CONVENTS WITHIN CONVENTS: THE REFOUNDATION OF SANTA CHIARA, SAN GIMIGNANO IN 1300 AND THE GENESIS OF THE MEDITATIONES VITAE CHRISTI

CONVENTOS DENTRO DE LOS CONVENTOS: LA REFUNDACIÓN DE SANTA CLARA, SAN GIMIGNANO EN 1300 Y LA GÉNESIS DE LAS MEDITATIONES VITAE CHRISTI

Donal Cooper¹

Fechas de recepción y aceptación: 21 de enero de 2024 y 6 de mayo de 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46583/specula_2025.12.1142

Abstract: Recent discoveries have renewed scholarly focus on the convent of Santa Chiara at San Gimignano as the initial context of the text known today as the Meditationes Vitae Christi (or the Meditations on the Life of Christ) – the most widely disseminated and influential devotional text of the later Middle Ages. Péter Tóth and Dávid Falvay have fixed the text’s composition to around the year 1300 and identified its author as a local Franciscan friar named “Jacobus”. This article extends Tóth’s and Falvay’s findings by examining the refoundation of Santa Chiara at the start of 1300, when the local townsman Pardoccio di Ser Bonifazio endowed the nunnery with substantial tracts of farmland just outside San Gimignano. Pardoccio was heavily invested personally in the project. He committed his wife and young daughter to Santa Chiara as oblates, and the latter would in time takes her vows as a Clarissan nun. He would soon join the Franciscan first order as a friar at the nearby male house of San Francesco. Pardoccio’s story illuminates how family relationships could bleed across the institutional boundaries of the early Franciscan movement. But our particular focus here is on another aspect of Pardoccio’s donation: his requirement that the receipts from the farmstead should fund a permanent community of six male friars based at Santa Chiara and dedicated to the cura monialium. Pardoccio undertook to construct a cloister, well, and cells for these friars, in effect creating a male micro-convent attached to the larger female foundation (even though the town’s principal male friary was only a few hundred metres away). The San Gimignano initiative was not unique: similar provisions were made several decades later by the founder of the Clarissan nunnery of San Paolo at San Miniato. Arianna Pecorini’s research on the Clarissan foundations in Pisa has highlighted the case of San Martino in Kinzica, which incorporated a male ‘conventino’ of four friars, with its own guardian and lector. These examples invite a reappraisal of the Franciscan commitment to the cura monialium of the Clarissan movement at the start of the fourteenth century. Scholarship on Clarissan double monasteries has tended to focus on large royal foundations, like the Angevin house of Santa Chiara in Naples. The evidence gathered here suggests that double communities were more common in the early Franciscan movement than generally assumed, and included the foundation for which the Meditationes was most likely written.

Keywords: Order of Poor Clares, Cura monialium, Franciscan Order, Meditationes Vitae Christi, San Gimignano, San Miniato, Pisa, Tuscany.

Resumen: Los descubrimientos recientes han renovado el enfoque académico sobre el convento de Santa Clara en San Gimignano como el contexto inicial del texto conocido hoy como Meditaciones Vitae Christi (o Meditaciones sobre la Vida de Cristo), el texto devocional más ampliamente difundido e influyente de la Baja Edad Media. Péter Tóth y Dávid Falvay fijaron la composición del texto hacia el año 1300 e identificaron a su autor como un fraile franciscano local llamado “Jacobus”. Este artículo amplía las conclusiones de Tóth y Falvay examinando la refundación de Santa Clara a principios de 1300, cuando el lugareño Pardoccio di Ser Bonifazio dotó al convento de importantes extensiones de tierras de cultivo a las afueras de San Gimignano. Pardoccio invirtió mucho personalmente en el proyecto. Encomendó a su esposa y a su hija pequeña a Santa Clara como oblatos, y esta última con el tiempo tomaría sus votos como monja clarisa. Él mismo pronto se uniría a la primera orden franciscana como fraile en la cercana casa masculina de San Francesco. La historia de Pardoccio ilumina la manera en que las relaciones familiares podían traspasar los límites institucionales del movimiento franciscano primitivo. Pero aquí nos centramos especialmente en otro aspecto de la donación de Pardoccio: su exigencia de que los ingresos de la granja financiaran una comunidad permanente de seis frailes varones con sede en Santa Clara y dedicados al cura monialium. Pardoccio se encargó de construir un claustro, un pozo y celdas para estos frailes, creando de hecho un microconvento masculino unido a la fundación femenina más grande (a pesar de que el principal convento masculino de la ciudad estaba a solo unos cientos de metros de distancia). La iniciativa de San Gimignano no fue única: varias décadas más tarde, el fundador del convento clarisano de San Paolo en San Miniato tomó disposiciones similares. La investigación de Arianna Pecorini sobre las fundaciones clarisas de Pisa ha puesto de relieve el caso de San Martino in Kinzica, que incorporó un “conventino” masculino de cuatro frailes, con su propio guardián y lector. Estos ejemplos invitan a reevaluar el compromiso franciscano con el cura monialium del movimiento clarisano a principios del siglo XIV. La erudición sobre los monasterios dobles clariseños ha tendido a centrarse en las grandes fundaciones reales, como la casa angevina de Santa Clara en Nápoles. La evidencia reunida aquí sugiere que las comunidades dobles eran más comunes en el movimiento franciscano temprano de lo que generalmente se supone, e incluían la fundación para la cual probablemente se escribieron las Meditationes.

Palabras clave: Orden de las Clarisas, Cura monialium, Orden Franciscana, Meditationes Vitae Christi, San Gimignano, San Miniato, Pisa, Toscana.

The Tuscan hill-town of San Gimignano has been identified as the likely context for the text we know today as the Meditationes Vitae Christi since the eighteenth century, when Padre Benedetto Bonelli first linked internal references in the text to the town and its environs with “frater Ioannes de Caulibus de Sancto Geminiano”, the otherwise elusive Franciscan who was named as the author of “meditationes super evangelia […] pulchras” in Fra Bartolomeo da Pisa’s monumental Liber de Conformitate, compiled in the 1390s². Recent discoveries by Péter Tóth and Dávid Falvay have revised our understanding of the manuscript tradition and the likely date of the Meditationes. Furthermore, the two scholars have identified a competing candidate for the work’s author in the figure of Fra Jacopo da San Gimignano³. Tóth’s and Falvay’s research indicates that the text was composed in Latin around 1300 in San Gimignano by a local friar called “Jacobus”⁴. While ‘Jacopo’ and its variants was one of the most common names in the period, there are persuasive reasons for thinking that the author of the Meditationes was one and the same as the “frater Jacobus de Sancto Geminiano” who led a revolt of the Tuscan friars against their superiors in 1312 in protest at the lax observance of poverty in the Order. Jacopo and his fellow rebels were excommunicated in 1314, at which point they fled to Sicily seeking the protection of its Aragonese king⁵.

