Holy Thursday Research Articles

Determination of green, blue and yellow artificial food colorants and their abuse in herb-coloured green Easter beers on tap

ABSTRACTBeer is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages worldwide. For consumer acceptance, significant factors are its taste, flavour and colour. This study determines selected synthetic green, blue and yellow food colorants in popular Easter herb-coloured green beers on tap produced in breweries on Holy Thursday. The abuse of beer colouring with Tartrazine (E 102), Quinoline yellow (E 104), Sunset yellow (E 110), Patent blue (E 131), Indigo carmine (E 132), Brilliant blue FCF (E 133), Green S (E 142) and Fast green FCF (E 143) was assessed in 11 green beer samples purchased in local restaurants. HPLC was used for the separation and detection of artificial colorants with diode-array detection and a Chromolith Performance CN 100 × 4.6 mm column with guard pre-column Chromolith CN 5 × 4.6 mm. Separation was performed in gradient elution with mobile phase containing methanol–aqueous 2% ammonium acetate at pH 7.0. The study showed that eight beers (70%) marketed in the Czech Republic contained artificial colorants (Tartrazine and Brilliant blue FCF). The concentration of colorants found in analysed green herb-coloured beers ranged from 1.58 to 3.49 mg l–1 for Tartrazine, 0.45–2.18 mg l–1 for Brilliant blue, while Indigo carmine was detected only once at concentration 2.36 mg l–1. Only three beers showed no addition of the synthetic colorants. However, the levels of artificial colorants found in beers marketed in the Czech region were very low and did not show a serious risk for consumers’ health.

Further thoughts on Graz 807 and Vienna 13314

ABSTRACTGraz, University Library, MS 807 and Vienna, Austrian National Library, latin 13314 have been studied intensively for more than a century, yet unsolved problems remain. Following a brief discussion of the sources and relevant scholarship, the antiphons for the Rogationtide processions in the gradual portions of both manuscripts I examine, along with a supplementary set of Rogationtide antiphons added to the Vienna codex. I then take a closer look at the expanded descriptions for the rites for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday in the Vienna manuscript's sacramentary. From this evidence, I reaffirm the association of the liturgies in Vienna 13314 and Graz 807 with the canons and canonesses of Klosterneuburg respectively, and argue that the twelfth-century additions to Vienna 13314 suggest that the two manuscripts were kept together already in the twelfth century, most likely at the Augustinian monastery at Seckau. I conclude with further observations on the much-discussed odd placement of the Dedication of the Church in the Sanctorale of Graz 807 and on the occasion that would have brought the two manuscripts to Seckau.

ЖІНОЧІ ОБРАЗИ У ПРОЗІ МИКОЛИ УСТИЯНОВИЧА

It is researched the originality of the female characters in prose works of the writer-romanticist Mykola Ustiyanovych (1811–1885), such as «The revenge of verhovynets», «The Holy Thursday», «The Permission of God», it is disclosed the specific ethnic features of female types of the Carpathian Boikos, it is analyzed the means of their romanticizing in the article.Mykola Ustiyanovych revealed a number of specific features of social life, the customs of Boikos. The writer emphasized their sincerity, kindness, willingness to help the disadvantaged, stressed on the compassion and respect of mountain people to widows, in particular to the widow Nalyvaichyha. The researchers of everyday life of Boikos tend to believe the Christian morality as the main factor in the compassion attitude of community to the widows.In the story «The Permission of God» the great attention is paid to the question of parenting and mother's appointment. In the author's story are inserted the authorial exclamation intonations in which Mykola Ustiyanovych enjoys sincere maternal love, teaches mothers, promotes the faith in God and moral self-improvement through the atonement and punishment.The women images in prose works of Mykola Ustiyanovych endowed with the romantic features, the writer used the figurative means which are inherent to the romanticism. In his work we see the tendency to solve problems of education and high calling of mother in typical to Boikivshchyna didactically-moralistic and religious-Christian plan. All of this, of course, prepared the aesthetic basis for the creation of a new image system, absolutely new types of women, who later clearly detected themselves in the works of Ivan Franko, Olha Kobylianska and other Ukrainian writers.

