La penitenza tridentina : fonti altomedievali e interpretazione borromaica

This essay explores the relations between the Tridentine penance, its medieval sources and the early modern interpretation promoted by the action of Charles Borromeo in Milan. The article begins with an analysis of the Tridentine debate on confession and penance, as it was filtered by Church handbooks. Next, it focuses on three sources: a small booklet, a preparatory study and an image. The first two texts reveal a direct intervention by Borromeo, while the image allows us to measure Borromeo’s influence on the Catholic shaping and interpretation of penance over the centuries. This image, a 1612-1613 chapel painting by Ferraù da Faenza still preserved in Faenza Cathedral, provides a representation of penance rituals performed by Carlo Borromeo that differs from the iconographic tradition, which was established already around the time of the canonization of the archbishop of Milan (1610). Using this unusual depiction, I establish a connection between the forms of high medieval penance as it was conceived by Louis the Pious and the peculiar form of public penance that was promoted during the pestilence of 1576 in Milan, at the time of Borromeo’s reign. In my conclusion, I argue that, before becoming a saint, Carlo Borromeo was interested in the revival and reenactment of ancient and medieval penance, through the rediscovery of ancient penance laws, and that of what can be called handbooks for confessors.