IN THE TRADITION

According to the tradition, the first Misericordia (the Florence's one), was founded in 1244, by the Dominicanian friar Pietro from Verona, who became then Saint with the name of "Pietro Martire" ("Peter the Martyr").
In this period the challenge between the Church and the Empire became harder.
The Pope demanded for obedience: in fact, the Emperor existed because of the "divine will" and his authority is ligitimized by the thorne of Peter, of which he is the earthly manifestation.

The Emperor, representing the top of the feudal system, demanded to play an important rhole in the internal business of the Church, which is already an important member of the administration of huge areas of the Empire..
The conflict, which has gone on for more than two centuries (with different degrees of intensità), blew up violently in the early XIII century, when Friedrich II of Hohenstauffen, who ascended the throne in 1220 in the cathedral of S. Peter with the presence of Pope Onorio III, wants to renovate the imperial authority..
An increasing climax of controversies went on till 1239, when Friedrich II exhorted the Cardinals to disobey to Pope Gregory IX, (who was elected in 1227), accused of interfering in the internal businnes of the Empire for personal motivations: the Pope answered with the excommunication for the Emperor and his followers, accused of not obeying to the apostolic will.

Friedrich II reacted trying to conquire Rome in 1240.
In 1241 an armed fleet organised by the inhabitants of Pisa, loyal to Friedrich II, attacked off the Meloria, Genoa's ships which were taking the prelates convoked by the Pope himself in Rome for the Council arranged for the Easter day of that year (1241).
Friedrich II associated the military actions to a politic which weakened the power of the Roman Church, supporting the ones who showed to be impatient with it.
For this reason, even though he eliminated the hard laws against heresy, he actually supported and protected the followers of the "patarin" heresy, which was particularly active in some areas of the Empire.
The conflict became so hard that it was fought either on the ground of the civil laws and of the municipal administration, or on the ground of the religious values and of the obedience to the faith values.

Pietro from Verona arrived in Florence toward the end of the 1244, under the pontificate of Innocence IV.
His presence in Florence was required by the Inquisitor of the city, the Dominicanian Ruggero Calcagni, who didn't manage to obtain from the Podesta, who was a Ghibelline and also a patarin, the application of the regulations against the heresy enacted by the Emperor himsel ("Legenda de Originis", Brother Pietro from Todi in the Ordo of the Servant of Mary,1317).

During the same year, following the example of what Milan did in 1232, he created the "Società della Fede" (Society of the Faith), organising the believers in local associations, as real "Miles Fidei" under the command of 12 Capitains.
This intense activity of Brother Pietro, which strenghtened the position of the city Church, could not be unobserved by the emperial Podesta, so that the events got worse.

In the day of S.Bartolomew a group of armed men, patarins and followers of the Podesta, attacked the believers, collected together in the cathedral of Santa Reparata to listen to Brother Pietro, provoking lots of dead.
After a while, in two attacks (the Trebbio and the Santa Felicità attacks), the patarins were driven back with weapons by the "Miles Fidei", and the group of the heretic Ghibellins was forced to leave the city.

Brother Pietro from Verona left Florence, considered mundane, towards the end of 1245.
The "Society of the Faith", which he created, lost his function and it dissolved itself, creating in this way three new Companies :the Compagnia della Vergine (Company of the Vergin), which then changed its name in Compagnia di San Pier Martire (Company of Saint Peter Martyr), the Compagnia del Bigallo (the Company of the Bigallo) and the Compagnia della Misericordia (Company of the Misericordia).
Brother Pietro has been killed in 1252, near Seveso, by a group of heretic patarins and he was declared Saint in 1253.
This recostruction of the events, which following the tradition composed the first Misericordia, unfortunately is not originally documented, because the official files were lost, probably because of the huge flood in 1557, receiving a subsequent confirm only from the administrative files of the following century. ("Documenti inediti o poco noti per la storia della Misericordia di Firenze"- Unpuplished or not weell-known documents of the history of the Florence Misericordia, Ugo Morini, 1940)

The absence wether of the Atti di Fondazione (Acts of Foundantion), or of a specific historiography doesn't allow, to extablish nowadays the specific date of the creation of the Company, most of all because this lack of documents seems to collect together the four Istitutions of the city which consider themselves founded by the Saint.
One of this four, the Ordine dei Servi di Maria (Order of the Servants of Mary), deepening its origins, suggests an intersting strarting point for new inquiries ("Alle Origini dei Servi - Atti della Settimana di Spiritualità"- "To the Origins of the Servants- Acts of the spiritualità Week", Montesenario 1979).
Following these files, the Servants of Mary and the Company of the Bigallo have common origins, in particular they were created by the Laudesi of S. Reparata (Preachers of S. Reparata), already active from 1230 (“Legenda de Originis”- “Legend of the Origins”-, Fra Pietro da Todi dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria - Brother Pietro from Todi in the Order of the Servants of Mary-, 1317)..
According to this starting point, the figure of Brother Pietro could play a different rhole in the history of the Companies.
Infact as "Coadiutore dell'Inquisitore" (Coadjutor of the Inquirer) he had the task of verify (inquiring) the faith in the Church's doctrin of the believers and of their associations which, at that time, were most of all informal.

Brother Pietro understood very well the potentials of the possibilities of the spontaneous associations among the believers, but the informality, the absence of the Statutes written following the values extablished by the Church, had put in danger these sort of associations, so that the IV Lateran Council in 1215, organized by Pope Innocence III against the patarin heresy , fixed precise limits to the lay associations.
As Coadjutor he suggested creating more appropriate Statutes and Regulations.
In the case of the Ordo of Mary's Servants, which was created informally in 1233, this happened for sure in 1244 (("Legenda de Originis"- Legend of the Origin, Brother Pietro da Todi from the Ordo of Mary's Servants, 1317), opening the possibility to a similar happening for the other Companies which claimed that they had been funded in the same year, receiving the Statutes from Brother Peter Martyr.
Also the cause of the absence of original documents can be explained by what happened in the Ordo of Mary's Servants. In this case it seems that the older documents referring to the Servants have been methodically destroyed or occulted by the same Ordo to go round the fix regulations established in 1215 by the IV Lateran Council and by the II Lyon Council.("I Frati Servi di Santa Maria dalle origini alla approvazione- The Brothers Servants of Mary from the origins to the approval ", F.A. Dal Pino, Louvan 1972)

Also for different motivations, the same could have happened in the Companies, if it's true that the first known document in which the Misericordia is mentioned is from 1321, and it confirms that in that moment the Company possessed the money to acquire a house in front of the Baptistery.
Where did those funds come from? Who had managed the Company? How come that, besides the internal documents (lost in the 1557 flood), there aren't other acts in the civil archives of the Municipality that testify the economical activity of the Company?
These questions are to be answered only when new documents confirming the importance of the role traditionally taken on by Saint Peter Martyr (who, even if not considered the founder is certainly the one who gave to the first Misericordia the solidy of an institution), will be discovered.