“You will receive so many stab wounds here”: the role of the cathedral chapter in the 1331 Girona Holy Week riot

Holy Week violence was a familiar phenomenon in various towns throughout the Crown of Aragon and elsewhere in Southern Europe. Ritualized forms of aggression and confrontation allowed Christians to reaffirm the inferiority of Judaism and the triumphant superiority of Christianity. This article examines the Holy Week riot in Girona in 1331, which was not only a clash between Christians and Jews but a competition for power within the city between the cathedral community and the lay royal officials posted in Girona. As men of uniformly noble backgrounds, the cathedral canons maintained ties to their families and the world of honor and violent competition for status. Their connection to the military aristocratic lineages of the diocese informed their reaction when confronted by the lay royal officials in Girona on Holy Thursday 1331, leading them to respond with threats, bravado, and violence to defend the honor of the chapter and wider cathedral community. Two cathedral canons and their squires, servants, and other clerics threw rocks at the royal officials, brandished unsheathed swords and knives, and threatened their opponents, alternately retreating into the cathedral and pursuing their opponents throughout the cathedral district. This article explores the reaction of the two participant canons and the rest of the cathedral chapter during and after the events of Holy Thursday 1331, investigating the local context in which these events occurred. In response to a subsequent royal inquiry into the events of the riot, the chapter brought their own lawsuit against the royal officials, reframing the narrative to shift blame on to the royal officials and the Jews themselves. This paper argues that members of the cathedral chapter reacted and reframed the events of Holy Thursday 1331 as an attack by the royal officials on the power and position of the cathedral community within the city and reacted accordingly in defense, using aggressive, violent threats, tools familiar to them as members of the diocesan nobility.

Las artes efímeras al servicio de la propaganda de la casa ducal de Medina Sidonia (1515-1639)

This article documents the ephemeral constructive activity of them Perez de Guzman in the capital of their State, Sanlucar de Barrameda, between the years 1515 and 1639, with the ephemeral sepulchral monuments in honors of the family and the Crown; the building of the Monuments of the Holy Thursday; and the feasts of consecration of several churches sponsored by them.

A Hidden Feast Cycle Inside of a Christian Apocrypha

The Acts of Andrew and Matthias contains in a not evident form a feast cycle, which could represent a liturgical practice of the 4th c. community where the Acts were written. Three days of Andrew’s torments could be linked with Holy Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. They are preceded by 27 or 28 days, i.e., 4 weeks of grief and some kind of fast. Andrew’s torments are followed by his miraculous healing that could be compared to Resurrection and Easter. After it Andrew is most likely to have baptized the cannibals; it reminds one of an ancient tradition of single baptism on Holy Saturday. Finally Andrew has to remain in the city for seven more days; together with the day of baptism they form those eight days for neophytes’ confirmation before ablutions and at the same time complete the Octave of Easter, that ends with taking baptismal cloths off the neophytes. Andrew’s departure could also be compared with Ascension that was linked with While Sunday. A liturgical circle could be seen on a lower level as well in ch. 2-3: Matthias’ prayer – Christ’s admonition with citation of the Gospel – 'peace be with you' – Matthias’ exclamation – singing of Psalms.

Stirring the Waters: Old Testament Baptismal Types in the Easter Liturgy

We entered the darkened church by candlelight while the cantor intoned, “Christ our light.” That space had been darkened since Holy Thursday when the symbols of Christian faith were removed, the Eu...

Glory in the Cross: Holy Week in the Third Edition of The Roman Missal by Paul Turner

