Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo di Jenne, 1199 or c.1185 - 1261)

Lot 28
11.12.2024 14:00UTC +00:00
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ID 1349747
Lot 28 | Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo di Jenne, 1199 or c.1185 - 1261)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo di Jenne, 1199 or c.1185 - 1261)
Papal bull to the podestà and council of Florence, informing them of the grant of the monastery of San Miniato al Monte to the nuns of Monticello, Lateran Palace,10 May 1256
In Latin. 20 lines in a papal documentary script on vellum, one membrane, 301 x 376mm, several endorsements on verso; lead seal, diameter 39mm, on rope cords, detached from the document.

Granting the monastery of San Miniato in Florence to the Poor Clares of Monticello. In an elaborate preamble, Alexander evokes the need to guard the 'fragile vessels of the handmaids of Christ' against 'external troubles and temporal disturbances' by keeping them removed from the 'tumult of the world': so, 'considering that the place in which the daughters of Christ, the Abbess and Convent of the Monastery of Monticello of the Order of Saint Damian of the Diocese of Florence, now dwell, their solitary removal from the Florentine City has diminished their daily comforts, without which the infirmity of the present life does not subsist', Alexander has decided to grant them the monastery of San Miniato in Florence, from which the current Benedictine abbot and monks are to be removed and placed in other monasteries of their order. He commands the Canon of Bologna to execute this order, and requests that the Florentine authorities offer their support.

The monastery at Monticello had been founded by the future Pope Gregory IX (Alexander IV's uncle) in 1219 for the order of Poor Clares: this was during the lifetime of St Clare, who died only three years before the present bull, in 1253, and was canonised by Alexander IV less than a year before, on 26 September 1255. It is not clear that the transfer of the monastery of San Miniato to the Poor Clares ever took place: initially a Benedectine house, it later joined the Cluniac congregation and passed to the Olivetan congregation in 1373. The text is published, with a few variants, in Sanctae Ecclesiae Florentinae monumenta (1758), pp.1389-40.
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