5 This is an example in the Talmud of Kabbalistic man-as-god mentality.
6 Brian M. McCall, The Church and the Usurers: Unprofitable Lending for the Modern Economy (Ave Maria University, 2013), pp. 66 and 69.
7 A financial loss incurred by the creditor during the time his money was loaned out, rather than being put into some other investment. As a result of damnum emergens it was theorized that the lender was “entitled” to be paid interest. This could be legitimate, viz. when a simple loan without usury went unpaid and the debtor owed the creditor the amount loaned; or it could become a loophole-exception to the moral law against usury from which permission for charging interest on money was derived. Thomas Aquinas opposed damnum emergens exceptions, ruling that the lender should have foreseen the consequences of making the loan.
8 Lucrum cessans: (Lost potential); the loss of a profit which a lender might otherwise have gained from his money if he had not loaned it to a debtor. Under lucrum cessans a charge for a loan of money was justified as “damages,” on the basis that the creditor had reserved his money for the debtor instead of putting it into some other investment. St. Thomas Aquinas “denied the lender’s right to demand compensation for possible lost profit, since doing so involved selling what had only been probable, rather than real existence. He wrote, ‘one should not sell something which one has not yet got and which one may be prevented in many ways from getting.”
9 Ibid., McCall, p. 70.
10 Ibid., p. 77, emphasis supplied.
11 Richard A. Goldwaithe, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (2011), pp. 251.
12 Ibid., Goldwaithe, pp. 250-251.
13 Ibid., pp. 252-254.
14 Greg Steinmetz, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger (2015), pp. 107-11.
15 Philipp Robinson Rossner, introduction to On Commerce and Usury (Anthem Press, 2015), pp. 20-21.
16 The Provincial Letters (1997), p. 71
17 Strauss, Hauptstucke und Artikel christlicher Lehre wider den unchristlichen Wucher.
18 Strauss, Das Wucher zu nehmen (1524).
19 According to University of Regensburg Prof. Hans Schwarz, Luther qualified this as follows: “…this does not include those…who do not want to work…It also does not mean giving if you do not have what you yourself need, nor does it mean to give away everything, because then you could not give anything tomorrow if need arises. Freely giving should not imply that one becomes a beggar. It is also not so that one reaps benefits from it, or is celebrated for this deed.” Cf. Schwarz, True Faith in the True God (Augsburg Fortress Press, 2015), p. 260.
20 Walter I. Brandt, Luther’s Works, v. 45 (Muhlenberg Press, 1962), p. 305.
21 The Lake Garda Statement, July 7, 2016; signed by Dr. John C. Rao, President of the Roman Forum; Christopher A. Ferrara, President of the American Catholic Lawyers Association; Rev. Richard A. Munkelt, Ph.D; Prof. Dr. Thomas Heinrich Stark; and Michael J. Matt.
22 Psalm 15: 1 & 5.
23 The Arena Chapel is so called because it is situated on land where in ancient times stood a Roman amphitheater, or “arena,” located just outside the walls of the “old city” of Padua.
24 The events described in Luke 1: 26-39 are referred to in Catholicism as the “Annunciation.”
25 Usury in Christendom: The Mortal Sin that Was and Now is Not, pp. 345-346.
26 Cf. Vatican Library, MS lat. 7592; and Vergilio Gamboso, Testimonianze minori su S. Antonio (2001).
27 Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Usurer’s Heart (2008), pp. 39-40 and 174. “Anthony excoriates usurers in a number of other sermons, including those on the Feast of the Nativity (Sermones, ed. Costa, 3:5); the first Sunday in Lent (1:69,71); the Second Sunday in Advent (2:482-83); the third Sunday in Advent (2:502); the ninth Sunday after Pentecost (2:25), the tenth Sunday after Pentecost (2:40); the Feast of St. Stephen (3:18-20); the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter (3:123); and the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist (3:267).” Ibid., p. 174.
