as a saint "on a Sienese foundation"¹⁵ in the liturgical Office, L'Aquila assumes major importance in Giovanni's Vita Sancti Bernardini. This latter text was intended to serve as the saint's official biography and as a reference for the friars' sermons about Bernardino who was portrayed here as the perfect exemplum of Franciscan ideals.¹⁶ Of particular interest in our context is how Giovanni characterises the city of L'Aquila as a "magnificent city".¹⁷ His extensive description of L'Aquila – a unique feature among the hagiographical texts on the saint – may seem odd, given that Bernardino visited the city only twice: in 1438 and in 1444, when he passed away (Fig. 2).

2 Girolamo Pico Fonticulano, Plan of L'Aquila, ca. 1575; engraving by Giacomo Lauro, 1600 (reprod. from: Carlo De Matteis, ed., L'Aquila magnifica citade. Fonti e testimonianze dei secoli XIII–XVIII, L'Aquila 2009, 278)

[8] Following the chronological narrative of the saint's life, the Vita is divided in three parts: Bernardino's birth and youth (ingressum in hunc mundum), his religious life (progressum quoque) and his departure from this world (egressum).¹⁸ As a prelude to the final section dedicated to the "obitus S. Bernard.", Giovanni introduces a digression on L'Aquila by recounting the miraculous appearance of a star during one of Bernardino's sermons in front of the church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in 1438, an event that took place in the presence of René d'Anjou, the King of Naples. The description of this miracle offers an occasion to provide extensive information on the Aquilano patron saint and former pope Pietro Celestino, whose body is venerated in the basilica of Collemaggio, where he was crowned with the tiara as Celestine V in 1294 and instituted an annual plenary indulgence that same year.¹⁹ This event in particular – one of the first to promise a complete indulgence obtainable annually – granted L'Aquila a transregional religious significance. We may hypothesise that Giovanni intended to relate the Aquilano indulgence (later called Perdonanza) to the Franciscan Perdono of the Portiuncula at Assisi, that had been granted to Saint Francis around 1216 and promised a plenary indulgence each year on 2 August.²⁰

[9] Pietro Celestino himself became the most popular patron of L'Aquila, where his earthly remains were venerated from 1327.²¹ The striking coincidence of the feast days of Celestino (19 May) and Bernardino (20 May) lead to a general synergy in terms of devotion and pilgrimage. Not only were the feasts of both saints celebrated conjointly and accompanied by trade fairs. A tendency to associate Celestino and Bernardino is already documented in early poems in honour of Bernardino, which describe a legendary meeting between the friar and his future co-patron Celestino, who recommended the city of L'Aquila to him (Fig. 3).²² Even if this visionary encounter is not mentioned in Giovanni's Vita Bernardini, the extensive excursus on the papal saint refers to him as the reformer of the Benedictine Order, connecting him to Bernardino, one of the protagonists of the Franciscan reform movement, who was stylised as almost a "second founder" of the Franciscan Order.²³

3 Jacopo Vincioli (attr.), Meeting of Bernardino da Siena and Pietro Celestino, 1461, fresco (detail). San Francesco, Montefalco, Cappella di San Bernardino (photo: Roberto Sigismondi © Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome)

[10] What follows in the Vita is a lengthy and curious paragraph on the etymology of the city's name "L'Aquila", which literally means "eagle", even if historically the name derives from the original denomination "Acculi" or "Acquilis" indicating abundance of water.²⁴ Giovanni stresses the nobility of the city by recalling that the bird of the same name is the symbol of John the Evangelist and is regarded as one of the apocalyptic creatures (Ezek 1:10, Apoc 4:7) and – with reference to pagan writers – as the noblest and the queen of all birds in the ancient world.²⁵ Here the author lists nine characteristics assigned to the raptor according to Pliny's Naturalis historia (book 10, chapters 3-6) as well as numerous biblical and patristic references.²⁶ Giovanni's tactic is to transfer the nobleness of the bird and its positive Christian qualities to L'Aquila, the city that is distinguished by the treasure or 'prey' of the relics of Bernardino and his co-patron Pietro Celestino, as foreseen by Divine Providence.²⁷

[11] Altogether, the paragraphs dealing with L'Aquila make up a considerable one-fifth of the entire Vita Bernardini, while about half of the L'Aquila section is devoted to the eagle theme.²⁸ This alone is evidence of the special status Giovanni assigns to his own spiritual home. Thus, there are persuasive reasons for believing that Giovanni intended to present L'Aquila as a "nuova Assisi" in the Vita. He seeks to achieve this by promoting Bernardino's burial place as a pilgrimage destination and making the city a centre of the Franciscan Observants.²⁹ This hypothesis is supported by Giovanni's efforts to promote the dissemination of this reform movement throughout the Aquilano territory in general and, in particular, by his advocacy for Bernardino's burial church.