283 Book Reviews Paul Turner Glory in the Cross: Holy Week in the Third Edition of The Roman Missal Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 2011 220 pages. Paperback. $24.95. While implementing the new translation of the Roman Missal may have been a challenge for all members of the Church, it is undeniable that the new translation offers a theological density and richness that was lacking in the earlier edition. The new translation has made the meaningful novus ordo Mass even more beautiful. After more than two years of using this new translation, it seems as though most communities are comfortable and engaged with the new prayers and responses. Now that priests and communities find the new missal easier to use, it seems like a good time to study this missal so that we might grow to appreciate it even more. Paul Turner has written a book that will help anyone interested in learning more about the third edition of the Roman Missal. Glory in the Cross is an informative commentary on the liturgies of Holy Week. The liturgies of Holy Week help the Christian believer not just to remember the Paschal Mystery, but facilitate our entry into that great mystery. The history and tradition behind these prayers might not be readily apparent to someone praying their way through Holy Week. Turner’s book can be a valuable resource here, as he traces the history and development of the liturgies of Holy Week back to their sources. The layout of his book is easy to follow. After a brief preface, the commentary begins with the celebration of Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord and concludes with the Masses of Easter Sunday. In the different sections, Turner gives an introduction for each of the liturgies. Then, the author explores each antiphon, prayer, rubric, and instruction given in the Roman Missal. Turner’s analysis is both exacting and fascinating. For example, he notes that for the sign of the cross that begins the celebration of Palm Sunday the text for the priest is included, but the people’s “Amen” is missing. He rightly asserts that this is probably just an oversight by those who put together the missal, but his attention to detail is admirable. Turner offers interesting insight into the history of the liturgical texts, the nuances of the third edition, the differences from 284 Antiphon 17.3 (2013) the proposed schema, and suggestions for the prayerful execution of the Holy Week liturgies. For example, the collect from Palm Sunday has been used “virtually unchanged since the seventh century ” (14). Turner notes that there was once an old practice where only the bishop received communion at the Holy Thursday Mass, which has been abolished (38). Also, there was a tradition in the 8th century that the deacon presented the chalice to the bishop at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, as a way to remind us that all the faithful receive the Eucharist as a gift (71). While there is a great deal of historical research and liturgical scholarship in the pages of Glory in the Cross, it is equally well suited for the parish setting. Pastors, musicians, liturgy coordinators, and liturgy committees will find Turner’s commentary an important addition to their liturgical library. It is particularly helpful when Turner highlights the differences between the third edition missal and the version formerly in use. For example, few priests probably realize that the third edition begins the Easter Vigil with the sign of the cross. In previous versions, the sign of the cross was omitted, to highlight the link between the other Triduum liturgies. Now, however, the sign of the cross is included, to show that the Easter Vigil is a complete celebration on its own, not simply a conclusion to the Triduum (120). Also, this is often ignored, but the rubrics instruct us to light the candles when the Easter candle enters the church (126–127). The Holy Week liturgies allow the whole Church to enter into the paschal mysteries. Therefore, those whose ministry it is to facilitate and celebrate these liturgies on behalf of their communities owe it to themselves and to the whole people of God...

Obediencia sacerdotal como una de las especiales obligaciones de los clérigos en la Iglesia católica

During this year’s homily on Holy Thursday Pope Benedict XVI explored the subject of priestly obedience. He drew attention to some European priests’ incitement to disobedience which ignored the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church. This article argues for the importance and role of priestly obedience in the Catholic Church. Firstly, it identifies the nature of obedience through a close examination of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Secondly, it identifies Pope Paul VI teaching on obedience through the magisterium of the Church. Finally, the nature of obedience in the Code of the Canon Law from 1983 onwards as well as practical manifestations of obedience pursuant to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples is discussed.

Krisztus Szenvedései-ikontöredék Hajasdról. Az ikonográfia rekonstrukciójának kísérlete

