La forma di vita domenicana nella testimonianza di Massimo il Greco e le sue fonti

The article aims at gathering together Maximus the Greek’s descriptions of the Dominican lifestyle and investigating their sources. He depicts the Dominican Order in different works and on different occasions: the Poslanie o franciskancach i dominikancach (Epistle about the Franciscans and Dominicans), possibly addressed, between 1531 and 1547, to Bishop Akakij of Tver’, and the Povest’ strašna i dostopamjatna i o soveršennom inočeskom žitel’stve (Terrible and memorable narrative, and about the perfect monastic lifestyle), likely written in 1518-1525, reworked after 1531 and again between the end of 1540s and the beginning of the 1550s. In these works, the author points to written and oral sources, and his role as witness. He reports Dominican customs from the Order’s inspiration and government to the friars’ virtue and activities. The bird’s eye view he offers conforms to Dominican normative and documentary sources: the Constitutiones antique Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, Humbert of Romans’ Opera de vita regulari, the Acta canonizationis sancti Dominici, the Modi orandi sancti Dominici and the Vitae fratrum by Gerard of Frachet. Given the novitiate Maximus the Greek spent in the convent of Saint Mark at Florence, his knowledge of the Dominican sources is undeniable. This very fact, which he carefully conceals, together with several tiny details missing in the Dominican sources, allow to consider Maximus the Greek’s witness to be grounded in his experience of the Dominican lifestyle.