A pamphlet advertising the ritual washing of the feet on Thursday of Holy Week in Milan, falling on 1 April, 1847. A customary element of Holy Thursday celebrations, and marking Christ’s washing of the feet of the twelve Apostles before the Lord’s Supper, there are accordingly twelve of Milan’s elderly poor named here who received the rite, which took place at the Salone delle Ceremonie of Milan’s Palazzo di Corte.
The twelve were admitted to the ceremony by Archduke Rainer of Austria (1783-1853) who likely also performed the foot washing himself, in keeping with a tradition that persisted in many European courts to the end of the nineteenth century (and is still performed by the Pope at Holy Thursday Mass today). It is interesting to note that the twelve receiving the rite are not ‘anonymous poor’, but named in full, and with their ages given, ranging from 88 to 94. They are all men; an extant copy of another Specificazione for the same Holy Thursday indicates that Ranieri’s wife, Archduchess Elisabetta, washed the feet of twelve poor women on the same day, all of whom are listed as widows, with their maiden and married names given (see ref below). This was presumably the final, if not penultimate Maundy rite performed by the Duke, who with his wife was ousted from power and forced to leave Milan during the Italian revolutions of 1848.
One copy of this pamphlet from a year earlier, 1846, in the Archivio di Stato di Padova (Fondo Dolfin Boldu, Busta 223); copy of the parallel Specificazione for Rainer’s wife Elisabetta at Getty Research Institute [open access on Internet Archive]; copies of Specificazioni for earlier such rites in Italian archives.
Provenance: 1. Giannalisa Feltrinelli (1902-1981) with her exlibris, whose extraordinary collection of Italian books and manuscripts, from incunabula to the Risorgimento, sold at Christie’s London in a series of sales between 1997 and 2001. FIND LOT
