The Multiple Political Function of a Hagiographical Episode: The Bernardino da Siena Service in the Hospital of Scala during the plague

Abstract

This article highlights the multiple political function of a central episode in the hagiographical representation of the youth of Bernardine of Siena, namely his service at the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala of Siena during the 1400 plague. The memory of this episode served the purposes of the Franciscan Observance as well as those of different local contexts. This story portrayed Bernardino as able to respond to the needs of the city not only by means of his personal virtues but also by gathering other people and convincing them to work for the common good, even putting their own lives at risk. The hagiographical episode includes the first “sermon” of Bernardino, who – still as a lay man – addressed the members of the hospital confraternity. This text, programmatically, emphasises the necessity for the lay people to prioritize the bonum commune over the bonum proprium, and indirectly depicts the leadership of the Observant friars in the life of the city. Moreover, while Siena used the memory of the 1400 plague to affirm the connection between Bernardino and its civic institutions, the representation of this episode in a set of frescoes painted in Lodi in 1476 not only depicted a model for the laity but was also functional in legitimizing the reform of the hospitals in that city.