In the ecclesiastic collection of the Ethnographic Museum there are carvings from churches of the Byzantine Rite including a Passion fragment from Hajasd (Volosianka, Ukraine), former Ung county. It was probably made in the third quarter of the 17th century on three contiguous vertical panels 180 cm in height each. The two outer panels of the three survive. They are predominated by ochre and brown hues with greyish blue, white and black pa tches. The forms are enclosed by thick black lines. Works of a similar character have survived in the area between Przemysl and Sanok. Despite the missing central panel and the destruction of nearly half of the right-hand panel, the iconographic program can be reconstructed. It is a conspicuous feature of the Hajasd scenes that they reiterate the composition of Flemish graphic series of the Passion. Apart from knowledge of the relatively fixed iconography of the Carpathian Passion series, the Flemish graphic cycles were most helpful to the reconstruction of the Hajasd Passion. It was the wealth of details in the Hajasd Passion that led to the discovery of its immediate source: the series of 51 sheets engraved by Adriaen Collaert after Marten de Vos's compositions and published in several editions in the early 17th century with the title “Vita, Passio et Resurrectio Iesu Christi…”, copies of which also travelled as far as Hungary and Poland. The scenes were arranged in six tiers, the central episode – the crucifixion – probably taking up three tiers of the central panel. The series of twenty scenes begins with the Transfiguration, which revives a local mediaeval tradition: the linking up of the Transfiguration and Easter also explicated in 17th century theological works. It was followed – in accordance with the liturgy of the Passion Week – by the resurrection of Lazarus (Lazarus Saturday), the entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), the Last Supper, the washing of the apostles' feet (Holy Thursday), the scenes of Christ's trial, mocking and crucifixion (Good Friday). The sequence ends with the Deposition, Lamentation, Christ in Limbo and Resurrection scenes. The Hajasd Passion reveals the theological context of the redemption and resurrection in addition to the suffering of Christ. It is a peculiarity of the icon that its master elaborated on nearly the whole cycle of Collaert's works from no. 27 to no. 51, more or less adhering to the original order. The painter's individual abilities are proven by the adaptation of the compositions to the different format, the synthesizing ability and the addition of local narrative details (Pilate's ermine robe, wooden tub).

Poet of the Lost Cause: A Life of Father Ryan (review)

Book Reviews Poet of the Lost Cause: A Life of Father Ryan. By Donald Robert Beagle and Bryan Albin Giemza. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. xii, 342 pp. $48.95. ISBN 978-1-57233-606-1. More than a century after his death in 1886, Father Abram Joseph Ryan has been the focus of two recent biographies. David O’Connell wrote Furl That Banner (Macon, Ga., 2006), and now comes this biography . These authors possess particularly strong credentials. Beagle is the curator for the Father Ryan archives at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, and Giemza is a fellow at the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies. Beagle and Giemza have valiantly investigated the many mysteries which surround this enigmatic “poet-priest” of the Lost Cause. Born to Irish immigrants on February 5, 1838, in or near Hagerstown, Maryland, Abraham Joseph Ryan and his family soon migrated to Ralls County, Missouri, about a hundred miles northwest of St. Louis. In 1846 the family moved again to St. Louis, where they lived until Ryan’s adulthood . At thirteen, Ryan entered St. Mary of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri, a school operated by the Vincentian order. Ryan entered the Vincentians and was ordained a priest on September 12, 1860. He certainly had strong political views; for example, he so detested any association with newly elected President Abraham Lincoln that he changed his name to Abram Ryan in early 1861. Although residing in the North until 1864, Ryan always kept his sympathies and sentiments with the seceding southern Confederacy. As with most Americans of his generation, the Civil War deeply affected Ryan’s career as priest and poet. Historian John Tracy Ellis once wrote that Ryan penned verses for the South “during and after the war,” an assertion these authors accept (pp. 41, 44). Assigned positions in Missouri, New York, and Illinois, Ryan took long absences, claiming ill health kept him from his duties. Where Ryan went during these long periods away from his assignments is still disputed. While O’Connell maintains that stories of his sojourns to the Confederacy in 1861–1862 are legends, Beagle and Giemza believe Ryan appeared with Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 3, 1862; moreover , they assert that his role as a chaplain in Virginia in the fall of 1861 should not be so readily dismissed. Ryan left the Vincentians, but not the priesthood, on September 1, 1862. Seven months after his brother was J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 0 73 killed in Kentucky in the Confederate military service, Ryan abandoned his parish in Peoria, Illinois, in October 1863. Resurfacing in Nashville on May 15, 1864, he later served at churches in Tennessee, where he completed his soon-to-be famous poetic anthem to the Lost Cause, “The Conquered Banner.” This poem was first published in a Catholic newspaper in New York City on June 24, 1865. Fifteen months later, a Nashville paper published his other famous poem, “The Sword of Robert Lee.” While Ryan composed other verses for the Confederacy and his religious faith, these two poems composed at the war’s end immortalized him as the poet laureate of the Lost Cause. In his last two decades as an editor and writer the opinionated Ryan frequently clashed with his superiors. Georgia’s bishop fired him as editor of the Banner of the South in 1870, and Louisiana’s archbishop removed him from the New Orleans Catholic paper five years later. After 1875, he became more of a religious poet, public dramatist, and fund raiser for the church and its charities. While technically a priest for the Mobile diocese , Ryan actually spent little time in postwar Alabama. He maintained, however, his association with the Lost Cause, especially through his close friendship with Jefferson Davis. While in New Orleans, Ryan received former Confederate General James B. Longstreet into the Catholic Church in 1877. Never in good health, Ryan died in a Benedictine monastery in Louisville, Kentucky, on Holy Thursday, April 22, 1886. Beagle and Giemza uncover much regarding Ryan. They explore the priest’s relationship with his most “insightful reader and critic,” Sister...

