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Matthew of Agrigento. The political and religious engagement of a franciscan... 485

this decade, in fact, Duke Martino di Montblanc, by executing Andrew
Chiaromonte, had put an end to the lordship he exercised over Agri-
gento . It is not known whether the Gimena family was involved in
10
the clashes that occurred during this period in the city between the
different consortiums, which were strongly interested in filling the
power vacuum that had arisen. In this sense, it seems highly likely
that these episodes, marked by numerous bloody events and the ea-
gerness of the different factions to accumulate power and wealth, had
conditioned Matthew’s future choices . It does not appear, then, to be
11
a coincidence that the Agrigentine, who had probably already joined
the ranks of the Order of Friars Minor, had, in the early years of the
fifteenth century, moved closer and closer to the observance move-
ment. A movement that – if at first it set out to follow the Franciscan
rule in all its rigor – during the first two decades of the fifteenth cen-
tury, appeared resolutely committed to advancing an urban pastoral,
aimed at resolving the conflicts that arose within the cities and con-
demning the profits derived from usury, fraud, whoring and the trade
in the sacred .
12
An unconfirmed report would have it that Matthew joined the ob-
servance once he arrived in Aragon, from which, at an unspecified
date, he moved to northern Italy . Here, he would come into contact
13
with Bernardine of Siena, beginning to follow him during his itinerant
sermons. It was certainly next to the Tuscan friar that Matthew was
able to acquire the broad technical and content toolkit, which he used

10 Asp, Real Cancelleria, Registro 21, cc. 175v-176v.
11 The city of Agrigento, during the 15th century, was repeatedly addressed by P.
Sardina, Il labirinto della memoria. Clan familiari, potere regio e amministrazione cit-
tadina ad Agrigento tra Duecento e Quattrocento, Salvatore Sciascia editore, Caltanis-
setta-Roma 2011, and Ead., Tessuto urbano, ceti sociali e governo cittadino ad Agri-
gento nei secoli XIV e XV, in V. Caminneci (a cura di), Vivere nell’età di mezzo. Archeo-
logia e Medioevo nel territorio agrigentino, Regione Siciliana, Palermo 2011, pp. 24-
34. Regarding the persistent state of tension in fifteenth-century Sicily, see A.F.C.
Ryde, The incidence of crime in Sicily in the mid fifteenth century: the evidence from
composition record, in T. Dean, K.J.P. Lowe (eds.), Crime, society and the law in Re-
naissance Italy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1994, pp. 59-73.
12 The figure is evident from the analysis of the sermons of Bernardine of Siena
and his disciples. Regarding the sermons of Matthew of Agrigento, see, again, es-
pecially to B. Matthaei Agrigentini OFM., Sermones varii cit. Instead, for the ser-
mons of the Sienese, see Bernardino da Siena, Prediche volgari sul campo di Siena
1427, a cura di C. Delcorno, Rusconi, Milano 1989.
13 Regarding Matthew’s presence in Aragon, see P. Tognoletto, Vita del beato Mat-
thew di Agrigento riveduta e corretta dal R.P. Ludovico dott. Mariani O.FM. con prefa-
zione e note di Alessandro Giuliana Alaimo, s.e., Palermo 1955, p. 29. On the prox-
imity of the Agrigentine to Bernardine of Siena, news can first be found in J.B. West,
Andreae de Biliis, O.S.A., Tractatus ad Barcinonenses de litera h in nomine Ihesu,
«Antonianum», 3 (1928), p. 65, and then in S. Gozzo, Studi e ricerche cit., p. 85.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XX - Dicembre 2023
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