Lives of saints, men and women. Franciscans in Pesaro (XIII-XV Centuries)

This study was born of a research project initiated by the Chair of Medieval History at the University of Urbino in the 1990s, with the aim of investigating the impact of Mendicant orders, and in particular of Franciscanism, in so far as it relates to both male and female orders, in the seigneurial context of the Italian Marches. This is a complex historiographical issue both because of the multiplicity of seigneurial regimes in the Marches, with their individual characters and political-institutional evolutions, and the inherent changes in the Franciscan order driven by internal conflicts and resultant necessary adaptations. By drawing on the most recent archival and historiographical investigations, this volume examines the development of Franciscanism in Pesaro and the life of its local saints during the period between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Examinating the religious context of Pesaro in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries implies considering the relations between the mendicant religious orders and the seigniorial power. In this perspective, the Malatesti and the Sforza strongly endorsed Franciscanism, supported and promoted its foundations, the administration of its convents and the cult of women and men saints within Pesaro’s spirituality.