Panziera, Ugo

PANZIERA, UGO. - Franciscan, writer, b. in Prato, the year is not known, d. in Tartary ca. 1330. Already a doctor of theology, he entered the Order of Friars Minor, and, out of humility, wished to remain a layman. In 1307 he set out on a mission to the Muslim East; in 1312 he sent from Pera of Constantinople an Epistola to the brothers of the Company of the Cross of Prato; after 1319 he wrote a short treatise against certain false mystics (perhaps the Beghards).

P. left 6 lauds, 4 published by C. Guasti (Prato 1861), two by F. Liuzzi, La lauda e i primordi della melodia ital. (Rome 1934, p. 164-72) and 13 short spiritual works (Florence 1492; Genoa 1535). In the lauds he follows Jacopone in his themes and in his forms, but he is a Tuscan and fourteenth-century Jacopone, with a polished stanza. In the treatises he follows St. Bonaventure. His piety is watched over by an analytical intellect and by an inner equilibrium, which distrusts ascents as much as mystical passivities. St. Bernardino would postil his Trattato delle spirazioni; others would cite his Epistole in combating quietism. The finish of certain lauds vouches for the authenticity of the prose, born in the vernacular, not translated from the Latin original as was said: introspective, without concessions to images or examples, but precise, robust, secretly musical.

Maria Sticco