Saints and Storms: A Cultural History of Miraculous Weather Events in Medieval Italy (Studies in Medieval Religions and Cultures)

This book explores how medieval Italy perceived, interpreted, and sought to influence weather and climatic phenomena through the lens of sanctity.Focusing on hagiographic narratives from the Early to the Late Middle Ages, it reconstructs a rich corpus of miracle stories in which saints calm storms and hail, bring rain during droughts, or protect sailors and river travellers from tempests.By reading these accounts as cultural texts, the volume offers a history of miraculous weather in medieval Italy, spanning the centuries before the Medieval Warm Period and the onset of the Little Ice Age.At the same time, it situates the evidence of the peninsula within a broader European and Mediterranean framework, highlighting the particular importance of maritime and coastal environments.The volume has a strong comparative structure, in which medieval sources are in constant dialogue with tales from Antiquity and artistic works.Combining cultural history and historical anthropology, the study shed