Dr Andrea Mancini

Profile

I earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology, specialising in religions, from the University of Bologna, where I wrote my dissertation, In the Shadow of the Light: The Concept of Deification in Clement of Alexandria (150–215). Subsequently, I graduated with distinction (110/110 cum laude) from the University of Florence, completing an MA in the History of Religions with a dissertation on The Commentary on Lamentations by Paschasius Radbertus (785–865). I then pursued a second MA in History at the University of Macerata, during which I participated in the Erasmus Programme at the University of Clermont-Ferrand and gained professional experience at the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh. My dissertation for this degree was titled Mutuum, Usury, and Restitution of Usury in the Summa Confessorum of Nicholas of Osimo (1370–1454).

In 2023, I completed a PhD at the University of Leeds with a thesis entitled The Role of Niccolò da Osimo in the Franciscan Observant Reform (1370–1453). My doctoral research was enriched by participation in a summer school on Franciscan Studies in Assisi and internships with the International Medieval Bibliography in Leeds and Brepols Publishing Services in Thessaloniki.

From 2023 to 2024, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the GAČR project Observance Reconsidered: Uses and Abuses of the Reform (Individuals, Institutions, Society) at Palacký University Olomouc. In October 2024, I joined the International Medieval Bibliography as an assistant editor.

Responsibilities

• Assistant Editor of the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB)

Research interests

I research the involvement of religious orders in pastoral care as a tool to understand the impact of religion on medieval society. My thesis investigated the writings of the Observant Franciscan friar Niccolò of Osimo (1370–1453) in order to shed light on the development of the Franciscan Observance within the Order of the friars Minors. Niccolò’s writings deal with providing religious instructions to members of his Order. In his major work, the Quadriga litteralis, Niccolò displays his programme of religious education for his Observant brethren. In addition to Niccolò’s texts, other primary sources I am using are letters and sermons written by the friars of the Order, papal bulls, archival sources, and the Latin chronicles of Bernardino Aquilano, Nikolaus Glassberger, Mariano da Firenze, and Luke Wadding.

Publications

• ‘La Quadriga spirituale e la Quadriga litteralis di Niccolò da Osimo: intertestualità e riscrittura’, Picenum Seraphicum 37 (2023), pp. 71–106 [journal article] 
• 'Bernardino Aquilano's Travels in his Chronicle of the Friars Minor of the Observance', in Path to Salvation: Temporal and Spiritual Journeys by the Mendicant Orders, c. 1370–1740, ed. by Benjamin Hazard (Lausanne: Peter Lang, 2023), pp. 55-82.
• ‘Non omnis divisio mala. Niccolò da Osimo on the Autonomy of the Observant Movement’, Vox Antiqua 12–13 (2018), pp. 201–18.
• ‘Disubbidire, ubbidendo: la doppia obbedienza tra francescani Osservanti e Conventuali (1425-1453)’. Forthcoming in the proceedings of Disobbedire nel Medioevo: tensioni, repressioni, pacificazioni, 11 January 2021, Sapienza University of Rome
• ‘Fra Elemosina e la riscrittura della memoria cittadina a Gualdo Tadino (Gualdo Tadino, 17–19 luglio 2017)’, Francicana 19 (2017), pp. 315–322’

Editorial Contributions

• International Bibliography of Humanism and the Renaissance, Vol. 50 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018) 

Book Reviews:  

• [Franciscan Studies, forthcoming] Francesco Carta. Interpretare Francesco: I frati, i papi e i commenti alla Regola minoritica (secc. XIII–XVI). Sacro/santo, 32. Roma: Viella, 2022. 457 pp. ISBN: 9791254692004. € 38.  

• [Sehepunkte, forthcoming] Fulvio Delle Donne / Victor Rivera Magos / Francesco Violante et al. (a cura di): Chronicon. Domenico di Gravina (= Edizione Nazionale dei Testi Mediolatini d\'Italia, 65), Firenze: SISMEL. Edizioni del Galluzzo 2023, VI + 694 S., italienisch und lateinisch, ISBN 978-88-9290-217-6, EUR 115,00. 

Teaching

I am currently Postgraduate Tutor for ‘Introduction to Medieval Latin’ and ‘Intermediate Medieval Latin’ at the School of History of the University of Leeds. In the same university, I have thought as a tutor at the School of History and at the School of Languages in modules on Medieval Latin, Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Italian Language, and Religion and Culture in the Western Middle Ages.

Memberships

• Royal Historical Society

Seminar and conference papers

• ‘Clarissan Networks and Observant Entanglements: An Investigation on the Fifteenth-Century Rediscovery of the Rule of St Clare’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds (4 July 2023)
• ‘Educating Observant Friars, NIccolò da Osimo’s Quadriga litteralis’, Comenius University (Bratislava), MECERN (27 April 2023)
• ‘Episcopal Dignity, Pride, and the Twelve Degrees of Humility in the Quadriga litteralis of Niccolò da Osimo (1385–1453)’, Kalamazoo International Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University (10 May 2022)
• ‘Bernardino Aquilano’s Travels in his Cronica Fratrum Minorum Observantie’, Temporal and Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, University College Dublin (29 May 2021)
• ‘A proposito della doppia obbedienza nello scontro interno all’Ordine dei frati Minori tra osservanti e conventuali nel Quattrocento’, L’apprendistato dello storico, Sapienza Università di Roma (12 January 2021)
• 'Franciscan Observant Settlements in 15th-Century Italy: Between Historical Narrative and Hagiographic Models', International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds (4 July 2019)
• 'Prédication et pénitence à l’âge de l’Observance. Le rôle de Niccolò da Osimo dans le développement de l’éducation religieuse dans le mouvement de l’Observance franciscaine (1418-1453)', Semaines d’études médiévales, 17–28 June 2019, CESCM, Université de Poitiers
• '‘Non omnis divisio mala est’. Voices of Division and Reform in the Observant movement', Las culturas del franciscanismo (siglos XIII–XVI). Miradas y voces dentro y fuera del claustro, organised by Institut d'Estudis Medievalis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, at Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, Barcelona (9 November 2018)
• 'The education of confessor in Niccolò da Osimo’s works 1439–1444', International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds  (3 July 2018)
• 'Il rinnovamento della confessione come elemento di passaggio verso la “nuova” Osservanza: gli scritti di Niccolò da Osimo (1375–1453)', Centro studi sulla Civiltà del Tardo Medioevo (San Miniato, October 2017)
• 'Emotions and Penance in the Penitential Summa of the Franciscan Observant Nicholas of Osimo', University of Münster (26 April 2017)
• 'Economic Ethics through Sins and Penance', Arts & Humanities Poster Conference, University of Leeds (27 October 2016)