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Matthew of Agrigento. The political and religious engagement of a franciscan... 499

had pacified the opposing factions . A few years later, he had inter-
82
vened within the Sicilian city contexts. But, it was especially in Vic and
Valencia that the observant friar was able to elicit mass forgiveness, as
the instruments of peace well betray .
83
It is not known how much Matthew’s future was affected by the
environment in which he was born and lived his youth. It is known
that, between the 1370s and 1380s, Agrigento was a city marked by
strong social and economic tensions, also due to the presence of a
discrete merchant class. It is a fact, however, that the Franciscan had
come closer, perhaps already in Aragon, to the ideals of the Observants
and then especially, once he arrived in northern Italy, to the positions
of Bernardine of Siena. In this way, Matthew, acquiring that broad
technical and content instrumentarium, matured in the context of the
Italian minoritic dialectic, carried out a preaching pregnant with reli-
gious, political, economic and social concepts . A preaching that,
84
while condemning usury, embezzlement, and profits from meretri-
ciousness, also recommended the proper use of money and the need
for concord . It is as if he, having lived his youth in Agrigento, in a
85
city torn apart by the struggles of opposing factions and strongly
marked by economic tensions, set out to acquire the necessary tools

82 B. Matthaei Agrigentini OFM., Sermones varii cit., p. 143.
83 Aca, Real Cancilleria, Registros 3170, cc. 110v-111r. (cf. A. Amore, La predi-
cazione del B. Matthew cit., pp. 302-303), and, then, Id., Nuovi documenti cit., pp.
15-16.
84 On the subject see the fundamental works of G. Todeschini, Un trattato di
economia politica francescana: il “De emptionibus et venditionibus, de usuris, de re-
stitutionibus” di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo,
Roma 1980; Id., Usus raptus. Denaro e merci in Giovanni da Capistrano, in M.C. De
Matteis (a cura di), A Ovidio Capitani. Scritti degli allievi bolognesi, Bologna 1990,
pp. 158-188; Id., I vocabolari dell’analisi economica fra Alto e Basso Medioevo: dai
lessici della disciplina monastica ai lessici antiusurari, «Rivista storica italiana», 110
(1998), pp. 781-833; Id., Ordini mendicanti e linguaggio etico-politico, in Etica e po-
litica. Le teorie dei frati mendicanti nel due e trecento. Atti del XXVI Convegno In-
ternazionale (Assisi, 15-17 ottobre 1998), Fondazione CISAM, Spoleto 1999, pp. 3-
27; Id., Il prezzo della salvezza. Lessici medievali del pensiero economico, Nuova
Italia Scientifica, Roma 1994. In this sense, the contributions of Giovanni Cecca-
relli are able to offer ideas for further reflection on these issues: Id., Usura e casi-
stica creditizia nella Summa Astesana: un esempio di sintesi delle concezioni etico-
economiche francescane, in M. Molina, G. Scarcia (a cura di), Ideologia del credito
fra Tre e Quattrocento: dall’Astesano ad Angelo da Chivasso. Atti del convegno in-
ternazionale (Archivio Storico, Palazzo Mazzola, Asti, 9-10 giugno 2000), Centro
Studi sui Lombardi e sul credito nel Medioevo, Asti 2001, pp. 15-58; Id., L’usura
nella trattatistica teologica sulle restituzioni dei male ablata (XIII-XIV secolo), in D.
Quaglioni, G. Todeschini, G.M. Varanini (a cura di), Credito e usura fra teologia,
diritto e amministrazione. Linguaggi a confronto (sec. XII-XVI), École française de
Rome, Roma 2005, pp. 3-23.
85 Cf. P. Evangelisti, Fede, mercato, comunità cit., p. 632.

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