Basilica and convent of San Bernardino

[12] What the Vita advocated in words had actually been preceded by deeds in situ. Already during the 1430s and 1440s, Giovanni da Capestrano had enriched the Aquilano Franciscan 'infrastructure' with various foundations: in addition to the already existing Observant locus of San Giuliano – founded in 1415 outside the city walls – Giovanni initiated a convent of the Tertiaries (1433), a reformed monastery of the Poor Clares (1447) and the Ospedale Maggiore, an aggregation of the local hospitals under the superintendence of the Franciscans (1446/47).³⁰ As a result, the Observants had a major presence in the city that became the Franciscan reform's "epicentre in Abruzzo".³¹

[13] But to make L'Aquila a 'new Assisi', a focal point was needed: a dignified sanctuary of Bernardino. A building project for a new local church and Observant locus dedicated to Bernardino is already mentioned in the canonisation bull of 1450, which stipulates that a financial contribution to the edifice was required to obtain an indulgence on the saint's feast day – a hitherto unknown formulation in a document of this type.³² It has been hypothesised that Giovanni was involved in the bull's composition,³³ and this passage certainly fits into his fervent engagement for the Aquilano building campaign. With the Vita Bernardini in mind, we might even interpret Giovanni's description of Santa Maria di Collemaggio as a kind of prefiguration of the yet-to-be-built complex of San Bernardino: Giovanni underlines the connection between the church and the convent at Collemaggio, stressing that Celestino had been a reformer of the Benedictine Order.³⁴ Another tertium comparationis derives from the integration of the functions of burial site and pilgrimage church – a fact that is stressed by the description of how Celestino's relics are exhibited to the faithful on particular feast days.³⁵

[14] Giovanni involved the Aquilano ruling elite in the building project at the latest on the occasion of the celebrations for Bernardino's canonisation in 1450.³⁶ Although pope Nicholas V soon gave his consent for the new church and convent, the undertaking stagnated. Hence, Giovanni, who was travelling in Central Europe from 1451, wrote several admonishing letters to the Magistrate of L'Aquila. Here, he repeatedly refers to the virtue of magnificenza (magnificence). This concept of the 'right' use of material wealth, already elaborated by Aristotle in his writings on ethics and then by Latin authors such as Cicero, was continuously discussed in philosophical and theological texts (e.g., in the writings of Thomas Aquinas) throughout the Middle Ages. In fifteenth-century Florence, whose influence was felt throughout Italy, magnificence was understood mainly as architectural patronage of public or private buildings that enhance the city through their dignity; this notion connected aspirations to create a civic identity with the revival of ancient authors and with tendencies to sacralise the city.³⁷

[15] In his letters to the Aquilano elite, Giovanni emphasised that churches in honour of Bernardino were already under construction in many Italian cities and abroad, whereas they, who had the privilege of housing the saint's corpse, lagged behind.³⁸ Giovanni assigns to magnificence the meaning of "not just an aesthetic judgement", but of a "moral virtue" with theological connotations. This is comparable to the message traced in preaching in Florence from the 1420s, but it is rooted in forms of argumentation extending back to the fourteenth century. This argumentation presented mendicant churches with splendid decorations as a community work redounding "to the city's greater honour" and possessing "a religious rank that is defined by its aesthetic value".³⁹ Giovanni is aware of the aesthetic valeur, stating that a "beautiful" religious building for the new saint would not only magnify the city of L'Aquila but also contribute to the eternal remembrance of the magistrates and their descendants. They should remain mindful of how Bernardino for his part had already immortalised L'Aquila by means of the countless miracles he had performed there.⁴⁰

[16] Despite these efforts, at some point between 1451 and 1454 the plans to commemorate Bernardino through a new building were reduced to a new burial chapel in the convent of San Francesco, where his body had been kept in the meantime. These changes were probably the result of decisions influenced by the Franciscan Conventuals, who tried by various means to gain control of the saint's body.⁴¹ When Giovanni came to know of this alteration in May 1454, he wrote a letter from Cracow reproving the Aquilani and admonishing them to honour their initial promise to build a huge church for the saint. This time Giovanni argues ex negativo, stating that L'Aquila's "magnificence and glory" had been buried and that its "glorious fame" had been stained and humiliated.⁴² Verona and Padua served as points of contrast because they offered positive exempla of "noble cities" where "beautiful churches" and splendid chapels had been built for the saint. The Paduans in particular were in the process of building a third Franciscan locus in honour of Bernardino.⁴³ In this passage Giovanni's intention to expand the Franciscan reform is evident, and it becomes clear that the new convent is thought of as a manifestation of the Observants' legitimacy.

