Thomas Antonii of Siena

Antonio Nacci (called "Caffarini"), author Legenda Minor of Catherine of Siena , depiction by Francesco Vanni 1596.

Thomas Antonii von Siena ( OP ), better known as Caffarini ( Italian Tommaso di Antonio da Siena “Caffarini” ) (* 1350 in Siena , † 1434 in Venice ), was an Italian clergyman and a confessor of Catherine of Siena .

biography

He was the son of Paula († 1410) and Antonius Naccii († 1398). In 1364 he entered the order of preachers. In 1374 he became a master of logicae.

The Dominicans established their own monastic province of Graecia in 1228 , from which one can conclude that at least a few years earlier there were individual religious branches in the Greek area. Graecia included Sterea Hellas , the Peloponnese and Crete , as a convent statistic from 1306 shows: XII. Provincia Graeciae In ea erant anno MCCCIII hi conventus . In 1397 Thomas Antonii of Siena became Provincial of the Graecia Order.

Hagiography for Catherine of Siena

He is one of a number of preachers who wrote the early accounts of Katharina's life and thus established her hagiographic tradition. From around 1385 to 1395, Raimund von Capua wrote the Legenda major , the first Vita of Catherine. In the first two decades of the fifteenth century Tommaso di Antonio de Senis produced the Legenda minor , an abridged version of the Legenda major and a detailed Libellus de Supplemento . Caffarini was a devoted supporter of Katharina. He was a member of the Dominican community in Siena and was their prior in 1387 and 1388 . In 1380, the year Catherine died, he became director of the Mantellat in Siena. In 1394 he was called to Venice and helped found the Corpus Domini, a monastery for the Venetian Mantellat. Two years later he became its spiritual director and then took on responsibility for the spiritual observance (supervision) of the Mantellat throughout Italy. Together with Bartholomeo Dominici, another high-ranking Dominican from Siena, who was then in Venice, Caffarini vigorously promoted both the interests of the observance movement within the Dominican order and the papal recognition of the Mantellate - the part of the culture Catherine of Siena plays a central role this project. In addition, in Venice - and as a result of the enthusiastic celebration of her cult by local followers - the first formal investigation into the case for Catherine's canonization took place. Caffarini had Catherine of Siena create a woodcut and used the prints to do public relations work for the canonization. In 1398 he returned shortly to Siena to acquire relics , letters, a finger, a tooth and their first habit and to bring them to the Convento di San Domenico di Castello in Venice, which became a center of veneration for Catherine. The feast day of Catherine of Siena, April 29th, was celebrated by the preachers with a great procession and a book burning.

Dominican lay communities

In the 15th century , Dominican third order communities expanded in the course of the observance movement . “The rule of the supposedly forgotten and papally approved third order in 1405 was compiled by Thomas Antonii of Siena with reference to Munio of Zamora and is [...] verifiable from the 15th century [...] Many women's communities took part between the 15th and 18th centuries. Century the rule of the Third Order ”, the text of which begins with the words“ Incipit Regula Fratrum, et Sororum de Penitentia Beati Dominici ”(“ The rule of the brothers and sisters of the Order of the penance of St. Dominic ”) begins.

In 1414 he became prior of the Convento di San Domenico di Castello, and the reliquaries he had acquired were kept in the altar area of ​​the chapel of Santa Maria Maddalena . He was first buried in the monastery of Saints John and Paul, also on Castello . His ashes were later buried in a gold-studded box in the altar area of ​​the Santa Maria Maddalena chapel.

The 16th century frescoes in the chapel La cappella di Santa Caterina in the Basilica di San Domenico (Siena) are by Sodoma and Francesco Vanni . On the right wall we see the liberation of an obsession with Saint Catherine of Vanni (1596, oil on plaster), of which the paintings of the chapel arch ( oil on plaster, not fresco) are depicted by Raimund von Capua and Antonio Nacci (called "Caffarini "), Authors of the Legenda Maior or the Legenda Minor des saints.

Close up from Santa che libera un'ossessa by Francesco Vanni : 1596, oil on plaster Raimund von Capua and Antonio Nacci (called "Caffarini"), authors of the Legenda Maior and the Legenda Minor of Catherine of Siena .

Publications

• Hagiography Catherine of Siena
• Literature by and about Thomas Antonii of Siena in the bibliographic database WorldCat

literature

• Fernanda Sorelli:  Tommaso da Siena. In: Raffaele Romanelli (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 96:  Toja-Trivelli. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2019.

Remarks

1. ↑ Since 1305 the order of preachers also had a female branch, the Mantellates
2. ↑ Bartholomeo Dominici OP [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christian Gottlieb Jöcher, scholars Lexico, 1784, p 934 ; THOMAS ANTONII NACCII DE SENIS (Siena) Filius Antonii Naccii († 1398) et d. Paulae († 1410); dum e contra agnomen “Caffarinus” seu “Caffarini” nullibi a coaequali testimonio traditum ac perperam recentius conflatum, ideoque linquendum. Senis natus (1350 c.), "Quartumdecimum vel circa annum agens" ordinem Praed. ingressus (1364 c.), in conv. Senensi (1373 very fine), ibique logicae magister (1374) et prior (1387-8). Assignatus conv. Bononiensi ad legendas Sent. pro forma (1389), Ianuae (1392). Sepulcro dominico visitato (1394), inde from a. 1395 Venetiis residentiam instituit per 40 fere annos, in conventibus scil.Sanctorum loh. et Pauli et S. Dominici de Castello, utrobique quandoque prior. Provincialis prov. Graeciae (1397) cf. Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi - Volume 4 -, 1970, p. 329 [2]
2. ↑ edited by Rolf Schönberger, Andrés Quero Sánchez, Brigitte Berges, Lu Jiang, Repertory of edited texts from the Middle Ages from the field of philosophy and related areas, p. 3670 , 2012; Johannes Jorgensen, Saint Catherine of Siena, p. 420 [3] ; Tommaso Caffarini, died in 1434, but the work was taken up, though in other shape, by Savonarola, between Francis of Assisi and whom Catherine forms the connecting link. [4]
3. ↑ Gerald Parsons, The Cult of Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in Civil Religion, p. 16
4. ↑ Sul ponte che un tempo attraversava il rio de Castelo nel punto fra la chiesa di San Domenego con quella di San Bortolomio (poi San Francesco da Paula) i Padri Domenicani Inquisitori bruciavano ogni 29 aprile i libri proibiti che avevano raccolto (spessooro comprandoli spese) durante l'anno. [5] [6]
5. ↑ Cf. K.-B. Springer: Sermon in the world. About the history of the Dominican lay people. In: contact. Gift of the Dominicans of the Province of Teutonia 2014, 17–20, 19.
6. ↑ Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna , Delle inscrizioni Veneziane, p. 119 f.