Immagini pussolenti

"The life of man on earth is a militia" is the title of a "figure" from the fourteenth century: a knight, sword drawn, helmet and shield, riding a black horse. 7 doves act as a bulwark, driven by 7 winds that blow from a flying angel: that is, the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, science, piety and fear of God) transmitted by the 7 beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (8 in reality, but the eighth here functions as an explanation of the first) are needed to face the 7 monsters that are preparing to attack the knight: the 7 deadly sins (pride, anger, lust, avarice, envy, gluttony, sloth) with their army of little monsters or minor vices in tow.

It was a “figure” well known to the faithful who crowded a church or a square in the 14th century to listen to the preacher who cited it in his homily. At the disposal of the preachers of the time there was a real handbook of “figures”, a few sheets easy to carry, a compendium of an entire theology library.

The “figure” that accompanies a laude by Jacopone da Todi is instead a bed that rests on 4 feet: the cardinal virtues. The structure of the bed is supported by 12 ropes: the articles of faith. The mattress is a sack of straw: the misery of the human condition. The pillow is the memory of Christ incarnate and dead for love. The sheet is contemplation. The blanket is charity, which brings to completion the loving union with God. The sole purpose of the spiritual purification symbolized by the various parts of the bed is the burning desire for God: the heart "languishes and gives birth to a rapture, to the third heaven it is taken", says Jacopone, that is, the languishing heart gives birth to a rapture that drags it to the third heaven. A true erotic staging that alludes to the "bed of green grass" of the Song of Songs. Which for a disciple of Saint Bernard was "the wood of the cross. In this I am born and I am nourished, I am created and recreated".

The purpose of the medieval "figures" was to fill the space of the soul (intellect, memory and will) to drive out all the others. “Figures” capable of disturbing a “nun” from Pisa, who sees her memory filled with “pussolente image”, her intellect with “ugly similes”, her will with “disordered affections”. The “figures” awaken in her “spirits” of love: «it is appropriate that they vent – ​​she says – by confabulating and speaking with God». What is holding you back? A “little friar” replies: «Let them come out, no longer contain your impetuous spiritual desires». The channel of communication is open. Eros for God flows. The “nun” falls to the ground stunned in a mystical ecstasy, the highest degree of knowledge, other than theological treatises. The mad love of God finally receives in response the mad love of man that God has always patiently awaited at the door of our heart.

Today it takes more to banish from memory the “pussolente images” that intoxicate us at every moment. There is only one left with some power: the silent spectacle of goodness, sought, loved and practiced even at the cost of suffering.


Flaminia Morandi
NP October 2024