Since the beginning of his career, Luigi Fiorani devoted himself to Christian antiquities writing reviews for the journal «Studi Romani». In 1967 he started to study the Modern Age writing an essay about Onorato Caetani, who was a XVIIth century abbot and scholar. Archivist of the Fondazione Camillo Caetani and later of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, he was the editor of «Quaderni» and «Studi e documenti d’archivio», promoted by the Fondazione Camillo Caetani, and «Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma». His ideas were deeply influenced by don Giuseppe De Luca’s thought which aimed to conceive history in a different perspective, devoted to social history of lower people. In his research about religious history he analysed feelings and practices of the people rather than ecclesiastical istitutions and this helped him to establish many relationships with pastoral care and Roman clergy.
Thomas of Celano’s Vita beati Francisci is the first Franciscan hagiography to recount the 1219 meeting, in Damietta, between the Saint of Assisi and al-Malik al-Ka¯mil. Thomas’s narrative paints a very positive picture of the Sultan’s reception of Francis. This hagiography has no negative judgement to offer of the Sultan, even though the common prejudice regarding the Saracens does come through in other works by the same Author. The Vita beati Francisci tells of comparable hospitality extended to Francis at the Papal Court, then in the city of Rieti. Indeed, in the narrative penned by Thomas of Celano the true protagonist of the event is the Sultan, whose hospitality, frustrating Francis’s wish for martyrdom, gained enduring fame for that historic meeting, which was to be further recounted and interpreted in Franciscan literature, from the thirteenth century to the present day.
This essay investigates the development of new instruments of taxation by the bishops during the thirteenth century. Like the urban Communes, the bishops were more inclined towards datium, a tax based on a fairer distribution of fiscal burdens. It was requested starting from a taxable income (libra). The first libra of the diocese of Volterra, published in the Appendix, dates to 1273, and contains not only the amount due but also the preliminary operations prior to its implementation, namely the depositions of boni homines and a list of churches’ incomes. Studying such a document allows us to shed light on different aspects and characteristics of diocesan taxation, a little-investigated historiographical area.
By the end of the 14th century, Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations, widely circulated throughout Europe, and were paricularly popular in Tuscany. The first ever vernacular translation of the Revelations was realized in Siena sometime before 1399. In the following years, this translation and other Birgittine texts were copied, in Latin or in vernacular, in the scriptorium of the Paradiso outside Florence, the first Birgittine monastery to be founded after Vadstena. But the Italian reception of Birgitta’s legacy was not only characterized by reading, abridging, translating or listening to her “authentic” works. Alongside them, new revelations on Church reform were inspired by her figure (such as Rasmo of Viterbo’s visions), and new prophecies concerning the Italian politics of the 15th and 16th century were attributed to her (such as the “frottola” Destati o fier leone al mio gran grido, or the “cantare” Ave Iesu, figliuol di Maria).
The present article analyzes cardinal Agostino Galamini’s library in relation to his activity as an Inquisitor. Examining the books of the Cardinal, who was born in Brisighella in 1552 and entered the Congregation of the Holy Office in 1611, is fundamental to understand the inspiring motives of his political and religious activity. Galamini’s library was an instrument which supported his activity as an ecclesiastical officer. The large number of theological and scientific books in his possession denotes his knowledge of the doctrines and authority, therefore explaining his eminent role within the Holy Office.
The reception of Christina of Sweden raised unusual status and gender issues as far as the papal ceremonial is concerned. Welcomed not as a queen in exile but as a queen in possession of full Sovereignity, Christina was given hospitality by an exclusively male court within the apostolic palaces. The ceremonies performed in her honour became an extraordinary media event. They emphasized the absolute centrality of the queen’s conversion and were planned to achieve a perfect liturgical coincidence with the rites for Christmas. They highlighted two important moments: the Presentation with the solemn entrance into the city; the Inclusion with the ceremony of Confirmation during Christmas mass. Only after this ritual, the queen could leave the Vatican and move to Palazzo Farnese.
This article aims to analyze the figure of the French Ursuline Marie Bon de l’Incarnation, drawing primarily on her biography, written by the Jesuit Jean Maillard, secondly on her work Stati di Orazione, described by Cardinal Albizzi as a main reference text for Piedmont’s “Quietists”. Rather than rely on literary and theological aspects, this article pays attention to the socio-cultural context in which these sources were produced. The goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the “Quietist” phenomenon in Piedmont, embedded in cultural and religious exchanges between France and the States of Savoy.
The history of Malta’s Magdalen Asylum represents a crucial example for analyzing practices and reformatory methods for penitent prostitutes throughout modern history. From the Santa Maria Maddalena Monastery, founded by Gran Maestro Verdala at the end of the 16th century, the paper will then analyze how the French and English control of the island influenced management and assistance of prostitution. Examining inedited sources, this paper attempts to reconstruct the lives of penitents in the Magdalen Asylum in the second half of the 19th century: beginning with their personal characteristics, alphabetization, health, origins, causes of prostitution, subsequently focusing on the methods and results obtained during their institutionalized period.
This paper examines the impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) on the theory of demythologization of the Italian philosopher Enrico Castelli (1900-1977). Particularly influenced by the reading of Gaudium et Spes and Populorum Progressio (one of the first encyclicals promulgated after the Council), Castelli identifies the inaugural moment of an epochal turning point in the renewed ecumenical spirit of the Church. This is what he calls a «new possible demythologization»: a radical U-turn in relation to the secularization of the Modern Age (the “first” demythologization), ideally started by Galileo Galilei’s trial. Castelli is one of the first philosophers to deeply understand the revolution started by the Second Vatican Council: ecumenism is the only possibility, for Christianity, to be in dialogue with contemporary society.
Since the mid-1960s, the Church and the Holy See responded to the pressure of globalisation and the rise in number of migrants by reflecting on the transformation of Western societies and the issue of Christians emigrating in search of better living conditions. This article analyses documents and outputs produced by the Italian national conference of bishops (CEI) since its creation, in order to assess the role it played and still plays in the national debate on migration, as well as in the growing awareness of Italy’s transformation from a country of many diasporas to the final destination of migratory movements. Moreover, it looks at the language of human rights employed by Italian bishops and their attempt to contextualise human mobility in the framework of urban and social transformation, which marked the last century of Italian history.
Giuseppe Cuscito, Trieste. Diocesi di frontiera. Storia e storiografia (Andrea Tilatti) Il processo di canonizzazione di Celestino V, tomo 1, a cura di Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli - Alfonso Marini, premessa di Agostino Paravicini Bagliani; Il processo di canonizzazione di Celestino V, tomo 2, a cura di Alfonso Marini (Pietro Messa) Anna Benvenuti, Sante donne di Toscana. Il Medioevo, con iconografia a cura di Raffaele Argenziano (Emanuele Carletti) Pierre Hurtubise, La cour pontificale au XVIe siècle d’Alexandre VI à Clément VIII (1492-1605) (Silvano Giordano) I ricordi di Vincenzio Borghini, a cura di Eliana Carrara - Maria Fubini Leuzzi, con una scheda codicologica di Veronica Vestri (Francesco Salvestrini) Rudj Gorian, Nascosti tra i libri. I periodici antichi della Biblioteca del Seminario patriarcale di Venezia (1607-1800) (Pierluigi Giovannucci) Vincenzo Tizzani, Effemeridi romane, I, 1828-1860, a cura di Giuseppe M. Croce (Mariano Dell’Omo)
Fascicolo digitale
|
