Pietro Gambacorta and the City of Pisa (1369-92)

The study of civic cults has acquired a special prominence within the broad field of hagiographical research, offering as it does a way of identifying the religious reference points of a community (whether urban or regional), reconstructing its repertoire of ritual performances, and defining the processes through which the bonds of collective identity were formed. The close relationship, in these civic cults, between sanctity and the ruling authorities ensured that local forms of devotion often furnished an effective instrument for promoting consensus. The example of Pisa demonstrates quite effectively how two events of great local importance — a military victory and the devastating outbreaks of plague — became occasions for the creation of civic forms of devotion.