Parole e scritture per costruire un santo. Sant'Antonio dei frati minori nei sermoni medievali (1232-1350)

The book is an innovative research on the Latin sermons dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua in the Middle Ages, from his canonization in 1232 to about 1350. Through the study of more than 200 sermons on the Saint, the book reconstructs the path and motivations that prompted the Friars Minor and other relevant members of the Church, such as two cardinals, to spread devotion to Anthony and to use his figure to explain the functions of the Order within the societas christiana. The introduction and the six chapters consisting the first part of the book lead the reader to find out interpretation that the friars gave to their own pastoral function in the late Middle Ages, in the light of the founding virtues of Franciscanism: humility, poverty, obedience. The volume concludes with a substantial repertoire of Latin sermons, mostly unpublished, which witness the rapid and enduring fortune of Antony's holiness throughout medieval Europe. Ranging from the history of homiletics to that of the Order and of the Church, to theology to history of culture, this rich and suggestive route is an important piece for the reconstruction of Franciscan identity, through the lens of preaching on one of its most important saints, the one that even today counts millions of faithful around the world: Anthony of Franciscan Order.