Кравцова Е.С. Ante oculos audientis: экфрасис и коллективная память францисканского ордена в 40-е годы XIII века // Vox medii aevi. 2021. Vol. 1(8). С. 65–93. URL: https://voxmediiaevi.com/2021-1-kravtsova
DOI: 10.24412/2587-6619-2021-1-65-93
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Elena Kravtsova
Candidate of Sciences (History), Research Fellow, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
kravtsova.kes@gmail.com
Ante oculos audientis: ekphrasis and the collective memory of the Franciscan Order in the 1240s
The author of the article focuses her attention on the life of Francis of Assisi, Memoriale in desiderio animae, written from 1244 to 1246 by Franciscan Thomas of Celano (c. 1200 – c. 1265), a rhetorician and author of several official hagiographies of Francis of Assisi. Basing on the link between ekphrasis and the art of memory established by the researchers, the author answers the questions: 1) from which texts the images used by Thomas of Celano could be borrowed; 2) where the images described in the technique of ekphrasis are located in the spaces of the text and what their functions were; 3) whether there is a connection between ekphrasis and the art of memory in Francis of Assisi’s life and, if so, what practice of its use could be.
As a result, the author concludes that the metaphors used by Thomas of Celano were borrowed from at least three sources: the Bible, romances and Cistercian texts. Revisited by the Franciscan author, they embodied various aspects of Francis of Assisi’s image on his way to Christ and in the management of the Order, as well as the different kinds of power held by Francis of Assisi – and then his “true children”, namely, the power of the mother which was manifested within a private space, it was the power of protection; and the father’s power, judicial and public, actively transforming the world around us. These images helped the Franciscans to realize their identity and exclusivity, in comparison with both the traditional communities of the Catholic Church, and with other mendicant orders, which appeared in large numbers in Western Europe in the first half of the XIII century.
Keywords: ars memoriae; ekphrasis; Francis of Assisi; Franciscan Order’s institutionalization; Memoriale in desiderio animae; power; rhetoric; Thomas of Celano; Vita Secunda.