Gherardo Segarelli

Gherardo Segarelli was the founder of the Apostolic Brethren, a radical poverty movement in thirteenth-century Italy whose call for apostolic simplicity attracted thousands of the rural poor and whose eventual condemnation by the Church paved the way for the more violent heresy of Fra Dolcino. Segarelli's story, as recounted by Ubertino of Casale and later glimpsed in the abbey's manuscripts, forms the essential prehistory of the heretical currents that swirl through the abbey's life and crimes.

Identity and Background

Segarelli began his public preaching in Parma more than sixty years before the events at the abbey, exhorting all to a life of penitence. He would go along the roads crying "Penitenziagite!"—the uneducated man's way of saying "Penitentiam agite, appropinquabit enim regnum coelorum" (Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand). He enjoined his disciples to imitate the apostles, and he chose to call his sect the order of the Apostles; his men were to go through the world like poor beggars, living only on alms. He asked to be admitted to the order of the Minorites, but the Franciscan brothers would not receive him. He spent his days in the church of the Franciscans, and there he saw the paintings of the apostles wearing sandals on their feet and cloaks wrapped around their shoulders, and so he let his hair and beard grow, put sandals on his feet, and wore the rope of the Friars Minor, because anyone who wants to found a new congregation always takes something from the order of the Blessed Francis.

Life and Plot Trajectory

Dressed in a white cloak over a white tunic, with his hair long, Segarelli acquired among simple people the reputation for saintliness. He sold a little house of his, and having received the money, he stood on a stone from which in ancient times the magistrates were accustomed to harangue, and he held the little sack of gold pieces in his hand, and he did not scatter them or give them to the poor, but, after summoning some rogues dicing nearby, he flung the money in their midst and said, "Let him take who will," and those rogues took the money and went off to gamble it away, and they blasphemed the living God, and he who had given to them heard and did not blush. To resemble the apostles, who had still been Jews, Segarelli had himself circumcised, which is contrary to the words of Paul to the Galatians. He went about collecting the simple people and saying, "Come with me into the vineyard," and those who did not know him went with him into another's vineyard, believing it his, and they ate another's grapes. They said of him finally that to test his strength of will and his continence he slept with women without having carnal knowledge of them; but when his disciples tried to imitate him, the results were quite different. Many came to Segarelli, not only peasants, but also people of the city, members of the guilds, and Segarelli made them strip themselves so that, naked, they could follow the naked Christ, and he sent them out into the world to preach, but he had a sleeveless tunic made for himself, white, of strong stuff, and in this garb he looked more like a clown than like a religious. They lived in the open air, but sometimes they climbed into the pulpits of the churches, disturbing the assembly of devout folk and driving out their preachers, and once they set a child on the bishop's throne in the Church of Sant'Orso in Ravenna. They proclaimed themselves heirs of the doctrine of Joachim of Fiore. Segarelli took with him a female apostle, one Tripia or Ripia, who claimed to have the gift of prophecy.

Key Actions and Objectives

Segarelli's congregation was disapproved by Pope Gregory X. Bishop Obizzo of Parma finally decided to put Segarelli in irons, but then a strange thing happened: the bishop freed Segarelli and received him at his own table, and laughed at his japes, and kept him as his buffoon. The bishop was a nobleman and did not like the merchants and craftsmen of the city; perhaps he did not mind Segarelli's preaching against them with his talk of poverty, or did not care that from begging for alms Segarelli proceeded to robbery. But in the end the Pope intervened, and the bishop resumed his proper severity, and Segarelli ended on the pyre as an impenitent heretic at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Relationships and Conflict

Segarelli's movement directly inspired Fra Dolcino, a priest's bastard from the Novara diocese. Dolcino was a youth of sharp mind and was educated in letters, but he stole from the priest who housed him and fled eastward, to the city of Trent. There he resumed the preaching of Segarelli, but in a more heretical vein, declaring that he was the only true apostle of God and that everything should be common in love. Dolcino became familiar with the Pseudo Apostles' teachings, perhaps having passed through Parma as a youth and heard Segarelli. It is known that in the Bologna region he kept in touch with those heretics after Segarelli's death.

Change and Ending

Segarelli's life ended on the pyre as an impenitent heretic. His ideas, however, survived him and were taken up by Fra Dolcino, whose apocalyptic and violent rebellion against the Church and feudal lords would end in a horrific massacre and execution. The connection between the two men is a constant undercurrent in the abbey, as the cellarer Remigio of Varagine and the servant Salvatore are revealed to have been followers of Dolcino, and the name of Segarelli is invoked by the inquisitor Bernard Gui during the trial of Remigio as part of the chain of heresy that leads from the simple preacher of Parma to the bloody crimes in the abbey.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

Segarelli functions as the originating figure of a heretical tradition that the novel traces from simple apostolic poverty to violent apocalyptic revolt. His story, as told by Ubertino, illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing between orthodox sanctity and heretical error, a theme that lies at the heart of the novel's philosophical debates. The line dividing good from evil is so fine, Ubertino admits, and Segarelli's fate—first tolerated as a buffoon, then burned as a heretic—shows how the Church's response to the call for poverty was shaped by political expediency rather than doctrinal clarity.