A LATIN-IRISH TEXT ON FASTING IN THE <i>LEABHAR BREAC</i>

A LATIN-IRISH TEXT ON FASTING IN THE <i>LEABHAR BREAC</i>

1–2 April 2010 • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

1–2 April 2010 • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

The Brazilians' religion

Seventy years ago an expression like “the Brazilians’ religion” would point almost inevitably to Catholicism. This has changed. Currently, Catholicism is becoming only one amongst Brazilians’ religions, as the outcome of an increasing movement towards diversification. This trend is not just about figures (already well known and to which I will allude below), but about something qualitative, an identitarian problem. The Brazilian “ethnical group”, the “nation”, when asked: “In terms of religion, who are you?”, “What is your name?” does not answer univocally: “Catholic!” The atmosphere prevailing in its social space has changed. A lady in her eighties from Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais state capital), a former Methodist pastor, told me how she felt for many years like a “stranger” in her own city, a “foreign body” in local culture – her own! Conversely, in today’s Belo Horizonte two large collective manifestations mark Holy Week (The “Minas Gerais Holy Week”!), disturbing the traffic, mobilizing the police, imposing their presence in the city’s daily life: the Holy Oils Consecration Mass in the Mineirao Soccer Stadium, on Holy Thursday; and, on Good Friday, the Evangelical Concentration (ironically, held at the Pope Square). Such coexistence is felt as “natural” by public opinion. From the standpoint of cultural atmosphere, Brazilian religious identity has thus become, in a “modern way”, manifold. But this phenomenon is translated (and/or is rooted) into two fundamental levels: the statistical and the political. Statistics reveal a constant slippage towards an irresistible institutional decline of catholicism. In overall terms, 88% of the Brazilian population in 1980 still declared to be “catholic”. In 1991, this figure dropped to 80% and, in 1994, to 74.9%.

13–14 April 2006 Maundy Thursday • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

13–14 April 2006 Maundy Thursday • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

Haydn at St Paul's—1791 or 1792?

Joseph Haydn's visit to the charity children's Annual Service at St Paul's Cathedral moved him greatly, judging by the report he wrote of it in his 'London Notebook' (1791–2) and added to in his conversations with A. C. Dies. The date of this event has not been previously known, though it is usually said to have taken place in June 1792. New evidence has now established the exact date as Thursday 9 June 1791. The article deals with the kind of music performed on such occasions, and examines some of the background, referring in the process to William Blake's 'Holy Thursday' (Songs of Innocence, 1789), and to Hector Berlioz's account of his own visit 60 years later (Les soirees de l'orchestre, 1853).

“Holy Thursday After the Holocaust”

ABSTRACTThe Holy Thursday Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper relies heavily on language and imagery borrowed from the Jewish festival of Passover. This borrowing has become increasingly problematic after the Holocaust. It leads to supersessionism, and it does not take account of how the meaning of Passover has changed since the time of Jesus, sometimes as the direct result of Christian persecution. This article examines the three readings from the Mass of the Lord's Supper as well as the responsorial psalm in order to show how Catholic interpretations of Passover differ from Jewish ones. It suggests that the difference both can be harmful and is unnecessary.