Tóth’s and Falvay’s findings have given greater precision to the San Gimignano context, and in 2021 I drew attention to an important piece of archival evidence, hitherto neglected in the literature on the Meditationes: the act of donation that re-founded the town’s Clarissan convent in 1300⁶. This document, drawn up on 28 January in the nearby male convent of San Francesco, was witnessed by seven Franciscan friars, among them one “frater Iacobus de Sancto Geminiano”⁷. Given the ubiquity of the name Jacopo, there is no guarantee that this is the same friar who led the 1312 rebellion. But the context and date of the document establish this reference as the most likely archival trace of the author of the Meditationes. The famous devotional tract is generally understood to have been composed by a Franciscan friar and addressed to a Clarissan nun, and – as we will see – the male order’s responsibility for the cura monialium looms large in the 1300 foundation charter⁸. Given the significance of the 1300 donation for the still unfolding debates around the authorship of the Meditationes, it is transcribed below in full for the first time (see Appendix). This short article takes the opportunity to consider the terms of the foundation charter more closely, as they can shed some new light on the genesis of the Meditationes, over and above the specific issue of authorship.

The charter records the donation to the nunnery of Santa Chiara by one Pardoccio di Ser Bonifazio of a farmstead located just outside San Gimignano, at the place called Santa Croce in the district of Villa Casali – probably close to the present-day Agriturismo Santa Croce around 500 metres outside the town’s northern gate, the Porta San Matteo⁹. The farm had a residence and various other buildings (“unum suum podere cum palatio et domibus”) and comprised four parcels of land whose boundaries are methodically listed. The notary was Ser Ranieri di Giunta Capocchi from Colle Val d’Elsa and the nuns were represented by their syndic and procurator, Goccio di Compagni. The occasion for the donation was the decision to induct Pardoccio’s wife Bilia and their young daughter Francesca (“pro […] Francischa filia sua infante”) as oblates at Santa Chiara. The nunnery would enjoy the ownership and receipts from the Santa Croce farm with the proviso that Bilia would benefit from the revenue from two of the four pieces of land during her lifetime (or, as an alternative arrangement, would receive an annuity of 25 lire paid by the nuns). After Bilia’s death, this entitlement would pass to her daughter Francesca for as long as she lived. The terms of the donation also allowed for the possibility that Francesca, on coming of age, may not wish to remain in the nunnery to pursue a Clarissan vocation. In this case Francesca would receive half of the value of the farmstead plus an additional 200 lire or – alternatively, and presumably in order to avoid the sale of the land – the sum of 1,500 lire as estimated compensation for her share of the property, giving a total payment of 1,700 lire¹⁰. So far, no further mention of Bilia has been found in the local documentation and it is likely that she died soon afterwards. By 5 July 1305 Pardoccio had joined the Franciscan first order as a friar, taking his father’s name Bonifazio – a strong indication that he was a widower by this point¹¹. The appearance of “sorore Francisscha fratris Bonifatii” in a list of nuns at Santa Chiara from 1312 indicates that their daughter did in time profess into the Clarissan Order, and the Santa Croce farm features in the later property registers of the convent¹².

The terms of Pardoccio’s 1300 donation – and the subsequent professions by himself and his daughter into the Franciscan and Clarissan Orders respectively – illuminate the manner in which family relationships could bleed across the institutional boundaries of a mendicant movement. But the document also shines light on the reality of the cura monialium exercised by the male first order over Clarissan communities, taking us to one of the central concerns of the Meditationes. According to the agreement, the receipts from the Santa Croce farm (minus Bilia’s share) were to pay – if funds were sufficient – for six Franciscan friars to reside permanently at the nunnery. If the farm receipts were insufficient, then the nuns were to pay an annual fee 25 lire for each missing friar to the nearby house of San Francesco. The reason for this provision is not stated but it was likely to cover the expense of sending friars to minister to the nuns. If the local Franciscans and their ministers did not wish to send enough friars then the fee would be paid to the principal hospital in the town, Santa Fina – again we might speculate that this would cover the expense of chaplains for the nunnery. For his part Pardoccio (apparently as an additional endowment) was obliged to construct a “domus” for the six friars to live in equipped with a cloister, a well, and cells with all necessary furnishings. The size and quality of the new buildings were to be judged by the Provincial Minister of the Order’s Tuscan province. The nunnery of Santa Chiara had been founded on the site nearly four decades earlier, in 1261, so it seems that the cloister and well for the friars were intended to be separate facilities, in addition to those assigned to the nuns¹³.

Pardoccio’s donation therefore envisaged a kind of micro-convent of male friars within the nunnery of Santa Chiara. Scholarship on double-monasteries within the Franciscan movement has tended to focus on large foundations, notably in an Italian context the vast Angevin royal house of Santa Chiara in Naples, which had separate choirs, cloisters, and conventual spaces for its male and female communities¹⁴. Beyond Italy, Santa Maria de Pedralbes in Barcelona – another enormous royal foundation, established in 1326 by Queen Elisenda de Montcada and her husband James II of Aragon – still preserves a choir precinct with twenty-six stalls in the nave of the convent church, open towards the high altar¹⁵. This was designated for the friars and priests assigned to the monastery, while the nuns themselves used an elevated choir loft at the western end of the church. The friars at Pedralbes resided in a separate complex – the so-called ‘conventet’ – with its own cloister, situated on the opposite side of the church from the main female monastery¹⁶. The Neapolitan and Barcelona cases are unusual in preserving the physical fabric of their double cloisters, but similar arrangements are documented or can be deduced for other major royal foundations across Europe¹⁷. The San Gimignano complex would have been on a much smaller scale and – in the absence of groundplans or surviving remains – we have no means of assessing its architecture or configuration¹⁸. But there is evidence from other Clarissan houses in Tuscany to suggest that it was not an isolated phenomenon.

In nearby San Miniato al Tedesco, the Clarissan house of San Paolo can trace its origins back to bequests made in the testament of Ser Michele di Bindo Portigiani, compiled on 5 July 1338 (for which we have a full transcription published by Silvano Mori in 1992)¹⁹. Should Michele die without male heirs, he left land and funds to build a new Clarissan monastery dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Michael, his name saint (these wishes were eventually fulfilled in 1379 by his descendant Margherita Portigiani with a changed dedication to Saint Paul)²⁰. Ser Michele explicitly specified that his new Clarissan foundation should be “sub cura et sollicitudine ac disciplina” of the local Franciscan friars, who were to select thirty poor, unmarried girls to form the new community²¹. As at San Gimignano, special provisions were made for the founder’s family members. Any female descendant of Ser Michele up to three generations, rich or poor, who wished to join the nunnery would be accepted and supported by his estate²². Again, like Pardoccio, Ser Michele specified that a group of friars should be continuously resident in the new nunnery. At San Miniato four friars were allocated to the care and service of the nuns and to celebrate the divine office, and they were required to reside in the convent day and night (“semper die nottuque”)²³.

