"Motions of the Heart" and Sins. The Specchio de' peccati by Domenico Cavalca O.P.

This study analyzes a treatise of Domenico Cavalca, written around 1333 and titled ‘Mirror of sins’, which aims to help confessors and penitents to recognize and classify sins. Compared to other similar texts, the ‘Mirror of sins’ proposes the pattern of the ‘six movements of the heart’ (love, hate, pain, joy, fear, hope) as the main classification of faults. The study analyzes the work in relation to the renewed interest in the affective movements of the Twelfth and Thirteenth century theological and religious literature.
Excluding any relationship between Cavalca’s scheme of affective movements and Aquinas’ system of passions, the study aims at detecting traces of Cavalca’s analysis of affective movements in the Augustinian tradition, and more particularly in the Twelfth century Cistercian environment. It also considers the etiologic and therapeutic value for the penitent of Cavalca ‘s affective classification of sins.