[17] Interestingly, for Giovanni it was not enough to invoke the threat of divine punishment looming over the Aquilano community, and so he resorted to another authority, namely "His Majesty the King", Alfonso I, ruler of the Kingdom of Naples, who had already donated a substantial sum for the new convent.⁴⁴ Mention of the King's munificence functions as a stepping stone in Giovanni's argumentation. In a rhetorical shift from the monarch to the individual and then to the international level, Giovanni addresses the citizens of L'Aquila, ranging from those in simple stations to those in positions of influence, and exhorts them all to fulfil their promise and thereby become an "optimal example" (optimo exemplo) for all Italian cities and beyond. Magnificence is here defined not just as the virtue of an elite or an individual but as a moral ideal to which the whole populace should aspire since it is tied to the common good. By deciding to write in the vernacular and thereby stressing how his appeal is motivated by civic concerns, Giovanni ensures that everyone will understand his argument; and we do indeed have proof that the letter was publicly read.⁴⁵ To illustrate his argument that "beautiful temples, churches, and convents for friars" contribute to the glory of every city, he finally calls Florence and Venice to mind, both important trading partners of L'Aquila.⁴⁶

[18] Giovanni's strategy of exalting L'Aquila can be contextualised by consulting the famous fourteenth-century chronicle poem by Buccio di Ranallo, where the greatness of the city is expressed in the words "L'Aquila, magnificent city".⁴⁷ An echo of this local pride is perceivable in Giovanni's aforementioned writings. But whereas Buccio ascribes the city's magnificence to its architecture, which in turn reflects the socio-political autonomy of the local populace, Giovanni's discourse on magnificenza in the Vita embeds St. Bernardino and the Observants within the sacred topography of the locality as well as in the political geography of the Kingdom of Naples by mentioning its rulers. Invoking Pliny in accordance with good humanist practice, he comes close to fashioning L'Aquila into a noble city of ancient origins. Furthermore, he intimates a hierarchy in a religious sense by stressing the city's significance within the kingdom as a center of pilgrimage uniting the sites of two mighty patron saints – not to speak of the annual plenary indulgence. In his letters Giovanni uses magnificenza as a moral ideal for all Aquilano citizens, who should contribute to the common good; in this case the common good corresponds to a sacralisation of the city that will be achieved by building a lavish burial church for the first Observant saint.

[19] The concept of magnificenza was still influential around 1500 at the time when a new mausoleum for the saint was planned and the Neapolitan scholar Giovanni Pontano published his treatise De Magnificentia (1498). For Pontano, magnificence consisted primarily in urban planning projects and in public as well as private architecture, with its most praiseworthy manifestations being the celebration of funerals and the construction of sepulchral monuments. While considering it an aristocratic virtue, the author emphasised its social dimension, arguing that admired works had the power to stabilise the social hierarchy of a community, to attract foreign visitors (or pilgrims), and to inspire historians to exalt the city's or territory's grandeur.⁴⁸

[20] A testimony to this understanding is provided by the late-sixteenth-century local savant Girolamo Pico Fonticulano, who used the term magnificenza to highlight the splendour of L'Aquila in aesthetic terms, referring to the "magnificence of the buildings", among which he primarily names San Bernardino.⁴⁹

"Uso temperato" and the exceptional status of San Bernardino

[21] Giovanni's impassioned words had an almost immediate impact, for the founding ceremony of San Bernardino was celebrated only about ten weeks later, on July 28, 1454.⁵⁰ The basilica was built in a hybrid form, combining a nave with two aisles and a vast domed octagonal space with radial chapels and a prolonged choir (Fig. 4). A pronounced enlargement of the second bay from the octagon interrupts the rhythmical sequence of the church's nave. In this area, flanking the south-eastern aisle, a chapel was erected to house Bernardino's remains that were transferred there in 1472.

