RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA CHIESA IN ITALIA - 2015 - 2

This article analyses an anonymous hagiographic work, the Life of Senzius of Blera (BHL 7581), in the light of more recent research on the archaeology of early medieval Blera and on similar hagiographic texts of early medieval Italy. Combining these insights with examination of other literary sources for the region, including the letters of Pope Gregory I, the Liber Pontificalis and similar hagiographic texts produced at nearby Lucca, it is argued that the Life’s concern to promote two monastic cults, that of Mamilianus of Montecristo and the Isola del Giglio, and that of Senzius at Blera as the town’s patron saint, reflects the episcopal appropriation of these cults by the church of Blera in the eighth century as Blera became an increasingly important and strategic frontier town between the two warring powers of Byzantine and Lombard Italy.

The paper analyzes the main steps of the settlement of the Theatines in Lecce (1586) and the deep relationship between the convent of the Theatines and the religious order leaders in Naples, especially referring to artistic choices. A group of unpublished bank policies, paid to Giovanni Antonio Guerra and Marcantonio Ferraro for the famous wooden tabernacle of St. Irene’s church in Lecce (1598), confirms this relationship. As a matter of fact the Theatines of Naples demanded several works to the two authors, including the choir of the Oratory of the SS. Crucifix of Knights; the notary contract for the choir is here published (1608). In the mid of the Eighteenth century, St. Irene’s tabernacle was destroyed, but the four wooden statues of the Lecce’s Patron Saints are here considered surviving parts of the original presbytery’s decoration. They represent a visual evidence of the struggle of relics which involved both the Theatines and the Jesuits in the main city of Salento, until the half of the Seventeenth century.

The article considers the Lettere spirituali written by Francesco Luigi Fontana, a Barnabite, to Carolina Trotti Durini from 1793 to 1821. The large period and the great number of letters sent allow not only to reconstruct Fontana’s spiritual direction (characterized by umanesimo devoto salesiano), but they also make it possible to identify various spiritual and cultural problems (Jansenism and Enlightenment, for example), between late 18th and early 19th century.

After 1860, Pius IX decided that it was necessary to abolish the privilege of the Legazia Apostolica di Sicilia. It is for this purpose that he appointed a special commission entrusted to study the case and propose a solution. Cardinal Francesco Saverio Apuzzo was a member of this commission: this work takes into account the opinion he expressed in 1861, that is particularly important for the analysis of the conditions of the Sicilian Church and for the proposals advanced in order to bring it back under the exclusive jurisdiction of the pope.

The paper deals with the travel that mgr Piero Rossano, at that time secretary for the Secretariat for non Christians, did in Soviet Union in 1975 with fr. Chiavacci, senator Gozzini, his wife Vilma and an Italian writer, Gino Montesanto. In Montesanto’s archive the author found new information about this travel and about the meetings that Rossano had in Moscow, Zagorsk, Vilnius, Kaunas, Riga and Jurmala. The Italian delegation met representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate, of the Soviet regime, but, above all, met some leaders of the persecuted Catholic Church. The trip must be considered as an important piece of the Catholic Ostpolitik: a pastoral activity that included negotiations with hostile Governments, ecumenical meetings, and brotherly support to Catholic bishops beyond the Iron Curtain.

The Collectanea provide access to the creation process of Anastasius the Librarian (how he obtained the sources and how he used them in his translations), highlighting the relationships between intellectuals of his time, in particular John the Deacon. The pamphlets of the Collectanea are emblematic for the understanding of the disputes involving the Papacy in the second half of the ninth century, such as the debate on papal infallibility and the Photian schism. Only one manuscript contains the Collectanea as a whole (Paris, BNF, lat. 5095) while the central section (Narrationes or Acta Martini) can be also found in Roma, Vallicelliana, T. IX. The relationship between these two codices is rather complex, linked to production methods typically anastasian and probably the result of a double redaction.

During the first years after the suppression, the ex-jesuits tried to keep alive the typical spirit of the Society. Between 1778 and 1781 Francesco Antonio Zaccaria sent 28 letters to Luigi Mozzi. It’s a correspondence for the publication of an anti-jansenistic work by Mozzi. However, looking in deep it deals with topics that go far beyond this issue: the bull Unigenitus, the devotion to Sacred Heart, the criticisms against the Roman curia and the Pope, the battle against the jansenistic catechisms. The correspondence therefore shows ex-Jesuits’ wish to keep on fighting for what it’s always been important for the Society, or, in other words, it shows their wish to go on living as Jesuits after 1773.