Thanks to Arianna Pecorini’s research, further evidence can be found for the Clarissan houses in Pisa. In 1291 Franciscan friars were said to be resident at the Clarissan house of Ognissanti (“de Ordine minorum commorantes apud supradictum monasterium”)²⁴. In 1337 Count Fazio Novello della Gherardesca left land and revenues in his testament to found a new Clarissan convent, dedicated to Saint Clare, on his land at Collesalvetti to the south of Pisa²⁵. The bequest was conditional on the Count’s male heirs dying without legitimate issue and in the event the house at Collesalvetti never seems to have been built²⁶. Nonetheless, even if it remained a dead letter, Fazio’s initiative is instructive as its provisions fit the same pattern we have already encountered at San Gimignano and San Miniato. The Count asked that the projected nunnery be staffed by four Franciscan friars who would reside there continuously to serve the nuns and celebrate the divine office²⁷.

In the same will, Fazio also made detailed provisions for the Clarissan house of San Martino in Kinzica located in Pisa itself that he had established in 1331, including bequests to the friars residing there (“fratribus minoribus loci Sancti Martini”) who evidently had their own guardian²⁸. Further detail is provided by the Codex Agnesinus, the chronicle of the San Martino house compiled in 1501 by Agnese, abbess at the time, on the basis of older (and no longer extant) documentation then in the convent’s archive. The Codex Agnesinus records that in April 1337 the nuns had taken up residence in their new convent (named Santa Chiara Novella) adjacent to the church of San Martino, and that within a month the male community had been established with the arrival of the first four friars²⁹. Shortly afterwards, in July 1337, Fazio’s testament provided funds for the construction of the church’s choir and the completion of the high altar, which was under the patronage of the Della Gherardesca counts³⁰. The arrangements made for the election of the priest to officiate the high altar reflects the interweaving of different private and institutional authorities at San Martino. In the first instance he was to be chosen by the Count’s male heirs; in their absence, he would be selected jointly by the Abbess of San Martino and the Abbess of Ognissanti, the older Clarissan house in Pisa. Their choice would, however, need to be approved by the guardian of the city’s principal Franciscan male convent of San Francesco, and the guardian of the male ‘conventino’ (to borrow Arianna Pecorini’s term) at San Martino³¹. The local situation here was more complex than the cases reviewed above, as San Martino was also a parish church – a status that long predated the installation of the Poor Clares³². Fazio’s testament clarifies that the church’s “Operario” would be elected by the people of the parish (“a populo cappellae Sancti Martini”)³³. The largesse of the Della Gherardesca counts also meant that the rebuilt church was large as well centrally located, factors that encouraged the foundation of multiple private chapels³⁴. The nuns’ choir was eventually constructed in the 1370s as an elevated structure attached to the counter façade, affording the nuns a privileged view of the nave and high altar without weakening the norms of their strict clausura³⁵. The choir arrangements for the male friars are less clear; we do not know, for example, if the spacious nave of San Martino would have been occupied by their stalls and divided by a tramezzo screen in the fashion of many first order mendicant churches of similar scale. Fazio’s 1337 bequest of funds “in subsidium cori ecclesiae Sancti Martini” could refer to either the nuns’ choir or a precinct in the main body of the church³⁶.

These brief and far from systematic soundings already indicate a pattern for Clarissan houses in Tuscany over the opening decades of the fourteenth century. Our expectation is that the list of examples would be extended significantly with a more thorough trawl of the available evidence, encompassing both published sources and archival references. The documentation for San Gimignano, San Miniato al Tedesco, and Pisa reviewed above reveals how lay patrons were concerned to support and institutionalize the cura monialium of the communities they were founding. In each case, the responsibility for ministering to the nuns was firmly placed with the Franciscan first order, to the extent that ‘conventini’ of male friars were established immediately alongside Clarissan convents, with parallel spaces and facilities. The numbers of male friars were small: six at San Gimignano, four at San Miniato and San Martino in Pisa (as well as the projected house at Collesalvetti). They lived alongside larger Clarissan communities: thirty nuns were envisaged for Ser Michele’s foundation in San Miniato; forty for San Martino in Pisa, although the community there would never achieve that size; while twenty-two Clarissans appear in a list of almost all (“quasi omnes”) the nuns at San Gimignano in 1312³⁷. But the existence of these male ‘conventini’ alters our understanding of the nature of the cura monialium in the Franciscan movement. Rather than being a distant and sometimes disinterested presence, friars were permanently ensconced within Clarissan communities in micro-convents dedicated to the care of nuns. Many of these Clarissan houses could be understood as double-convents on a modest scale – and San Martino in Kinzica was officially treated as such, being represented as a male convent at provincial chapter meetings³⁸. This is the context against which we can better understand the sustained investment that the Franciscan author of the Meditationes makes in the devotional lives and spiritual improvement of his Clarissan audience.

1. Appendix

Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, San Gimignano, S. Chiara (Clarisse), 28 January 1300 (Normali).

The act was rogated in the convent of San Francesco, San Gimignano by the notary Ser Ranieri di Giunta Capocchi of Colle Val d’Elsa. The parchment measures 575 x 370 mm and bears the following inscriptions on the verso: “Heredes pel podere di Sca. +” (fourteenth-century hand) and “S. Chiara di S. Gimign[an]o 28 Genn[ai]o 1300” and “num[er]^o 7: ^o” (early modern hands). The recto is numbered “7½” in the top-right corner in an early modern hand. The surviving parchment is not the original document; this is a faithful copy made by Ser Luca di Ser Buldrone dei Becci on 31 March 1304; the document is written in the same handwriting as his authentication³⁹. Two other notaries, Ser Palmiero detto Pino di Corso di Palmerio and Ser Luca del fu Fuccio, also authenticated the copy (their testimonials are not transcribed). The parchment (recto and verso) can be viewed online at: https://www.archiviodigitale.icar.beniculturali.it/it/185/ricerca/detail/137179

Hoc est exemplum cuiusdam instrumenti publici manu Ser Ranerii notarii filii Iunte Capocchi de Colle cuius tenor talis est videlicet:

