L'Ordine nello specchio dei suoi santi: il Leggendario Agostiniano (1329-1331) custodito presso la Biblioteca Laurenziana di Firenze

The essay focuses on the Laurentian codex Plut. 90.40, where there is the late fifteenth-century copy of a text composed between 1329 and 1331 by the prior of the Augustinian Florentin convent. This text presents two parts: the biographies of the Augustinian saints and the narration of the origins of the Order. It is the more ancient self-proclamation of the Augustinian Order and it reflects the history of the Order itself. The autor of the text offers a very clear interpretation, presenting Augustine as the father of the Order and the Tuscan Augustinian friars as his first and legitimate sons, since they received the Rule from his hands. They are, so, the more ancient and the most prestigious nucleus of the Order. The Florentine text was very successful and it was used by all the historiographers of the Order, and first by Henry of Freimar. Both this use and the prestige of the Tuscan Augustinian convents had the effect of making credible the Tuscan primogeniture of the Augustinians. Keywords: Augustinian Order – Augustinian Saints – Medieval Hagiography – Foundation of the Augustinian Order – Augustinian Identity