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This article aims to re-examine the frescoes in the Selvascura hermitage in Bassiano, one of the medieval pictorial contexts created in caves in Lower Lazio, both from an iconographic and stylistic point of view. In the past, the paintings aroused some attention from local connoisseurs, but they collected a barely timid interest in critical publications. The carried out research revealed the existence of a link between the iconographic choices made in the cave paintings and the Greek theological literature, especially the Heavenly Ladder of St. John Climacus, known by the Franciscan Spirituals thanks to the translations by Angelo Clareno. Therefore, it is possible to suggest a new iconological interpretation of the frescoes on the right side of the cave and to overcome the traditional approach that considered the decoration of this hermitage as a mere juxtaposition of votive panels. Furthermore, an unpublished painting inspired by one of the apologues told by Barlaam to the Indian prince Josaphat has been identified and it can be added to the small list of monumental works with this theme related to the Italian Middle Age. This paper explains also all the documents from the current archives of the Soprintendenza concerning these frescoes and their preservative history from the 70s to the 90s of the XX century. Finally, an accurate analysis of the stylistic features and the comparison with other pictorial and mosaic works from Rome and the rest of Lazio allow to date back the paintings to the period between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century and to recognize the style of unknown artists trained in the school of Cavallini, very close to the Magister Conxolus’s lesson.

The manuscript 1167 of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma, dated at the beginning of the 15th century, incorporates a vulgarization of the most famous work of Fray Angelo Clareno: the Liber Chronicarum sive tribulationum ordinis minorum. The author, at the beginning of the 14th century, set out to reconstruct the history of the Order of minors from Francisco to his days, with a dichotomous reading of his own history: on the one hand, the true followers of the founding father would be found, and by another, those who betrayed their intentions and their religion. In this manuscript, not only the complete work of the friar is incorporated, but fifteen miniatures representing different scenes are added. The objective of this intervention is to analyze some episodes of violence, linked to martyrdom and confinement and the way in which these situations are represented in images. To study the representations is also to examine the relations of force that were being disputed within the Order. To this end, qualitative tools of discourse analysis that we understand central will be used to determine the nature of the story, its intention and the universe of representations it embodies. Through this instrument we will focus on the study of the semantic field, the analysis of allegories and narrative and artistic constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the links between the Franciscan heresy of the Fraticelli and the Latin territories of Greece in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. It argues that the early involvement of Franciscan dissidents, like Angelo Clareno, with the lands of Latin Romania played an important role in the development of the Franciscan movement of dissent, on the one hand by allowing its enemies to associate them with the disobedient Greek Church and on the other by establishing havens where the dissidents were relatively safe from the persecution of the Inquisition and whence they were also able to send missionaries back to Italy to revive the movement there. In doing so, the article reviews all the known information about Fraticelli communities in Greece, and discovers two hitherto unknown references, demonstrating that the sect continued to exist in Greece during the Ottoman period, thus outlasting the Fraticelli communities of Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changeable politics of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini (c.1262/3–1342), negotiator and pope-maker, have been explained for over a century as the expression of his independent character and antagonistic relationships. Significant moments in his early career are interpreted as deliberate opposition to his own family's policies. This generalisation does his political acumen and familial loyalty a disservice. In particular, the rationale for his political decisions has previously been relied upon in explanations for his support of the Spiritual Franciscans, reformers and sometime separatists within the Franciscan Order. The cardinal's impact on the group has likewise been understated, as scholars have largely focused on their spokesmen's intellectual output, with limited investigation of the political support that enabled their survival. Orsini was connected to the group's spokesmen at the papal court at Avignon, including the prolific author Angelo Clareno (c.1250–c.1337). Close examination of Clareno's letters allows for a reinterpretation of the relationship. Orsini family documents reframe the relationship as part of an established familial tradition of Franciscan patronage. In this larger picture, the impetus for the cardinal's idiosyncratic patronage of the Spirituals becomes, instead, a small strand in the much larger network of familial obligations and patronage responsibilities. This also sheds further light on the fourteenth-century papal curia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]