28 Ibid., p. 40. Of course Anthony was not alone in his fury toward lenders who charged interest. In a Lenten sermon, the Dominican Jacobus de Voragine (1230-July, 1298), the eventual Archbishop of Genoa and reputed compiler of the famed collection of the lives of the saints known as The Golden Legend, stated that a lender who takes profit from a borrower “is similar to Judas Iscariot in sin and he will be similar to him in punishment…The usurer will not live in heaven, but in hell with the demons, because he ruined mankind.” Sermones quadragesimales: Edizione critica (2005), pp. 242-243.
29 Scrovegni is identified by Dante having alluded to the sow azure on the Scrovegni coat of arms: “And then I heard (from one whose neat, white sack was marked in azure by a pregnant sow): ‘What are you after in this awful hole?” (The Divine Comedy, translated by Robin Kirkpatrick [Penguin Books, 2013]), p. 76. The “white sack” is shown by Dorothy L. Sayers to have been a usurer’s money purse, and the seventh circle of hell in this scene is inhabited by Florentine usurers. Cf. Sayers, Dante Hell (Penguin Books, 2001), p. 111.
30 Ursula Schlegel, “On the Picture Program of the Arena Chapel’” in Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes (1995), p. 185.
31 Giuseppe Gennari, Annali della Citta di Padova (1804), volume III, p. 89.
32 Pope Benedict XI, In evangelium D. Matthaei, 11. col. 1.
33 “As can be gathered from the Bulls of Gregory IX and Urban V: ‘No one is to be received into the order…who either has gained any other good through usurious wickedness, or through other illicit or unjust means for himself or for others who succeed him by will or intestate, if he does not first make restitution of everything he holds illicitly or unjustly…’ Thus the membership of Enrico in his order by itself means such a break with the habits of his father that, according to the customs of the Church, it must have considered it an act of contrition. We may also consider the construction of the church as such an act.” Schlegel, op. cit., p. 188, n. 17.
34 Schlegel, op. cit., pp. 187-189.
35 Benjamin G. Kohl, “The Scrovegni in Carrara Padua: And Enrico’s Will,” in Apollo: The International Magazine of the Arts (December, 1995).
36 Cf. for example, Mary C. Mansfield, The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth Century France (1995).
37 Cf. Derbes and Sandona, The Usurer’s Heart, op. cit.
38 These were the “Spirituals” who were faithful and zealous for the original teaching of St. Francis of Assisi concerning wealth and the scourge of avarice.
39 Eamon Duffy, Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes (2006), p. 159.
40 Ibid.
41 Edward Peters, Jan. 15, 2017, canonlawblog.wordpress.com/.
42 With regard to the 1917 and 1983 Codes of Canon Law, the ambiguity of the 1917 Code permitted usury to flourish as usual. Canon 1294 of the 1983 Code, written when, then as now, usury dominated the world of investment, orders that ecclesiastical monies must be carefully invested—without issuing a word of caution against the ubiquity of usurious investments. Canon lawyers of the Church of Rome have interpreted the 1983 Code as permission for lending money at interest.
Chapter XVII
A Prophecy Fulfilled
“Bartolomeo Brandano da Petroio of Siena (1488-1554) was born to a peasant family in Petroio, in the domain of Siena, presumably in 1488; his father was named Savino, the mother Meia, short for Bartolomea. It is uncertain whether the surname Carosi or Garosi, with which his descendants were known, among them the painter Ansehno…was already in use at this time. (His) nickname (was) Brandano, with which he was known during his preaching. The earliest records date from an autobiography, dictated at the end of his life to a follower, the Augustinian ‘John the Baptist,’ covering the years 1526 to 1535. It was during Lent of 1526 which established his conversion, occasioned by listening to a sermon of Brother Serafino from Pistoia, after which Brandano was converted from a life of ‘great blasphemy, full of every vice,’ which he exchanged for a preaching mission to ‘take back and cal
l to penance wretched and obstinate sinners.’ There followed heavenly visions of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and some say, even the stigmata. He became an apocalyptic preacher of doom and he was initially greeted by blatant mockery; persecuted and ridiculed though this did not discourage him from his mission. Exhorting prelates, clergy and people with a crucifix in one hand and a skull in the other, pronouncing penance, prophecy and invective in rhyme that made him famous, he attracted crowds willing to heed his drastic exhortations. Throughout the course of his itinerant preaching, which lasted about a decade, he preached in Rome, Narni and Siena in 1527; Orvieto and perhaps in Camerino in the following year; Volterra in 1529; in Tuscany in 1530; in 1531 in Atri; Bologna and Modena in 1532; and in the same years, repeatedly, to Loreto on a pilgrimage to the sanctuary, and in Spain, to Santiago de Compostela in 1530, the year in which it was remembered that he was in Madrid; the following year, he was reported in Zaragoza; in 1532. He apparently preached in Germany, ‘where he would also argue with many Lutherans.’ He expressed the sufferings of the common people with exhortations to sorrow for sin and penance, dramatic references to the passion of Christ, and announcements of impending disasters.” 1
Brandano had a particular antipathy toward the rise of the usury banks which he blamed on the Medici. Whether because, since the days of Dante’s Inferno, the sterility of usury was regarded as equivalent to sodomy, or due to having knowledge of actual homosexual acts by Medici Pope Clement VII, during Lent of 1527 he preached against the pontiff in Rome. For his trouble, Clement had him tossed into the Tiber river chained inside a chest. Legend has it that he survived the ordeal and emerged from the water unharmed.