In Dei nomine amen, anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo, indictione xiiii.^a die vigesimo octavo ianuarii. Appareat omnibus evidenter quod Pardoccius olim Ser Bonfatii de Sancto Geminiano titulo donationis inter vivos, ita quod nulla ingraditudine vel modo aliquo possit revocari etc., ex casu oblationis pro domina Bilia uxore sua et Francischa filia sua infante, quas intendit intromittere in monasterium Sancte Clare de Sancto Geminiano, dedit, donavit et tradidit et concessit Goccio olim Compangni, sindico et procuratori habatisse, capituli et conventus dicti monesterii recipienti pro dicto monesterio, cum pactis, conditionibus et conventionibus et honeribus infrascriptis, unum suum podere, cum palatio et domibus super ipso existentibus, positum in loco dicto Santa Cruce territorii Ville de Casali, cui maiori petie terre a tribus partibus sunt vie et a quarto heredes Locti Gualandelli Casannove et heredes Becti Bonacursi et Guidi Buferci et Ser Guidi Contri. Item altera petia terre dicti poderis posita ibi prope a primo via a secundo heredes Becti Bonacursi a tertio Guidi Buferci et a quarto Saladucci. Item altera petia terre dicti poderis posita ibi prope a primo parte domini Cacciaguerre et a secundo partibus vie. Item altera petia terre dicti poderis posita ibi prope a secundo partibus vie a tertio domini Cacciaguerre vel se alii sunt confines cum omnibus que super se aut infra se habet omnibusque suis pertinentiis, servitutibus et degracentiis universis, ad habendum, tenendum et possidendum et usufructandum et faciendum quicquid dicto monesterio facere placuit, absque alicuius lite et contradictione; et corporaliter possessionem dicti poderis, palatii, domorum et terrarum, quecumque sibi sua auctoritate sindicario et procuratorio nomine pro dicto monesterio, capitulo et conventu placuit percipiendi et interim se suo nomine dicti monesterii, capituli et conventus constituit precario possidere. Et ex dicta causa et titulo dedit, cessit, concessit, trastulit et mandavit dicto sindico recipienti pro dicto monesterio, capitulo et conventu et ipsi monesterio et in eos omnia et singula et queque iuris actiones, petitiones et pingnorum obligationes, reales et personales, directas, mixstas, tacitas et expressas et omnes alias que et quas habet et habere videtur vel potest in dictis rebus et earum occasione ut ex nunc dictum monesterium et conventum et ipse sindicus pro dicto monesterio subcedatur in ius universum dicti Pardoccii et dictum sindicum, sindicatus nomine pro dicto monesterio recipiente, et ipsum monesterium et conventus procuratorem fecit in rem suam et sui iuris subcessores, pro quibus bonis et rebus et earum occasione ipse sindicus pro dicto monesterio et ipsum monesterium et conventus agire possit experiri et causari et se tueri directis et utilibus actionibus contra quascumque partes et loca, sine ullius partis contradictione vel lite. Et dedit et concessit licentiam et potestatem dicto sindico recipienti pro dicto monesterio et conventu et ipsi monesterio et conventui et cuicumque persone legiptime pro eo intervenienti intrandi et accipiendi corporaliter possessionem et tenutam de bonis suis et ea possidendi, et donec possessionem adeptum fuerit, dictum monesterium de dictis rebus et ipse sindicus pro dicto monesterio, se pro dicto sindico et monesterio constituit possessorem, asserens se ius suum de dictis rebus vel earum parte nulli alii fore datum, cessum vel concessum vel modo aliquo alienatum, quod, si contra factum appareret, promisit solempniter prefatum monasterium et ipsum sindicum pro dicto monastero conservare indempne de quibus rebus convenit dicto sindico recipere pro dicto monesterio, capitulo et conventu, nullam litem facere vel questionem movere, sed eas defendere, auctorizare et disbrigare ab omni parte et loco, sub pena dupli eius unde lix fieret vel questio moveretur, quam penam solvere promisit eidem recipienti pro dicto monesterio si comicteretur, et pena comissa vel non, soluta vel non, presentem contractum nichilominus servare promisit. Pro quibus omnibus et singulis observandis et firmis tenendis obligavit se ipsum et bona sua et heredes eius pingnore dicto sindico recipienti pro dicto monesterio, capitulo et conventu, quorum bonorum liceat auctoritate ipropria possessiones integre vendere et alienare sine ullius iudicis vel persone requisitione, si in premissis per dictum Pardoccium fuerit in aliquo contraventum et ea interim se eius nomine constituit possidere. Acto, dicto et expresse cauto in celebratione dicti contractus et ante presentem contractum de premissarum partium voluntate quod dictum monasterium teneatur et debeat continue in perpetuo tenere apud dictum monasterium sex fratres de ordine fratrum minorum, expensis et sumptibus ipsius monesterii, hoc videlicet modo, quod primo anno videantur et examinentur fructus dicti poderis et terrarum et etiam expense dictorum fratrum et habeatur congiactura aliorum annorum et si de ipsis fructibus et proventibus dicti poderis, habito respectu ad honera dicte sue uxoris et filie, possunt tenere sex fratres, ipsos ut dictum est tenere debeat in perpetuo; sive autem non sufficient, reducantur ad minorem numerum silicet ad numerum sufficientem, et ipsos sex fratres vel pauciores, prout sufficerent dicti fructus seu proventus, teneatur et debeat dictum monesterium tenere perpetuo et continue ut ibi celebrentur divina offitia pro anima sua et suorum. Et si per ipsum monesterium staret quominus ipsos fratres tenerentur, teneantur ipsum monesterium dare annuatim loco fratrum minorum de Sancto Geminiano libras xxv. denariorum Pisanorum pro quolibet fratre quem ibi ex dicto numero non teneret. Si vero non staret per ipsum monesterium sed per fratres, qui ibi per ministros vel alios prelatos non ponerentur vel stare nollent, tunc ipsum monesterum teneatur et debeat dare hospitali comunis quod dicitur hospitale Sancte Finis pro quolibet anno et quolibet fratre quem ibi non teneret vel non staret, ut dictum est, libras xxv. denariorum Pisanorum et etiam nichilominus ad predicta omnia observandum teneantur et gravate remaneant constitutiones habatisse et omnium monialium ipsius monasterii presentium et futurarum et etiam fratrum in eo quod adeos pertinet. Dum modo dictus Pardoccius teneatur et debeat fieri facere domum sufficientem pro ipsorum fratrum habitationem et etiam clastrum et citernam suis sumptibus et expensis: que domus, cisterna et claustrum fiant in eo loco et in ea mangnitudine et qualitate que videbitur ministro provincie cum discretis fratribus. Et etiam teneatur facere fieri in ipsa domo cellas pro ipsis fratribus cum furnimento pertinente ad ipsas cellas ad usum ipsorum fratrum. Salvo etiam et reservato quod dicta sua uxor, toto tempore vite sue, habeat usufructum duarum petiarum terrarum dicti poderis, una quarum posita est in dicta mangna petia terre que fuit Chelini, cui a duobus partibus vie a tertio heredes Locti et a quarto ipsa mangna petia terre, alia petia terre posita est ibi prope, cui a primo via, a secundo heredes Becti Bonacursi, a tertio Guidi Buferci et a quarto Saladuccii, vel si alii sint confines vel xxv. libras denariorum Pisanorum a dicto monasterio. Et si dictum monasterium solverit ei dictas xxv. libras annuatim ipsi fructus et redditus dictarum petiarum terrarum remaneant ipsi monasterio; et si dare noluerit dictas xxv. libras ut dictum est annuatim sed erit contentum ipsam dominam Biliam habere dictos fructos non laborentur propterea ipse due petie terre nisi per laboratores dicti monasterii tunc et post eius mortem habeat ipsum usufructum toto tempore vite sue ipsa Francischa eius filia, et dum vivente madre habet ipsa usufructum una cum ea vel dictam pecuniam si dictum monasterium dare voluit, toto tempore quo in ipso monasterio steterit, post mortem vero utriusque fructus dictarum petiarum terrarum sint monesterii predicti, ita tamen quod minister provincie possit de fructibus ipsarum petiarum terrarum expendere annuatim x. libras denariorum toto tempore ipsius Pardoccii.

