Notes from Siena - December 2009
The “Bad Lutheran Traitor” at a Sienese Inn
“[…]Three days earlier, near San Quirico, a German traveler who was walking to a tavern saw a crucifix and a painted Madonna and burned them. The innkeeper Fino shouted at him and the German struck him with a sword. At that moment, a priest traveling from Rome recognized the German as a Lutheran that ‘left signs of his heresy everywhere he went’. The German was arrested. They found on him some printed books and handwritten documents, one of which was an astrological forecast for the year 1588.[…]”
Federico Barbolani di Montauto (Siena) to Francesco de’ Medici (Florence), 23 February 1575. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 1872, fol. 130.
The letter sent by Federico Barbolani di Montauto, Governor of Siena, to Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici described a most disturbing event. For centuries, the Via Romea (or Via Francigena) brought pilgrims from northern France to Rome. Siena owes much of its prosperity to this congested commercial route; it is no surprise that the city was referred to as the “daugh ter of this via”. This document indicates that pilgrims were not the only people on the road. The incident of the German icono clast, who, for unspecified reasons, decided to set a crucifix and a picture of Mary on fire, points to a mild but steady proliferation of Lutheranism in Tuscany. The altercation between the inn keeper Fino and the German traveler turned out to be rather violent. A priest at the inn immediately recognized him as being one who “left signs of his heresy everywhere he went”. Peculiar astrological forecasts for the year 1588 were found in his posses sion. Wars and invasions produced all sorts of pariahs---whether mercenary soldiers or exiles from cities--- that aimlessly roamed the Italian territory in distress. Furthermore, following the Council of Trent (1545-1563), Germans were often (unjustly) labeled “bad Lutheran traitors”. Whether in the guise of religious bigotry or political tension, this acrimony is apparent in Federico Barbolani di Montauto’s account. Times of religious strife were already exploding in Europe ---even in the small Sienese town of San Quirico d’Orcia.
Elena Brizio is a Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena Fellow at the Medici Archive Project. Her book In the Shadow of the Campo: Sienese Women in the Last Republican Century (1450-1550) will be ready for publication in 2010.