During Holy Week in the same year Rome experienced what were regarded as ominous portents, including lighting strikes on the Vatican. Consequently, it was not a relaxed atmosphere when, as Clement VII was, per the annual papal custom, blessing the crowds on Maundy Thursday, Brandano da Petroio approached him and shouted, “Bastardo sodomita! Per i tuoi peccati Roma sarà distrutta” (Sodomite bastard! For your sins Rome will be destroyed”).
He was immediately seized by Clement’s Swiss Guards and jailed, an arrest which did not sit well with the large crowds of penitents gathered at St. Peter’s. For fear of disorder, he was released to fanfare, as “a show of mercy” by the pope. This was a ruse, however. Three days later, on Easter Sunday, the pope had him quietly apprehended and imprisoned. Concerning whether it was intended that this should be a sentence of life imprisonment, the historical record is silent. What we do know is that a few weeks after Brandano had thundered his prophecy in the face of Clement VII, and while he languished in the pope’s prison, the armies of the night approached the gates of Rome. Over the next several months the city would experience death and destruction on a scale seldom seen since the fall of the Roman empire and the invasion of the pagan hordes. Brandano da Petroio’s prophecy was fulfilled in what has come to be known to posterity as the “Sack of Rome.” Roberto de Mattei provides this account:
“On Sunday May 9, 1527, an army descending from Lombardy reached the Janiculum. The (Catholic Holy Roman) Emperor, Charles V, enraged at Pope Clement VII’s political alliance with his adversary, the King of France, Francis I, had moved an army against the capital of Christendom. That evening the sun set for the last time on the dazzling beauties of Renaissance Rome. About 20,000 men, Italians, Spaniards and Germans, among whom were the Landsknecht mercenaries of the Lutheran faith, were preparing to launch an attack on the Eternal City. Their commander had given them license to sack the city.
“The Swiss Guards lined up around the Vatican Obelisk, resolute in their vow to remain faithful unto death. The last of them sacrificed their lives at the high altar in St. Peter’s Basilica. Their resistance allowed the Pope along with some cardinals, the chance of escape. Across the Passetto di Borgo, the connecting road between the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo, Clement VII reached the fortress, the only bastion left against the enemy. From the height of the terraces, the Pope witnessed the terrible slaughter which initiated with the massacre of those who were crowding around the gates of the Castle looking for refuge, while the sick of Santo Spirito Hospital in Sassia were massacred, pierced by spears and swords.