Et si contigerit quod dicta Francischa eius filia proveniens ad legiptimam etatem nollet in dicto monesterio profiteri et remanere, quod eo casu dictum monasterium teneatur et debeat eidem Francische dare pro legiptima sibi contingente in bonis dicti Pardoccii medietatem omnium petiarum terrarum et poderis et etiam cc. libras denariorum Pisanorum, vel, si vellet, dictum monasterium dare eidem pro extimatione dicte medietate dicti poderis et terrarum mille quingentas libras denariorum Pisanorum facere possit, ita quod tunc det eidem Francische milleseptingentas libras denariorum Pisanorum pro sua legiptima, et de residuo dicti poderis teneatur et debeat dictum monasterium in casu predicto tenere medietatem dictorum fratrum sub eisdem gravaminibus et sumptibus quantum ad dimidiam de quibus dictum est supra, quantum ad totum. Et eo casu tantum silicet quando dicta filia sua nollet in dicto monasterio profiteri, habeat locum revocatio dicte dimidie, sed ipsa in monasterio vel alibi decedente ante professionem vel ea profittente dictum⁴⁰ monasterium totum dictum podere et terras habeat cum honeribus et gravaminibus predictis et ut supra dictum est. Que omnia predicta dictus Goccius, sindicus dicti monasterii, sindicario nomine pro dicto monasterii et capitulo et conventu solempni stipulatione promisit dicto Pardoccio, recipienti pro se dicta domina Bilia eius uxore et Francischa eius filia et fratribus antedictis, actendere et observare et dare et tradere et solvere promissa per eumdem sindicum et ipsos fratres tenere et omnia suprascripta facere prout superius dictum est sub pena dupli totius de quo ageretur vel lis esset, quam eidem Pardoccio, ut dictum est recipienti, dictus sindicus sindicario nomine pro dicto monasterio dare et solvere partem, et convenit totiens quotiens contrafactum vel ventum apparuerit et pena soluta vel non, rato contractu, et dampnis et expensis reservare. Obligando se sindicario nomine pro dicto monasterio et loca omnia dicto monasterii dicto Pardoccio, recipienti ut dictum est, et dictus Pardoccius promisit dicto sindico, recipienti et stipulanti pro dicto monasterio, suprascripta omnia per eumdem Pardoccium dicto sindico promissa et ut superius continetur actendere et observare et adimplere sub dicta pena et ypotecha suorum bonorum et hereditatis. Renumptiantes exceptioni non facte donationis, cessionis et promissionis et obligationis sibi vicissim ut dictum est, rei non sic geste, conditioni sine causa, fori privilegio et omni iure et legum auxilio contra hec agenti. Quibus contrahentibus, volentibus et confitentibus precepi ego Ranierus notarius infrascriptus per guarentigiam secundum formam capituli constituti comunis de Colle et etiam comunis Sancti Geminiani ut predicta omnia debeant sibi vicissim servare et actendere ut promisere.

Actum in loco fratrum minorum de Sancto Geminiano coram religiosis fratre Iohannino de Senis de ordine minorum inquisitore contra hereticam pravitatem, fratre Bartolomeo de Pisis custode fratrum minorum, fratre Iacobo de Sancto Geminiano, fratre Paulo de Colle, fratre Herrigo de Pistorio, fratre Gherardino de Blancis et fratre Niccholaio de Aretio testibus presentibus et vocatis et rogatis.

Ego Ranerius notarius filius Iunte Capocchi de Colle scriptis omnibus interfui et ut supra legitur scripsi et publicavi rogatus.

(SN) Ego Lucas quondam Ser Buldronis de Becciis de Sancto Geminiano auctoritate imperiali iudex ordinarius atque notarius, originale instrumentum, unde sumptum fuit exemplum superius per me scriptum, non cancellatum nec in aliqua sui parte corruptum, vidi et legi et nil addens vel minuens, quod sensum mutet vel intellectum, preter singnum dicti Ranerii notarii, supra fideliter trasscripsi et exemplavi. Et qua facta diligenti et fideli conlatione huiusmodi exempli cum originali predicto, una cum Ser Palmerio et Ser Luca notariis infrascriptis per me rite et fideliter exemplatum inveni ideoque de mandatu et auctoritate domini Ranaldi de Lungnano, iudicis ordinarii et nunc assessoris comunis Sancti Geminiani, qui hiis omnibus auctoritatem suam et dicti comunis interposuit et decretum ut eidem exemplo tamquam originali predicto adhiberi possit et valeat plena fides me subscripsi et pubblicavi et singnum mee manus apposui in testimonium veritatis presentibus testibus Ser Cione Beringerii et Pigino Cole et Ser Nardo Ranerii de Senis notario in terra Sancti Geminiani in palatio comunis predicti sub annis domini mccciiii.º, indictione secunda die ultimo mensis martii.

[Two further authentications follow, also dated 31 March 1304 but in different hands, by the notaries “Palmerius vocatus Pinus filius quondam Cursi Palmerii de Sancto Geminiano” and “Lucas quondam Fuccii de Sancto Geminiano”].

2. Bibliography

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Bruzelius, C., Giordano, A., Basso, A., Castagna, E., Giles, L., Repola, L., and De Feo, E. (2018). L’eco delle pietre: History, modeling, and GPR as tools in reconstructing the choir screen at Sta. Chiara in Naples. Archaeologia e Calcolatori (Supplemento 10), 81-103.

Castellano i Tresserra, A. (2006). Los franciscanos del “conventet” de Pedralbes. In G. Fernández and G. Jiménez (eds.), Los Franciscanos Conventuales en España: actas del II Congresso Internacional sobre el Franciscanismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 30 de marzo–1 de abril de 2005) (pp. 149-158). Asociación Hispánica de Estudios Franciscanos.