Thursday 17 April 2003: Holy Thursday

Thursday 17 April 2003: Holy Thursday

Experience Reading Innocence: Contextualizing Blake's Holy Thursday

Blake's texts lose their innocence more easily than most, and like Adam and Eve they do so by knowing Good and Evil, by finding a wider oppositional context in which a truth is split into its dynamic contraries. The Fall of Man in Paradise Losthas its equivalent in the critical act: to cross the boundary into illegitimate knowledge, moving out from what is present, fitting and needful, to "things remote / From use, obscure and subtle" (book 8, ll. 191-2) is to risk entering the "wrong" context. By these terms, an innocent text can easily fall, unless the knowledge brought to bear on it is licensed and regulated. A concept like Songs of Innocence, therefore, raises in an acute form the critical problem of howtext and context interrelate: how far can a text legitimise a context for itself, withinwhich a "valid" reading is produced? Must Songs of Innocencebe read innocently?

The Captain’s Concubine. Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance Tuscany by Donald Weinstein (review)

REVIEWS 240 which he uses the terms “quack” and “charlatan” to refer to unlicensed healers, both Spanish and indigenous. Tepaske gives much credence to European medical degrees and licenses, even though, as he himself points out, the efficacy of cures recommended by licensed physicians is questionable (SSN 61), and in spite of the fact that they were established in part to prohibit women, Jews, and Muslims from practicing medicine.36 Tepaske reveals his lack of regard for midwives and “the omnipresent native healers ... who pervaded the land ...,” which is odd given that King Philip understood the value of “indigenous doctors , medicine men, herbalists, Indians ...” and instructed Hernández to consult with these specialists (MT 46). In his will Hernández requested that Philip II compensate the indigenous doctors, herbalists, and all others who worked with him on his chef d’oeuvre. Interestingly, he names the three artists by name, specifying that to each, or their heirs, should be given thirty ducats “to compensate for lack of payment to them” (MT 62). It is in his will that Hernández recognizes the enormous debt to those Native Americans, without whose knowledge and expertise he would not have been able to execute the Natural History of New Spain. Taken as a whole, The Mexican Treasury and Searching for the Secrets of Nature is a wonderful resource; the reader uninitiated into the world of Francisco Hernández will find these companion volumes very user-friendly, and the Hernández scholar will no doubt appreciate the meticulous research that went into assembling the vast majority of this in-depth study. All in all, these companion volumes constitute an important contribution to some four centuries of studies of Francisco Hernández’s life works, and are impressive as a study of the subject as well as a fascinating study of historiography. ELISA MANDELL, Art History, UCLA Donald Weinstein, The Captain’s Concubine. Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance Tuscany (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press 2000) 219 pp. On 21 March 1578, Holy Thursday, blood covered a dark street in the Tuscan town of Pistoia following a skirmish between cavalier Fabrizio Bracciolini and fellow cavalier Mariotto Cellesi. The matter came to the attention of local officials when Fabrizio charged that Mariotto and four accomplices had “traitorously ” ambushed him from the rear. The five men, he claimed, beat him, badly 36 Jean Dangler, Mediating Fictions: Literature, Women Healers, and the Go-Between in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (London 2001) 35. Dangler cites Myriam Greilsammer ’s study of midwifery in the Low Countries where she argues that women were excluded from medicine and midwifery because they threatened the authority of male medical professionals (47). Myriam Greilsammer, “The Midwife, the Priest, and the Physician: The Subjugation of Midwives in the Low Countries at the End of the Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 21.2 (Fall 1991) 285–329. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich makes the same argument in her Pulitzer prize-winning study of midwifery in the Colonial United States: “To allow women to continue to practice midwifery, or, by extension, any other form of independent healing, deprived male doctors of the experience they needed and at the same time perpetuated the notion that uneducated people could safely care for the sick.” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York 1990) 254. REVIEWS 241 slashed his face, and then disappeared. According to Fabrizio, the violent attack by Mariotto was unprovoked and had jeopardized his life as well as his honor. Donald Weinstein stumbled across the charges made against Mariotto while researching the subject of dueling in sixteenth-century Tuscany. Impressed by the richness of the documentation contained in the Bracciolini-Cellesi dossier, Weinstein decided to focus upon the conflict between the two cavaliers rather than produce the study of dueling in early modern Italy he had originally intended . Weinstein’s restricted focus firmly locates his narrative in the genre of historical writing known as microhistory. Skilled historians such as Carlo Ginzburg and Natalie Davis have demonstrated microhistory’s viability, but the genre has not been without its critics. One of the difficulties with...