4 Anonymous, View of San Bernardino of L'Aquila, woodcut, in: [Pietro Ridolfi] Petris Rodulphi Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis Libri Tres […], Venetiis: de Franciscis 1586, fol. 91r (photo of the copy in Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, H.mon.f.33)

[22] Evidently, the lavish layout of the basilica – one of the most significant newly built pilgrimage churches in Quattrocento Italy – and its adjacent convent, which included three cloisters, were at odds with Franciscan norms of poverty and generated controversy within the Observant community. In the so-called Constitutiones Bernardini of 1440 – an Observant supplement to the Franciscan Rule issued by a working group that included Giovanni da Capestrano – the guideline of the "usus moderatus" had been coined. As a middle way between the "usus pauper" imposed by the Rule according to saint Francis and the accumulation of possessions that was common in Conventual communities, it enabled flexibility of decorum, depending on the particular context, and allowed for private donations.⁵¹ This norm – stretched to its limits – made it possible to realise an ambitious basilica in L'Aquila that was consistent with the concept of magnificenza. Some critical voices made themselves heard but soon died down, whereas a fierce and long-lasting polemic arose in Siena: the plans to amplify the church of Bernardino's home convent La Capriola with a dome and chapels were criticised as "magnificences and over-enlargements".⁵² From this differentiated evaluation of 'magnificent' religious edifices, we can deduce that Bernardino's burial church in L'Aquila was accorded a special status in terms of its sumptuous building type.⁵³ Similarly, the church of San Francesco in Assisi had been disapproved of by some brethren for transgressing the commandment of poverty, but these accusations were countered by emphasising the building's exceptional status as a mausoleum of the Order's founder Francis.⁵⁴

The Cappella di San Bernardino

[23] Not only the extraordinary ambition of the building, but also the architectural disposition of Bernardino's burial chapel as well as his first funerary monument show various parallels to San Francesco in Assisi. In 1472, the saint's remains were transferred to the chapel in San Bernardino while the first friars moved into the convent. The spacious chapel, which almost has the character of a small burial church in its own right, has a crypt and a raised floor level with stairs extending into the aisle. A particular feature was the initial installation of choir stalls, which apparently served as a place for the friars' prayers before the main choir was completed.⁵⁵ The chapel is attached to the southern cloister of the convent. From there, a door granted direct access to Bernardino's tomb for the brethren. The first funerary monument to Bernardino also shows some parallels to the one dedicated to Francis; Bernardino's mummified body was housed in a no longer extant funerary altar with grated peep holes onto the burial chamber underneath; this chamber was located on an intermediate level that could be reached from the crypt below but with particularly severe regulations restricting access (Fig. 5).⁵⁶

5 Reconstruction of the quattrocentesque Cappella di San Bernardino in the church of San Bernardino in L'Aquila, according to Maurizio D'Antonio (reprod. from: Maurizio D'Antonio and Michele Maccherini, eds., Il restauro della cappella di San Bernardino all'Aquila, Pescara 2018, 35, detail)

[24] In the lower church of Assisi, the choir stalls are still in situ and laterally we have stairways leading respectively to the convent and the upper church. After the rood screen was demolished in c. 1300, pilgrims were able to circle around the altar of Francis surrounded by a pergola. Access to the bones of the saint buried under the altar was limited to the small buca delle lampade in the altar steps.⁵⁷ It would certainly be an exaggeration to interpret the Cappella di San Bernardino as a miniature funeral church modelled after the lower church of San Francesco in a narrow sense. Nevertheless, there are some structural analogies: a free-standing altar-tomb containing openings, choir stalls set up behind it, and direct access from the convent. Yet eventually the Aquilano altar-sepulchre turned out – just as the tomb of Saint Francis – to be an "unsatisfactory prototype"⁵⁸. The problem was the inadequate accessibility. To address this problem, a new funerary monument for Bernardino was begun in the 1490s.

A new mausoleum for Bernardino

[25] Already in 1487 – only a few years after the transfer of Bernardino's body – an anonymous benefactor proposed to finance a new tomb monument for the saint. This petition was discussed by the city's councillors who agreed to erect the saint's tomb "stronger, higher, and more dignified".⁵⁹ Certain functional requirements were to be considered: in 1481 King Louis XI of France had donated a sumptuous silver sarcophagus to house Bernardino's earthly remains (destroyed in 1529).⁶⁰ A fitting way had to be found to keep this magnificent container as well as the relics safe from theft or damage in an earthquake. At the same time, public devotion demanded that the saint's remains be exhibited occasionally, that contact relics be obtained, and that masses be said at the tomb.

