2. Which Rhetoric for Which Observance? : Provisional Investigations in Fifteenth-Century Italy

This chapter concentrates on preaching addressed first and foremost at members of religious undergoing Observant reforms at the occasion of specific celebrations order-internal celebrations, such as provincial and general chapter meetings. It shows how such preaching can be used to investigate the ways in which the orders constructed and staged their institutional identity, but also to investigate changes in homiletic rhetorical fashions in the context of emerging Humanist oratorical ideals.