RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA CHIESA IN ITALIA - 2019 - 2

The negotiations which led to the end of the Acacian Schism involved pope Hormisdas, emperor Anastasius I and his successor Justin I. Our main source, namely the Collectio Avellana, is almost entirely silent about king Theoderic, whose role has until now been regarded as minor. A careful examination of the embassies sent to and from Constantinople between 515 and 519, however, indicates that the Gothic sovereign influenced the negotiations in the hope of obtaining the imperial recognition for his would-be heir, Eutharic, who became consul together with emperor Justin a few months before the re-establishment of the Church’s unity.

Our contribution provides a first indexing of the archival collection of the female Damianite/ Clarian monastery of S. Spirito of Ascoli Piceno long considered lost and kept instead in the Archive of the ublacense-Cassinese Congregation, housed in the monastery of S. Ambrogio in Rome. In the first two parts of our essay we provide some essential data among those available on the monastery and its uppression; the question of the dispersion of its archival heritage; an overview of the female monastic reality in Ascoli, during the first decades of the 13th century; the origins of the aforementioned feminine community in the context of the Damianite/ Clarian movement’s expansion in the Marca. In our third part, we present the regests of 43 documents (1228-1297) belonging to the archive of the monastery, with the aim “making the documentation speak [...] without filters”.

This paper presents a new critical reading of the oldest hagiographic and documentary sources relating to Sylvester, known as Guzzolini (end of the 12th/beginning of the 13th century-1267), founder of the Silvestrine monastic obedience, a part of St. Benedict’s Order, in the Italian region of the Marche. Whilst offering some detailed interpretations of the origins and the first spread of this movement, we focus on the relationship between monastic-hermitic traditions and Mendicant Orders’ views, especially as far as the Minorites are concerned. Our aim is to shed light on the interactions between older and reformed contemplative experiences, Roman Curia and religiones novae during the Italian Communal age.

The Via della salute, a short treatise written in Florentine vernacular by an anonymous Franciscan author at the end of the 14th century, contains not only the translation of texts by Angela of Foligno and Jacopone da Todi, but also – according to a structural change – teachings by Saint Catherine of Siena, with a few adaptations stemming from the anonymous writer’s ascetic intent. It is possible that the author met Catherine in Florence, either during her stay in 1374, which raised much interest in the city, or on the occasion of her later stay in 1378.

The two maps of the fiefs of Monreale’s diocese (1596 and 1702) display the outline of a country estate that up until the 19th century will remain the most lucrative among the ecclesiastical benefices in the Kingdom of Sicily, as well as one of the richest in the whole Catholic world. These charts also allow us to gather further evidence on the actual usefulness of such a benefice in answering needs which the ecclesiastical manomorta – a later and completely negative paradigm – could hardly satisfy. The “Mensa” of Monreale appears, in fact, to serve as a reference institution for a great number of subjects, from the nobles to the ecclesiastical bodies, from the local administrations to the single citizens. Thus, during most of the 18th century, it still fulfilled both a social and an economic function, of crucial importance to the communities of the diocese.

Giovanni Maria Visconti s.j., member of a prominent family of the Milanese patriciate, received from his Superiors the task of writing a biography of the recently deceased Anton Giulio Brignole Sale (1605-1662), a famous man of letters and genoese politician. In 1648 Brignole Sale – after a long cursus honorum in the Republic of Genoa’s public offices and during a period of political crisis in the Genoese State – suddenly decided to end his career to become a diocesan priest and, later on, a fellow of the Society of Jesus. Visconti’s work, published in 1666 under the title Alcune memorie delle virtù del padre Anton Giulio Brignole, is all the more interesting that the author, describing Brignole Sale’s life and virtues, provides a sort of cautious hagiography, whilst avoiding the direct exaltation of Brignole’s double conversion, not to hurt the Genoese political establishment.

Our article focuses on the fame of sanctity of St. Gerard Majella (1726-1755), a lay brother of the Congregation of the most Holy Redeemer who lived in the South of Italy, and the elaboration of his memory. Through a historical and anthropological approach, we take into consideration different kinds of sources: the bio-hagiographical texts; the hagiographies; furthermore, and above all, the witnesses’ depositions in the canonization process. Firstly, we present the Saint and his canonization process. Then, we examine the question of the witnesses and their written or oral “sources”, from which emerges the highly “mediated” nature of the whol process, considering that they had not known Gerard on a personal basis. Our second part is aimed at studying the “elaboration of memory” through the analysis of an episode of the Saint’s youth, mentioned in the hagiographies and in the canonization process as well.

Repertorio degli Omeliari del Medioevo (ROME), a cura di Oronzo Pecere - Francesco Santi - Lidia Buono - Eugenia Russo et alii, in Mirabile. Archivio digitale della cultura medievale. Digital Archives for Medieval Culture (Dario Personeni);  Barbara Faes, Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Un itinerario tra edizioni, ristampe e traduzioni (Pietro Messa); Pseudo Giacomo de Capellis, Summa contra hereticos, ed. critica a cura di Paola Romagnoli (Lorenzo Paolini); Beata Civitas. Pubblica pietà e devozioni private nella Siena del ’300, a cura di Anna Benvenuti - Pierantonio Piatti (Mario Ascheri); Francesco Salvestrini, Il carisma della magnificenza. L’abate vallombrosano Biagio Milanesi e la tradizione benedettina nell’Italia del Rinascimento, con l’edizione critica del «Memoriale» dell’abate Biagio Milanesi (Roberto Angelini); Maria Antonietta Visceglia, La Roma dei papi. La corte e la politica internazionale (secoli XV-XVII), a cura di Elena Valeri - Paola Volpini (Lorenzo Benedetti); Paul F. Grendler, The Jesuits and Italian Universities, 1548-1773 (Maria Teresa Guerrini); Yvan Loskoutoff, Un art de la Réforme catholique, tome 2. La symbolique du pape Grégoire XIII (1572-1585) et des Boncompagni (Lydia Salviucci Insolera); Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves. Uno storico “eretico” del Novecento, a cura di Angelo Bianchi - Bartolo Gariglio (Giovanni Storelli); Silvia Scatena, Taizé, una parabola di unità. Storia della comunità dalle origini al concilio dei giovani (Matteo Mennini); Francesca Campigli, Un cammino a ostacoli. Neocatecumenali e Chiesa di Roma (Daniele Bardelli)