Cooper, D. (2021). Fra Jacopo in the Archives: San Gimignano as a Context for the Meditations on the Life of Christ. In H. Flora and P. Tóth (eds.), The Meditationes Vitae Christi Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Text and Image (pp. 17-42). Brepols.

Danesi, V. (2022). L’architettura e la regola: Damianite e Clarisse nell’Umbria e nel Lazio del Duecento. De Luca Editori d’Arte.

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Flora, H. and Tóth, P. (2021). Introduction. In H. Flora and P. Tóth (eds.), The Meditationes Vitae Christi Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Text and Image (pp. 7-16). Brepols.

Gaddoni, S. (1916). Inventaria Clarissarum. Monasterium S. Clarae prope S. Giminianum in Tuscia, 1317-1340. Monasterium S. Francisci prope Bononiam, 1337-1441. Monasterium S. Guillelmi prope Ferrariam, 1337. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (9), 294-346.

Gaglione, M. (2014). Dai primordi del francescanesimo femminile a Napoli fino agli statuti per il monastero di S. Chiara. In F. Aceto, S. D’Ovidio and E. Scirocco (eds.), La Chiesa e il convento di Santa Chiara: Committenza artistica, vita religiosa e progettualità politica nella Napoli di Roberto d’Angiò e Sancia di Maiorca (pp. 27-128). Laveglia e Carlone.

Giles, L. (2018). Medieval Architecture and Technology: Using GPR to Reconstruct the Choir Screen at Santa Chiara in Naples. Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture (6:4), 123-160.

Jäggi, C. (2002). Raum und Liturgie in franziskanischen Doppelklöstern: Königsfelden und S. Chiara in Neapel im Vergleich. In N. Bock, P. Kurmann, S. Romano, J.-M. Spieser (eds.), Art, Cérémonial et Liturgie au Moyen Âge (pp. 223-246). Viella.

Lucherini, V. (2014). Il refettorio e il capitolo del monastero maschile di S. Chiara: l’impianto topografico e le scelte decorative. In F. Aceto, S. D’Ovidio and E. Scirocco (eds.), La Chiesa e il convento di Santa Chiara: Committenza artistica, vita religiosa e progettualità politica nella Napoli di Roberto d’Angiò e Sancia di Maiorca (pp. 385-430). Laveglia e Carlone.

Maccioni, M. (1771). Difesa del dominio de’ Conti Della Gherardesca sopra la signoria di Donoratico, Bolgheri, Castegneto, etc. raccomandata alla protezione della real corona di Toscana (supplementary volume: Sommario di documenti relativi al dominio de’ sigg. Della Gherardesca sopra la loro contea raccomandata alla protezione della corona toscana). Giovanni Riccomini.

McNamer, S. (2018). Meditations on the Life of Christ. The Short Italian Text. Notre Dame Press.

Mori, S. (1992). Il testamento di ser Michele di Bindo: tra attività usurarie e opere pie. Miscellanea Storica della Valdelsa (98), 7-35.

Mori, S. (1999). Alle origini del monastero di Santa Chiara di San Gimignano. In Gli ordini mendicanti in Val d’Elsa (pp. 205-214). Società Storica della Valdelsa.

Paliaga, F. and Renzoni, S. (1991). Chiese di Pisa. Guida alla conoscenza del patrimonio artistico. Seconda edizione riveduta, corretta, ampliata. Edizioni ETS.

Papini, N. (1797). L’Etruria Francescana overo raccolta di notizie storiche interessanti l’ordine de’ FF. Minori Conventuali di S. Francesco in Toscana (Tomo I). Dai Torchi Pazzini Carli.

Pecorini, A. (1996-1997). Francescanesimo femminile a Pisa nel Medioevo: il monastero di Ognissanti dalla fondazione al 1331. Tesi di Laurea directed by Mauro Ronzani. Università degli Studi di Pisa.

Pecorini Cignoni, A. (2005). Francescanesimo femminile a Pisa: il monastero di Santa Chiara Novella in San Martino in Kinzica. Bollettino Storico Pisano (74), 371-395.

Razzi, R. (2009). Le chiese dei frati minori a San Gimignano. Nencini Editore.

Sanjust i Latorre, C. (2008). L’obra del Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Pedalbes des de la seva fundació fins al segle XVI. Un monestir reial per a l’orde de les clarisses a Catalunya. Tesi de doctorado directed by Anna Muntada Torrellas. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Tóth, P. (2021). The Earliest Reference to the Meditationes Vitae Christi: New Evidence for its Date, Authorship, and Language. In H. Flora and P. Tóth (eds.), The Meditationes Vitae Christi Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Text and Image (pp. 43-74). Brepols.

Tóth, P. and Falvay, D. (2014). New Light on the Date and Authorship of the Meditationes Vitae Christi. In S. Kelly and R. Perry (eds.), Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life (pp. 17-105). Brepols.

Zappasodi, E. (2018). ‘Sorores reclusae’: Spazi di clausura e immagini dipinte in Umbria fra XIII e XIV secolo. Mandragora.

Zöschg, M. (2022). Beyond Naples: Fourteenth-Century Royal Widows and their Clarissan Foundations in a Trans-Regional Perspective. In K. Benešovská, T. Michalsky, D. Rywikowá, and E. Scirocco (eds.), Royal Nunneries at the Center of Medieval Europe: Art, Architecture, Aesthetics (13th-14th Centuries): Convivium (Supplementum,1), 56-75.

_______________________________

¹ Professor of Italian and Mediterranean Art, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, 1-5 Scroope Terrace, Cambridge, CB2 1PX. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1761-9462. Mail: dac66@cam.ac.uk

² Bonelli (1767), coll. 698-700; Cooper (2021, pp. 17-18). The literature on the Meditationes is vast, even if limited to recent publications. For a succinct summary of the principal issues at stake, see Flora and Tóth (2021). My work on the Meditationes is indebted to the recent research of Péter Tóth, Dávid Falvay, Holly Flora, Renana Bartal, Antonio Montefusco, and Joanna Cannon: I am grateful to all these scholars for their generosity in exchanging ideas and sharing discoveries over recent years. Particular thanks are due to Dávid Falvay and Ditta Szemere for the invitation to participate in such a fruitful and convivial conference in Budapest in July 2023. In San Gimignano, I have benefitted greatly from the local expertise of Raffaello Razzi, Silvano Mori, and other members of the Società Storica della Valdelsa. In Pisa, Cristiana Sofia facilitated remote access to documentation in the Archivio di Stato, where Jacopo Paganelli very kindly photographed relevant excerpts of the Codice Agnesina for me. My understanding of the composition of Clarissan communities, and especially the status of oblates, has been shaped by conversations with Arianna Pecorini, whose forensic archival work on the Pisan nunneries provided the template for my own study of the San Gimignano house. Philip Muijtjens and Jacopo Paganelli provided invaluable assistance with the Latin transcription of the 1300 charter, while Chiara Capulli sourced hard to find bibliography from Italian libraries. Finally, I thank the editors and reviewers at Specula for their insightful comments and close reading of the text.

