Control of emotions and comforting practices before the scaffold in Medieval and Early modern Italy (with some remarks on Lorenzetti’s fresco)

After a new examination of Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco known as "Allegoria del Buono e del Cattivo Governo", which permitted to recognise a very telling detail (apparently never noticed before), the paper focuses on the history and the practices of the Florentine comforting Company of Santa Maria della Croce al Tempio - also known as the "Compagnia dei Neri" - by publishing and analysing several excerpts from the Company's as-yet-unpublished registers, and then by comparing them with other - more or less official - ways of comforting those sentenced to death, as they're described in the Bolognese comforting Company's Handbook and in the accounts of Caterina da Siena's letters. The paper ends with a codicological survey on the numerous copies of the execution registers of the Florentine Company, which are rationalised in two types, depending on their early scope.