This volume is concerned with the establishment and embedding in the Tuscan countryside, and especially around Florence, of the new forms of piety propagated above all by the Mendicant orders. It brings together de La Ronciere"s major articles on this topic, both detailed research studies and syntheses. Against the background of existing religious attitudes, he aims to describe the many new forms of pastoral activity and structures that were instituted, and to provide a picture of what the religious side of their life really meant to these communities. The final articles extend this analysis to include the city of Florence itself, examining the role of the confraternities there and the religious views of its merchants, its socio-economic elite.