³ Tóth and Falvay (2014, esp. pp. 83-93) for the authorship of “Jacobus”.

⁴ For the latest dating and authorship arguments, see Tóth (2021).

⁵ See Tóth and Falvay (2014, pp. 87-92), for Fra Jacopo’s biography.

⁶ Cooper (2021, pp. 20-21).

⁷ The friars seem to be listed in order of seniority, with the inquisitor Giovannino da Siena first, followed by the custodian of the San Gimignano friary, Bartolomeo da Pisa. The other five friars held no offices, but Jacopo da San Gimignano is next in the list. The friary of San Francesco was completely demolished in the sixteenth century; for its site and reconstruction, see Razzi (2009).

⁸ For an alternative reconstruction of the text’s genesis, arguing for a female author, see McNamer (2018).

⁹ The Agriturismo occupies a small complex of historic buildings to the left-hand side of the Strada Provinciale 127 heading north from San Gimignano. In the 1823 catasto plan this property is marked as “Poderi detti di Santa Croce” and the surrounding fields are labelled as the “Luogo detto la Croce”, while the adjacent area to the north is the “Luogo detto Casale”, including the buildings of the “Cura di Casale”, and the old road is named the “Via di Casale”: the 1823 plan is digitized at: http://www502.regione.toscana.it/castoreapp/1_viewer-layer-others.jsp?tipo=report&id=330_Q02I

¹⁰ The funds were presumably to provide Francesca with a dowry should she choose a secular life.

¹¹ For the 1305 document and later references to Fra Bonifazio stretching into the 1320s, see Cooper (2021, p. 35). Pardoccio may have taken the name to honour his father, or in homage to the reigning pope, Boniface VIII.

¹² For the 1312 list, see Cooper (2021, p. 35). The principal portion of the Santa Croce estate is listed in the inventory of Santa Chiara’s property holdings compiled on 17 February 1317, see Gaddoni (1916, p. 300): “Item unum petium sive terre cultum partim vineatum, cum domibus et torricella super ipso existentibus et cum una giota et palmento existentibus super ipso cultu, pos(itum) in districtu S(ancti) Geminiani in loco dicto ‘Sancta Croce’, cui a tribus partibus via, et a IV Muççii Ildibrandini et heredum ser Guidi Contri et Berti Galgani”.

¹³ For the original foundation, see Mori (1999).

¹⁴ At Santa Chiara, Naples, the male convent and cloister were situated to the western side of the church, while the larger female convent and cloister were to the south, adjacent to the nuns’ choir located behind the high altar: for the organization of these conventual spaces, see Lucherini (2014). Recent survey work within the church indicates the existence of a tramezzo screen in the nave that would have shielded the friars’ choir, set in front of the high altar, see Bruzelius et al. (2018) and Giles (2018). Santa Chiara had been established in 1312 with capacity for 100 nuns, raised to 120 in 1317 when provision was also made for the establishment of a male convent of 20 friars, see Gaglione (2014, pp. 56-57).

¹⁵ For the friar’s choir at Pedralbes, see Sanjust i Latorre (2008, pp. 239-240). The current choir stalls date from the middle decades of the fifteenth century.

¹⁶ For the ‘conventet’ of male friars at Pedralbes, see Castellano i Tresserra (2006). In 1345 Elisenda fixed the size of the community at 36 nuns (including 6 novices), 4 friars, and 4 secular priests. In her will of 1364, she increased these numbers to 40 nuns, 6 friars, and 7 secular priests. The ‘conventet’ survives, albeit in much restored state, integrating Romanesque sculptural fragments from the church of Santa Maria de Besalú.

¹⁷ For a comparison between Santa Chiara, Naples and the double-monastery at Königsfelden in Switzerland, founded by the Habsburgs in 1308 (where the original choir and cloister arrangements do not survive), see Jäggi (2002). The broader theme of dual-sex monasticism has recently attracted greater interest, a notable example being the conference “Reimagining the Medieval Double Monastery in Interdisciplinary Perspective” convened by Alison Beach, Cristina Andenna and the Stift Admont at Admont in Steiermark, Austria, in October 2022. For an overview of Clarissan royal foundations in this period, see Zöschg (2022), with specific discussion of the arrangements for male and female communities at pp. 72-74.

¹⁸ The fullest description that we have of Santa Chiara’s medieval fabric is from the inventory of the convent’s goods and property compiled on 13 February 1317, see Gaddoni (1916, pp. 299-300): “Imprimis monasterium predictum cum ecclesia, domibus et chiostris, palmentis, giotis et aliis hedificiis murorum simul coniunctis cum dicto monasterio… Item terrenum totum dicti monasterii positum circumcirca dictum monasterium, ecclesiam, domos, chiostra et hedificia suprascripta, cum domo, chiostro, cellario, infrantorio et factorio in ipsa domo et chiostro existentibus super ipso terreno, in qua domo moratur laborator dicti terreni, et etiam cum capanna sive domo coperta de tegulis…” For Clarissan architecture and enclosure in Italy during this period, see the classic study by Bruzelius (1992) and the recent survey of foundations in Umbria and Lazio by Danesi (2022). There is also much useful discussion of choir arrangements and their decoration in central Italian nunneries in Zappasodi (2018).

¹⁹ Mori (1992), with a full transcription at pp. 23-35.

²⁰ Mori (1992, p. 32): “Si vero contingat quod de dicto ser Michele testatore et eius descenditibus masculis nullus remaneret filius masculus, de legiptimo matrimonio natus per lineam masculinam descendens, reliquit, voluit et mandavit…”; see also pp. 21-22 for the eventual foundation in 1379 of the nunnery of San Paolo (on the land originally bequeathed by Ser Michele) by Margherita Portigiani, widow of Paolo di Francesco Portigiani. San Paolo would house 15 nuns, including Margherita who intended to profess into the Clarissan order.

²¹ Mori (1992, p. 32): “Super quod petium terre, de bonis ipsius ser Michelis testatoris hedificetur et hedificari et fieri debeat quoddam monasterium ordinis Sancte Clare, sub vocabulo beate Marie Virginis et Sancti Michaelis arcangeli, sub cura et sollicitudine ac disciplina ordinis fratrum minorum, quod monasterium predicti fratres minores hedificari faciant secundum ipsorum beneplacitum… Volens et mandans quod dicti fratres minores, ad quos ipsius monasterii curam voluit pertinere, cum ipsum monasterium de bonis ipsius testatoris hedificatum fuerit et completum, teneantur et debeant eligere triginta puellas virgines pauperes et illas gratis et amore Dei de bonis dicti testatoris induere et munire rebus necessariis, que ad dictum habitum et ordinem pertinent, et sic ipsas triginta puellas virgines et pauperes in predicto monasterio ponere et dedicare”.

