Throwing Stones at Friars: The Church of San Francesco in Piacenza

Abstract

In 1278, the Franciscan Order of Piacenza acquired a large piece of land in the center of the city. The land had been confiscated by the commune when the property's former owner had been exiled several years earlier. However, that land was occupied by at least eleven other private and commercial tenants, including the jurisdictions of five different parishes. The friars immediately set to work demolishing the houses, and sealing off the site with a high enclosure wall. They then began construction on a large church and convent. The impact on the economy of the parish churches in loss of charitable revenue was immediate. One month into their project, a representative of the Bishop and Chapter of the Cathedral arrived at the site and denounced the friars in the name of the harm it was inflicting on the surrounding parishes. The friars ignored the warning and the result was their excommunication. Four years later Pope Martin IV sent three delegates to investigate the Franciscans' actions. The inquest that followed was recorded in a detailed manuscript that is preserved in Parma's Archivio di Stato. The document records the testimony of eighteen witnesses, including parish priests, neighboring lay people and workers on the building. Their testimony and the accompanying documentary material allows us to reconstruct the alteration to the economic and urban fabric of the parish community caused by the Franciscans.