[26] The local sculptor Silvestro di Giacomo (c. 1450–1504) strove to meet these divergent necessities by creating an unconventional type of free-standing, aedicula-shaped, and originally barrel-vaulted mausoleum with massive openings, which was completed in 1505 (Fig. 6).⁶¹

6 Silvestro di Giacomo and workshop, Mausoleum of Bernardino da Siena, 1505, San Bernardino, L'Aquila (photo: Enrico Fontolan © Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome)

The monument's eclectic design may not exhibit the highest degree of innovation, but it shows that the artist and initiators were familiar with the state of funerary sculpture: the structure refers to the so-called humanist sepulchre type developed in Florence, Rome, and Naples, and employs the frequently used bichromy of red and white stone as well as all'antica grotesque ornament. It is worth noting that the engagement of the French monarch, through the donation of a lavish sarcophagus, was crucial to the sepulchre's design, as the large openings on the front and rear sides were designed to display not only the sarcophagus but also the saint's entire mummified body. This was to be achieved by an elaborate chain mechanism which elevated the sarcophagus's cover, revealing an inner transparent cassa (Fig. 7).

7 Sarcophagus for Bernardino da Siena (around 1550, destroyed 1798), woodcut, in: Sancti Bernardini Senensis Ordinis Minorum, Opera Qvæ Extant Omnia, tam hucusque impressa, quam recens inuenta, in quatuor tomos distincta, a f. Petro Rodulphio episcopo Senogalliæ restituta, et apostillis illustrata, vti eorum omnium elenchus indicabit, Venetiis: apud Ivntas [Lucantonio Giunta] 1591, n. pag. [56] (photo of the copy in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 4 P.lat. 139-1)

[27] Of particular interest for this paper are the mausoleum's textual components, namely five epitaphs. Three of these inscriptions (Laus Operis, Divi Bernardini Laus, and Divo Bernardino) are written entirely in elegiac distichs; each also features a centred titulus, a formal device characteristic of both contemporary and ancient epitaphs. The lyric form possesses elegance and aligns with Leon Battista Alberti's opinion that pleasing epitaphs are appropriate for funerary monuments.⁶² In general, we find a use of vocabulary that is linked to ancient literature, including paganisms such as the broad use of "divus" – as frequently employed as "sanctus" – or the choice of "numen" to express the divine virtue.⁶³

[28] Concerning their content, three epitaphs can be summarised as attempts to establish Bernardino as a thaumaturge and as a figure bestowing legitimacy on the Observants well beyond L'Aquila: a prayer to the saint entitled Divo Bernardino (front, pedestal, left-hand side), the Divi Bernardini Laus (rear, pedestal, right-hand side) and an inscription that contains mainly historical facts (rear, second storey, centre). Of further interest in the context of Humanist culture are the other two inscriptions, which concern the benefactor and the sepulchre itself. The donor's eulogy (front, pedestal, right-hand side) served the private financier Iacopo di Notar Nanni as a means of self-representation as primo inter pares of the L'Aquila elite, achieved through the skillful interweaving of his individual commemoration with the veneration of the saint (Fig. 8).⁶⁴

8 Silvestro di Giacomo and workshop, Mausoleum of Bernardino da Siena, detail: Epitaph in honour of the donor, 1505, San Bernardino, L'Aquila (photo: Enrico Fontolan © Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome)

Described as a "civis Aquilanus", an Aquilano citizen, Iacopo is commemorated with the epithets "fides" and "integritas" – the most frequently recurring virtues in fifteenth-century epitaphs, together with "religio" and "pietas". The latter can be understood as private religious piety or as a sense of duty towards a community, whereas "fides" can mean either loyalty or faith.⁶⁵ This ambiguity allows for an interpretation that goes beyond Iacopo's individual piety by revealing a moral dimension of his donation with significance for the urban community. In a kind of 'rhetorical material fiction', Parian marble is mentioned, from which the tomb was allegedly carved. Citing this most precious type of stone used by ancient sculptors evokes material-aesthetic associations and also provides a hinge to the inscription praising the mausoleum as a work of art.

