Exorcism and Religious Politics in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Abstract

This article examines a series of messages concerning politics and geography that the religious order of the Vallombrosans embedded within a series of exorcism manuscripts and addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici in the late fifteenth century. The Vallombrosans crafted their manuscripts to negotiate a host of troubles: schism over reform, friction with Lorenzo, diminishing social status, increased marginality, competition with rival religious orders, new definitions of orthodoxy, and alternate forms of religious devotion. I frame Vallombrosan troubles and their turn to exorcism as symptomatic of the increased predominance of Mendicant Observants over older orders, and link this shift to a newly active and politicized demonology.

Exorcism and Religious Politics in Fifteenth-Century Florence

“… 40 The bulk of possessions and datable events recounted in the Vallombrosan texts took place in the late 1460s through the 1480s. On dating the Vallombrosan texts, see Degl’Innocenti, 98; Walden, 54–60. …”

“… 41 The Vallombrosans did not make consistent or meaningful distinctions within or across their translations between the terms demon , devil , and spirit . For an analysis of these and other key terms, see Walden, 396n71. …”

“…In their time, Vallombrosans had enjoyed popularity on this front through the epistles of the abbot-hermit Giovanni dalle Celle (1310–96), though perhaps on account of their troubles with the Medici, they were not so favored by historians as these Mendicant figures. On the importance of examining the records of marginalized groups, see Walden, 439, 446–47.…”

“… 105 Elsewhere the Vallombrosans evoked Crusade preaching, another Observant specialty, and mimicked the Observant disparagement of peasant apotropaic practices. Mormando, 105, 109, 182; Walden, 188, 265–66; Cardini, 288–91; Montesano, 87. …”

“… 131 For the extent to which Vallombrosan exorcism was improvised or scripted, the decorum with which it proceeded, the relative power accorded to exorcists (cf. Caciola), the relationship of Vallombrosan exorcisms to maleficia , and the gendered aspect(s) of Vallombrosan exorcisms, see Walden, 16, 232, 44, 223, 237, 265. The Vallombrosan appeals to Lorenzo de’ Medici also inform continuing debates about the nature of Lorenzo’s power and the degree to which it ws absolute.…”