La «jerosolomitana peregrinatione» del mercante Bernardino Dinali (1492)

Abstract

The Library of Lucca boasts a precious collection of manuscripts, 16th-century prints, incunabula, and within its collection, it holds a less evident but equally unique rarity: a small codex, known to specialists but still lacking a critical edition, mentioned by the most authoritative catalogs in the field yet ignored by the public. As per current research, it is the only pilgrimage diary preserved in the Lucca location, making it all the more precious and unexpected. This is not a secondary codex; it transmits the account of the pilgrimage made in 1492 by the Milanese merchant Bernardino Dinali, named by the author "Jerosolomitana Peregrinatione." This completely original text has a particularity: it is a sort of hinge between a devotional manual and a modern travel narrative, an extension of the medieval period reaching towards the renewed sensitivity of the 15th century. What makes it unique in its own way is the fact that the travel narrative, common to other texts of the genre, is constantly integrated with liturgical description, to the extent that Dinali's work has been related to the "Processionale Jerosolymitanum" of the 14th century, transmitted by a codex from the National Library of Paris. It is not uncommon for Jerusalem pilgrimage diaries to report devotional practices to varying degrees, but these are usually mentions or notes. There are very few cases where the author is concerned with the extended recording of prayers practiced in Jerusalem during the pilgrimage. Among these cases, the diary from the State Library of Lucca is the most complete from the medieval period. Dinali's text is a sort of lectionary intended not so much for potential imitators of the pilgrimage as for those who wished to relive the experience internally in all its liturgical completeness. The importance of the text places it well beyond the single case it represents. We know the texts of other processionals that the Franciscans of the Jerusalem custody used to have pilgrims recite over the centuries, but Dinali's text has a particular role because it allows us to follow the development of the form that will be definitively established in the "Liber de perenni cultu terrae sanctae" by Bonifacio da Ragusa in the mid-16th century.