Predicazione e persuasione: ‘A ogne cittade saria grande utilitade’

By focusing on the nexus between preaching and persuasion, this chapter highlights how sermons played an essential role in the construction of a cultural and political consensus in late medieval and early modern urban society. The contribution firstly summarizes the recent literature on preaching as medium of persuasion. Then, it discusses the way prominent figures such as Johannes Bromyard († c. 1352), Bernardino da Siena († 1444) and Joahnnes Geiler von Kaysersberg († 1510) reflected on the reasons of the success (or failure) of their sermons. Finally, the paper analyses the preacher’s struggle to obtain concrete and measurable results in ordinary situations as well as the way a preacher could face unexpected emergencies, either by contesting the civic authorities (hence, threatening to promote dissensus) or by using the pulpit as platform to organise a collective (political) initiative.