“This unlimited license to steal and kill lasted eight days and the occupation of the city nine months. We read in a Veneto account of May 10, 1527, reported by Ludwig von Pastor, 2 “Hell is nothing in comparison with the appearance Rome currently presents” The religious were the main victims of the Landsknechts’ fury. Cardinals’ palaces were plundered, churches profaned, priests and monks killed or made slaves, nuns raped and sold at markets. Obscene parodies of religious ceremonies were seen, chalices for Mass were used to get drunk amidst blasphemies. Sacred Hosts were roasted in a pan and fed to animals, the tombs of saints were violated, heads of the Apostles, such as St. Andrew, were used for playing football on the streets. A donkey was dressed up in ecclesiastical robes and led to the altar of a church. The priest who refused to give it Communion was hacked to pieces. The City was outraged in its religious symbols and in its most sacred memories.’ 3
“…On October 17 the imperial troops abandoned a city in ruins. A Spanish eyewitness gives us a terrifying picture of the City a month after the Sack: ‘In Rome, the capital of Christendom, not one bell is ringing, the churches are not open, Mass is not being said and there are no Sundays nor feast days. The rich merchant shops are used as horse stables, the most splendid palaces are devastated, many houses burnt, in others the doors and windows broken up and taken away, the streets transformed into dung-heaps. The stench of cadavers is horrible: men and beasts have the same burials; in churches I saw bodies gnawed at by dogs. I don’t know how else to compare this, other than to the destruction of Jerusalem. Now I recognize the justice of God, who does not forget, even if He arrives late. In Rome all sins were committed quite openly: sodomy, simony, idolatry, hypocrisy and deceit; thus we cannot believe that this all happened by chance; but for Divine justice”. 4
“…Everyone understood that it was a chastisement from Heaven. There were no lack of premonitory warnings: lightening striking the Vatican and the appearance of a hermit, Brandano da Petroio, venerated by the crowds as ‘Christ’s Madman,’ who, on Holy Thursday 1527, while Clement VII was blessing the crowds in St. Peter’s shouted: “Sodomite bastard, for your sins Rome will be destroyed. Confess and convert, for in fourteen days the wrath of God will fall upon you and the City.” 5
Brandano had been freed. He was released “during the sack by the mercenaries who seemed to have an extraordinary respect…”
After the rampaging troops of the Holy Roman Emperor departed, calm was restored and the destruction in Rome was surveyed. In the following March (1528), Brandano followed Pope Clement to Orvieto, where the remains of the papal court had been temporarily established, and haunted him there with more public preaching against his pontificate; only now the pope did not hazard to harm him.
Brandano’s polemic against the rich and the corrupt continued to take the form of dramatic gestures of revolt and menace: as in Zaragoza, in 1531, when he called on the surrender of the usurious ‘loot of all the religious and the rich.’ So too in Bologna, the following year, when he preached against the clergy collections for the establishment of the monte’ di pietá bank, an institution which he detested. He transformed it into a collection for the poor of Bologna, distributing the monies directly to them. 6
In 1539 the tatterdemalion ceased his peripateticism and settled in Siena, his birthplace, where he enjoyed the protection of the people, and of the local nobility. He is reputed late in life to have joined the Congregation of the Augustinians of Lecceto. He worked in Siena’s hospital of Santa Maria della Scala until he became too weak to do so. He died of natural causes on May 24, 1554, aged sixty-eight.
His body lay in state for three days in the Church of St. Martin before his burial, and here we encounter something of a minor mystery. Brandano asked that the loc
ation of his grave be left unknown, though whether from reasons of humility, or apprehension over the likelihood of the desecration of his remains by his enemies, has not been determined.
In 1612 local church authorities in Siena issued an edict proclaiming him “Blessed Brandano.” This recognition of his sanctity was never confirmed by any pontiff however, and therefore he remains officially, perhaps as he would wish to be known, simply as Brother Brandano.
Historian Judith Hook has penned his most pithy epitaph: “Bartolomeo Carosi da Petroio, known to the Sienese as Brandano (Brendan), whose opposition to urban values was as staunch as any medieval saint. His hatred of the market knew no bounds and he attributed all human misery to banks.” 7
1 Cf. Gaspare De Caro, “Bartolomeo da Petroio, detto Brandano,” in Il Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (1964), vol. 6, pp. 752-755.
2 The History of Popes, (Desclee, Rome 1942), vol. IV, 2, p. 261.
3 Cf. Andre Chastel, The Sack of Rome, (Einaudi, Turin, 1983); and Umberto Roberto, The Sack of the City from the Gauls to the Landsknechts, (Laterza, Bari, 2012).
4 L. von Pastor, History of Popes, op. cit., p. 278.
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