[29] This text, the Laus operis⁶⁶ (rear, pedestal, left-hand side), lists the most famous artists of antiquity, thereby indirectly referring to eminent works of ancient sculpture: Phidias and Praxiteles created the famous statues of the Dioscuri, while Scopas, Timotheus, and Bryaxis worked together on the eponymous Mausoleum of Halicarnassos (Fig. 9).⁶⁷

9 Silvestro di Giacomo and workshop, Mausoleum of Bernardino da Siena, detail: Epitaph "Laus operis", 1505, San Bernardino, L'Aquila (photo: Enrico Fontolan © Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome)

The idea of artistic rivalry is evoked by the enumeration of several artists, while the concept of emulation can be detected in the well-known Vergilian trope of softness as a major achievement of sculpture, since it allows figures to appear as if they were alive and breathing.⁶⁸ Altogether, this text displays a good knowledge of ancient art as well as current aesthetic concepts and also articulates a high degree of ambition, even if the inscriptions are neither particularly brilliant nor innovative.

[30] The composer of the epitaphs has not yet been identified. However, the elegance of form, the correct grammar, as well as the use of topoi and allusions, suggest that the author must have been a learned person well-versed in contemporary artistic discourse. At the same time, we discern important theological aspects in the inscriptions. Since Bernardino was not only an important saint for the Franciscan Order but also a patron saint of L'Aquila, his tomb was a matter of civic pride; it is therefore likely that the mausoleum's inscription programme was the outcome of a collaboration between members of the Aquilano elite, educated in studia humanitatis, and the learned leadership of the local Observants.⁶⁹

[31] Reflecting on the audience of these epitaphs, we find that access to the Cappella di San Bernardino was quite limited. The religious community and their secular and clerical guests, who were sometimes of high rank, had privileged access, whereas pilgrims were only granted admission to the chapel on feast days. Nevertheless, the texts became known to a wider public through printed editions of Bernardino's sermons (first edition 1591) and Luke Wadding's chronicles of the Franciscan Order (1648), as well as through their inclusion in several local hagiographic texts.⁷⁰ In fact, the unusual tituli of the three metric texts seem to invite their reuse in other literary contexts.

Pietas civica and cultural identity in L'Aquila

[32] In Giovanni da Capestrano's Vita Bernardini, we can discern a conscious reception of antiquity in the exalted description of L'Aquila, including a digression on the characteristics of the eagle as described in ancient and patristic sources. The portrayal of the city also constitutes an attempt to fashion a local history by repeatedly invoking its main patron saint Pietro Celestino, and the church of his congregation, Santa Maria di Collemaggio. This church, in turn, served as a model for the yet-to-be-built complex in honour of Bernardino.

[33] Even at this early stage of the Vita, when the convent of San Bernardino had not yet been officially planned, there is ample evidence that its institutional life was already being conceived as integrated into the civic fabric of the city. Giovanni da Capestrano's letters, moreover, called upon the moral and civic connotations of magnificenza in order to promote the construction of a locus for the Observant friars intra muros. In doing so, they align magnificenza with a theological discourse without neglecting its aesthetic dimension – a treatment of the concept that closely corresponds to strategies developed by preachers in the Florentine Dominican milieu from the 1420s.⁷¹

[34] In the following decades, the epithet "magnificent" can be traced in reference both to the church of San Bernardino and to the saint's mausoleum, completed in 1505. Especially in the epitaphs, enduring civic values are articulated alongside explicit and implicit references to antiquity and to ancient artists and artworks. In all likelihood, this extensive inscription programme emerged from a collaborative exchange between learned friars and lay people trained in the studia humanitatis.

[35] The epitaphs' unusual praise of Bernardino's mausoleum as a work of art is but one proof for the assumption that the Franciscan Observants made an effort to shape the 'aesthetics of the city' and to establish L'Aquila as a second centre of Franciscanism, that acknowledged Assisi while committing itself to the task of Franciscan reform. Their engagement had an impact on the design of a new mausoleum for Pietro Celestino (1517), in which several features of the sepulchral monument to Bernardino were adapted, thereby strengthening the association between the two Aquilano patron saints and further contributing to the construction of a civic pietas and cultural identity.

Reviewers
Anonymous
Anna Magnago Lampugnani, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome

Handling Editor
Susanne Kubersky-Piredda, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome

Citation
Pavla Langer, "'L'Aquila, magnifica citade': Fashioning a Center of Franciscan Observance in the Abruzzo Region", in: RIHA Journal 17, 2 (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2026.2.107574.

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The text of this article is provided under the terms of the Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.