²² Mori (1992, p. 32): “In quo monasterio sic hedificando iuxit, voluit et mandavit ser Michele testator predictus, omnes et singulas mulieres, sive divites sive pauperes, usque in tertium gradum de ipso testatore descendentes, ad ipsarum mulierum voluntatem et instantiam, fulciendas de bonis dicti testatoris indumentis, munimine et rebus necessariis supradictis, eligi, recipi et assummi libere et cum effectu, et tractandas per ipsas moniales ut tractarent personas proprias”.

²³ Mori (1992, p. 32): “Volens et mandans idem testator quod in predicto monasterio semper die nottuque, ad custodiam et servitia monialium dicti monasterii, continuam residentiam faciant et facere teneantur et debeant quactuor fratres minores, ibique divina officia celebrare pro animabus predictis”.

²⁴ See Pecorini (1996-1997, pp. 77, 82); cited by Cooper (2021, p. 39, note 71).

²⁵ Transcribed by Maccioni (1771, p. 104): “Et in dicto eodem casu iudicamus, et legamus pro salute animae nostrae, et antecessorum nostrorum, et dictorum nostrorum heredum, quod ad honorem, et reverentiam Omnipotentis Dei, et Beatae Sanctae Clarae constituatur, et aedificetur in loco nostro Collis Salvetti, et in domibus ipsius loci unum monasterium dominarum ordinis Sanctae Clarae. Cui monasterio iudicamus, et legamus pro dotibus, et elemosina in perpetuum sine temporis definitione casu predicto…”

²⁶ Pecorini (2005, p. 376); Cooper (2021, p. 39, note 71). Fazio’s Collesalvetti bequest would only be enacted “in dicto casu mortis dictorum filiorum nostrorum sine filiis maribus legittimis” (Maccioni, 1771, pp. 102-103).

²⁷ Maccioni (1771, p. 104): “In quo quidem monasterio recludantur, et sint tot moniales, quot de fructibus dictarum possessionum, et bonorum cum quatuor fratribus ordinis minorum, qui ibi continue sint, stent, et habitent pro divinis officiis celebrandis, et cum servientibus necessariis, et oportunis vivere possint, et eorum vitam ducere oportunam”.

²⁸ Maccioni (1771, pp. 88-90), and Pecorini Cignoni (2005, pp. 381-382). In the papal letter addressed to Count Fazio dated 22 February 1331 which transferred San Martino to the Clarissans, Pope John XXII asked the nuns to maintain four priests at the canonica “qui in eadem ecclesia ipsius missas et alia divina officia celebrent et ministrent ecclesiastica sacramenta”; see Pecorini (2005, p. 380). An arrangement that, as Pecorini notes, would be superseded by the new ‘conventino’ of male friars.

²⁹ Pisa, Archivio di Stato, Codex Agnesinus, fol. 5v; Pecorini (2005, p. 381).

³⁰ Maccioni (1771, p. 89): “Et volumus dari, et erogari de dictis nostris bonis in subsidium cori ecclesiae Sancti Martini predicti, et pro prefectione dicti altaris majoris ecclesiae Sancti Martini libras quadringentas suprascriptae monetae, quae librae quadringente dentur, et erogentur tunc, et quando dictus corus fieret, et non ante, et quae librae quadringentae deveniant, et devenire debeant ad hoc ut expendantur in subsidium dicti cori, et perfectionem dicti altaris tantum, tunc et quando dictus corus fieret, Operario, seu Operariis eligendo, seu eligendis a populo Cappellae Sancti Martini predicti, et non alii personae, nisi ipsis Operariis, ut predicitur”.

³¹ Pecorini (2005, p. 382), and for a full transcription, see Maccioni (1771, p. 89): “Et qui sacerdos permanendus, vel deputandus ad servitium dicti altaris dicta de causa eligatur per nostros heredes. Et si heredes nostri morerentur sine hereditate, vel heredibus masculini sexus, electio hujusmodi sacerdotis devolvatur ad Abbatissam monasterii Sancti Martini predicti quae erit pro tempore, et ad Abbatissam Omnium Sanctorum prope Pisas, quae erit pro tempore. Et quae Abbatissae dictum sacerdotem habeant, possint, et debeant eligere, et confirmare in sacerdotem dicti altaris, dummodo in confirmatione ipsius sacerdotis, et dictae electionis de eo faciendae in dicti altari interveniat consensus, et voluntas Guardiani loci fratrum minorum Sancti Francisci de Pisis, et Guardiani Sancti Martini praedicti, qui tunc erunt pro tempore, sine quorum Guardianorum expresso consensu, et voluntate dictus talis sacerdos in dicto altari confirmari non possit”.

³² For the history of San Martino, see Paliaga and Renzoni (1991, pp. 160-164).

³³ See note 30 above for this passage from Fazio’s will.

³⁴ On the patronage of chapels at San Martino in the fourteenth century, see Pecorini (2005, pp. 386-389); for the church’s architecture, see Flora and Pecorini (2006, pp. 62-64), including a ground plan as Fig. 1.

³⁵ The construction of the choir can be fixed to 1372 by an agreement that the nuns reached with Ser Piero di Ser Simone da Sancasciano to build the choir with the funds that Ser Piero had originally given for his altar of the Annunciation in the church, see Pecorini (2005, p. 382), with further discussion at pp. 384-386 on the reservation of the choir for use by the nuns and the view it gave them of the high altar.

³⁶ See note 30 above.

³⁷ Pope John XXII’s concession of San Martino in 1331 foresaw a community of 40 nuns, although local documentation suggests that the size of the convent peaked at just under 30 nuns between the 1340s and the 1360s, see Pecorini Cignoni (2005, pp. 375, 394). For the 1312 list of 22 nuns at Santa Chiara, San Gimignano, see Cooper (2021, p. 35, note 53).

³⁸ The friars of San Martino sent their guardian, lector, and confessor to the Tuscan provincial chapter in 1399 and the convent’s guardian and lector attended the 1408 meeting, see Papini (1797, pp. 92, 95).

³⁹ It is tempting to speculate on the reason why the copy may have been made in March 1304, presumably for the Clarissans given that it was preserved amongst their other parchments. We know that at some point between January 1300 and July 1305 Pardoccio di Ser Bonifazio professed as a Franciscan friar, probably following the death of his wife Bilia, and this may have occasioned the copying of his original donation.

⁴⁰ The notary repeats “dictum” twice here.