The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy

In the age before Gutenberg's printing press, preaching was the most important means of mass communication and persuasion in Europe. Dominicans and Franciscans, the major preaching orders of the period, served as the influential information disseminators, opinion makers, and power wielders. Franco Mormando's The Preacher's Demons takes a fascinating look at an enormously popular public figure of early-15th-century Italy, Franciscan friar Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444), and his response to three of the most critical social issues of his time: witchcraft, sodomy, and Judaism.

Mormando, an assistant professor of Italian at Boston College, consciously directs his study to both scholars and the educated public by including introductory information that helps the reader make sense of what Bernardino is saying and doing within the larger realm of the historical period and the theoretical issues in question. As a result, The Preacher's Demons presents not only an insightful portrayal of Bernardino and his 40 years of public speaking, but also of the marked upsurge in the demonization and persecution of three groups that challenged the moral sensibilities of early-15th-century Italian society. A competent translator, Mormando includes numerous excerpts from Bernardino's sermons and contemporary illustrations depicting Bernardino at work. Though his prose is tediously academic at times, Mormando nevertheless uses this biography of a flamboyant preacher to present a thoroughly researched and insightful examination of the people and events of the quattrocento. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack