Capuchins

Volume 1 : La Breve e Succinta Relatione del Viaggio nel Regno di Congo […] du prêtre capucin Girolamo Merolla da Sorrento, publiée en 1692, est un compte rendu d’une mission d’évangélisation accomplie dans des territoires peu explorés à l’époque comme le Royaume de Kongo, l’Angola et d’autres territoires environnants. La densité des sujets traités dans cet ouvrage et l’opacité de la langue et du style ont nécessité un travail d’édition critique afin de déblayer le terrain, pour un texte qui jusqu’à présent était demeuré presque inconnu et avait été mis en perspective de façon trop succincte. Cette tâche est précisément l’objet du volume 1.

Volume 1: Published in 1692, Breve e Succinta Relatione del Viaggio nel Regno di Congo […] by the Capuchin priest Girolamo Merolla da Sorrento is an account about a mission of evangelization that took place on the Kingdom of Kongo, Angola and other surrounding areas, which were almost unexplored during that time. The density of the topics the book deals with, as well as its linguistic and stylistic opacity required a philological and historical assessment to prepare the way to understand its content, which have remained almost unknown or succinctly analysed until today. Take into consideration the mentioned aspects, a critical edition will be the task of this first volume.

http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/xslt/DB=2.1//SRCH?IKT=12&TRM=224505807&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,I250,B341720009+,SY,NLECTEUR+WEBOPC,D2.1,E6ae54b43-11,A,H,R98.253.148.177,FY

L'article traite de littérature de voyage et plus particulièrement de récits de               
missionnaires italiens de l'ordre des Capucins, ayant œuvré à l'évangélisation du           
Royaume du Congo vers la fin du XVII e siècle. Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Mon-tecuccolo, Girolamo Merolla da Sorrento et Antonio Zucchelli da Gradisca ont un point commun, celui d'avoir reporté dans leurs livres respectifs, des manifestations d'apriorismes, de violences à l'encontre des us et coutumes congolais. L'étude en offre les détails littéraires traduisant ces répressions et leurs surgissements. Sur le fond, elle marque une distinction entre une narration découlant d'une violence réelle, celle de spectacles punitifs, et une autre, imagologico-morale , exprimée en châtiments exemplaires.
The objective of this research is to investigate about travel literature, particularly on the travel accounts written by the Capuchin missionaries Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Girolamo Merolla da Sorrento and Antonio Zucchelli da Gradisca, who participated in the Evangelization of the Kingdom of Congo in the late seventeenth century. Their texts are characterized by the recurrence to apriorisms and the use of violence toward Congolese traditions and customs. This study examines precisely the literary motifs that represents the above mentioned characteristics and, simultaneously, establishes the causes of their origin, through the distinction between narrative as a result of the real violence represented in the punitive spectacles and a imagological-moral violence, expressed through exemplary punishments.

One of the most significant roles of the Capuchin mission in the Ottoman capital was the friars’ ministry to the Latin Catholic slaves incarcerated in the prisons of the bagnes and the Seven Towers. The ritual and spiritual dimensions were accompanied by efforts to secure their manumission which were facilitated by the political and financial support of the major Catholic powers. France in particular succoured Christian slaves through its diplomatic representatives who succeeded in obtaining favourable outcomes in the capitulatory treaties and other formal negotiations with the Sublime Porte during the three centuries under study.

In …une vie singulière, avec de nombreuses bonnes pensées. Henri Werling et la mission catholique en Estonie […a most singular life, filled with many good thoughts. Henri Werling SJ and the Catholic Mission to Estonia], Philippe Henri Blasen and Antoinette Reuter trace the life of Henri Werling (1879–1961), the eldest son of an upper class family from Luxembourg, who made the unusual choice of becoming a Jesuit priest. Having been trained in the German province of the Society of Jesus, he was sent to East Prussia in 1921, and from there to Estonia in 1923. The Holy See had for a long time contemplated spreading the Catholic faith in Russia. After World War I, when the Russian provinces around the Baltic Sea became independent, it considered Estonia to be a good starting point for such a mission. During the winter 1921/1922 a Jesuit priest, Antonino Zecchini, made an apostolic visitation to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Both the bishop of Riga and the representative of France to Estonia were hoping that a Jesuit mission would be established in Estonia. Zecchini happily transmitted their desire to Rome. It was only in late 1923 that the German province sent Henri Werling as the first Jesuit missionary to Estonia. Werling was stationed in the university town of Tartu. Instead of working, as planned, on converting students, he had to limit his endeavours to the basic parish administration. Problems he had to face were not only bad finances and a huge parish, but also the lack of religious education and the multilingualism among the Catholic population. However, Werling learned the language quite fast and enjoyed travelling through his parish, which stretched from the Western to the Eastern border of the country. Beginning 1924 Werling had to take over the parish of Tallinn, as well. This made his task even harder, but he was able to return to the south of Estonia already in the summer, when another Jesuit priest, Joseph Kartte, was sent to Tallinn. This situation remained almost unchanged until 1930, as no new missionary stayed definitely and as a priested Estonian citizen, Leo Abraitis, died four years after his ordainment. Later, the Society of Jesus and the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin sent more priests to Estonia, and Franciscan and other nuns arrived. Because of an incoherent policy of the Roman institutions, a bad administration and internal conflicts the mission came to a head in 1938/1939. It was dismembered by the successive Soviet and German occupations, when the priests and nuns were called back to their countries of origin, were arrested or deported. Only a few regular and secular priests were allowed to stay as parish administrators. At the end of World War II, Werling was deported to the Urals, from where he returned to the Estonian SSR in 1954. Here he died in 1961.

CITATION
Paolo Aranha, "Vulgaris seu Universalis: Early Modern Missionary Representations of an Indian Cosmopolitan Space", in "Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud: Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles)", eds. Corinne Lefèvre, Ines G. Županov, Jorge Flores, Collection Puruṣārtha 33 (Paris: Éditions de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2015): 331-360.

ABSTRACT
Missionary history has been acknowledged in recent years as a fundamental context for the emergence of European Orientalism. In particular, it is becoming clearer the specific cultural relevance of the Catholic missionaries to India, working under the Portuguese Royal Patronage (Padroado Real),  depending from  the Roman Congregation De Propaganda Fide or relying on the support of the French Crown. This chapter analyzes the efforts of the French Capuchin François-Marie de Tours († 1709), essential both in the explosion of the Malabar Rites controversy and for the emergence of a corpus of linguistic knowledge on Hindustānī. I argue that these two aspects are expression of a single and consistent effort at building up a “cosmopolitan” Indian Christianity, characterized by social fluidity across caste divisions, physical mobility along the subcontinental coastlines and an avowed openness towards European influences. On the contrary, the Jesuit missions in India (in particular the ones of Madurai, Mysore and the Carnatic) appear as characterized by an extensive adaptation of Christianity to the local social hierarchies and articulated in the South Asian regional languages, many of which boasting a tradition more prestigious than the one of Hindustānī. However, this chapter hints also at a hitherto almost unknown specific Jesuit engagement with Hindustānī, developed in the Mughal mission according to a project distinct from the one unsuccessfully proposed by François-Marie de Tours.

The essay explores the dramatic and performative dimension of the Forty Hours Devotion – one of the most important liturgical services of the Counter-Reformation - promoted by Capuchin Friars Minor between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first part summarizes the salient steps that marked the emergence of a precise system of celebration developed by the Order, highlighting those elements that made it original in choice of time, organization and, above all, detailed meditation practice. The second part is devoted to those changes that took place in the seventeenth century. Particular attention is dedicated to the new dramaturgy of the devotion: centered on the sermon, it was transformed from an interior “theater of contrition” into a “spectacle of penitence and conformation”. Lastly, the third part proposes an interpretation of the work Ultimi colpi al cuore de’peccatori, written by Capuchin Domenico de Sancto da Francavilla in 1694. This sermon collection - in vernacular and with printed margin notes on gestures and actions for the preacher - is a unique example of rhetorical dramaturgy, almost a playscript for an actor.

The collection consists of records relating to the Capuchin community in Cork city and in particular to the foundation known as Holy Trinity Church and Friary situated on Father Mathew Quay (formerly Charlotte Quay). Although the Capuchins arrived in Cork as early as 1637 it was many years before they took up residence on the site now occupied by Holy Trinity Church. Initially, the Capuchins resided on the southern side of Cork, just outside the South Gate. By the early eighteenth century the Capuchins appear to have established a permanent apostolate in the South Parish and by 1741 had built a small Friary on Blackamoor Lane situated just behind O’Sullivan’s Quay. By the mid-1820s, Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC (1790-1856) decided to build a larger church in a more convenient location. A site on Charlotte Quay below Parliament Bridge was eventually acquired. The Gothic Revival design for Holy Trinity Church was conceived by the Cork-based architect George Pain (1793-1838). Construction work on the church began in the early 1830s but stalled shortly before the Great Famine. It was completed in 1890, in time for the centenary of the birth of Fr. Mathew. The collection includes legal records relating to the acquisition, transfer and disposal of church property (such as deeds of title, mortgages and bills of sale), financial records, and material relating to individual members of the Capuchin community in Cork. The collection includes many administrative and community files, financial statements and books of account relating to building construction and structural alterations, correspondence, plans, publicity material, photographs, rare books and miscellaneous items of ephemera connected with Capuchin ministries and apostolates in Cork. The collection also includes records and registers relating to the Third Order of St. Francis (now the Secular Franciscan Order) and other lay sodalities and confraternities attached to Holy Trinity Church.

Étrange histoire que celle du livre d’un missionnaire censuré lors de sa parution prévue  en  1615,  voire  doublement  par  deux  censures  consécutives  et  par  un oubli complet  !

Qu’est-ce qui rendait si dangereux un livre qui racontait les exploits des Français dans  une  colonie  éphémère  au  Maranhão,  province  du  Nord  du  Brésil,  entre 1612-1615 à tel point qu’il fallait sacrifier un livre déjà imprimé mais pas encore commercialisé et  le  retirer  complètement  de  la  circulation?  Deux  ans  et  demi après sa première publication prévue pour 1615, François de Rasilly, militaire et membre de l’entreprise coloniale du Maragnan, donnait un livre fragmentaire en 1618 “au Roy“ avec une préface imprimée où il mentionnait la suppression de quelques chapitres d’une main inconnue. 
Ce  n’est  qu’au  19 ème  siècle  qu’on  a  redécouvert  cet  exemplaire  gardé  dans  la Bibliothèque du Roi à Paris et que l’on croyait être unique à l’époque.  Ferdinand Denis (1798-1890),  publia son édition commentée de l’exemplaire parisien en 1864.

Notre édition de 2012 (digital 2014)  présente pour la première fois un exemplaire plus complet du livre d'Yves d'Évreux, aujourd'hui à  New York qui comporte seulement les lacunes d'une première censure, et non pas celles d'une seconde probablement faite par Rasilly, dont il contient la préface . Il est donc probable que cette seconde censure ait été faite par Rasilly dans l'exemplaire de Paris avant la présentation du livre au Roi.

Le  livre  d’Yves d’Évreux est riche en informations sur São Luis do Maranhão, d’importance historique, linguistique et ethnologique qui méritent un commentaire détaillé, il était grand temps qu’il soit disponible à nouveau en entier.

The article is focused on the altar piece painted by German 17th-century painter Joachim von Sandrart for the Capuchin church in Brno. The painting is subject of iconographic analysis and evaluated within the oeuvre of the artist, the issue of commissioner is discussed in detail.

The practice of preaching parish missions became widespread in Ireland after Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The upsurge in devotional practices and the dramatic increase in Mass attendance in the late nineteenth century ensured an increasing demand for local missions and retreats. Diocesan priests were not always plentiful so there was a general dependence upon religious orders for preaching and for parish mission work. The collection includes records relating to missions and retreats preached by the Irish Capuchin friars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection also includes material relating to special temperance missions given by the friars in response to a call from the Irish Catholic hierarchy to undertake a nationwide total abstinence campaign in 1905. The missionary zeal of the friars ensured that their temperance work extended to almost every part of the country. From Falcarragh in north Donegal to Bantry in west Cork, and from Achill Island off the western seaboard to the urban centres of Dublin and Belfast, the Capuchins worked tirelessly on the temperance mission. Record series in the collection include lists of missions and retreats given by the Capuchins, mission accounts and commentaries, temperance and pledge-taking records, correspondence, publicity material, printed ephemera and newspaper reports on missions preached by the friars.

The most celebrated woman writer of the Italian Renaissance, Vittoria Colonna was known for her elegant poetry and use of the sonnet form to explore pressing religious questions. The selection of Colonna’s letters presented here for the first time in a translated edition, written to and from writers, artists, popes, cardinals, employees, and family members, place Colonna at the center of intersecting epistolary networks as a political actor, a theological thinker, a literary practitioner, and a caring friend. Revealing a historical woman speaking and acting with force in the world, they constitute a vital tool for anyone seeking to understand Colonna’s literary works.

The subject of the studies is the painting The Vision of Saint Antonio from Padova discovered in the Fathers Capuchins' Convent in Cracow. Oil painting of 197x130 cm was handed in to the Department of Conservation of Easel Paintings at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow.
On the grounds of the signature found on the painting, as well as the formal and comparative analysis, the authors ascribe the painting to Pietro Dandini, a painter from Florence who created at the turm of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They perceive the influence of Pietro da Cortona and Antonio Allegrio called Correggio in the presentation of particular figures, and they compare the painting with other works by Dandini: The Assumption of Maria Assisted by St Peter and St Augustine from San Pietro Church in Colle Val d'Elsa, the decoration of the church dome Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi in Florence, the frescos in the Ognissanti Chapel in Villa della Petraia and Saint Antonio from the Cloister of Museo di San Marco in Florence. At the same time they attempt to prove that a bouquet of flowers in the painting was painted by a painter of still nature - Andrea Scacciati - Dandini's frequent co-operator.
Basing their thesis on the archive materials found in the Florence Archivio Provinciale dei Cappuccini as well as the correspondence published by S. Ciampi, the authors prove that the painting was painted in 1700 on the order of the Capuchins from Cracow. Apart from the painting with Saint Antonio, the paintings with Saint Francisco of Assisi and Saint Gaetano were also ordered.
Further part focuses on technological issues that prove the authenticity of the painting. The paper finishes with the presentation of the painting's condition and conservation works.

Em 1841, o antigo Hospício Capuchinho de Nossa Senhora da Penha do Recife assistiu a chegada da primeira leva de frades italianos que viriam iniciar um novo ciclo da presença de tal Ordem religiosa franciscana no Brasil. Em ciclos descontínuos, os capuchinhos tiveram presença em solo brasileiro marcada já remotamente desde as invasões francesas seiscentistas do Maranhão, figurando ainda, ao longo dos séculos XVII, XVIII e primeira metade do XIX, agrupados em dois outros momentos: um ciclo composto de frades bretões e outro italiano. Com uma rede pequena de casas (hospícios), mas uma ampla rede de aldeamentos missioneiros indígenas por eles coordenados, os capuchinhos se espraiariam inicialmente, sobretudo, no atual Nordeste brasileiro - supra e sub rio São Francisco – contribuindo, ao lado de outras Ordens, para o estabelecimento de uma nova ordem social que passava não somente pela cristianização mas, também, pela inserção de formas outras de espaço. Baseados numa mística reformista franciscana em que importava caminhar, no Brasil, os frades primeiramente concentraram suas espacializações em se dirigir às regiões centrais do território onde trabalhavam na formatação e direção dos aldeamentos/missões fixas. No entanto, ao adentrarem o século XVIII (durante o primeiro ciclo italiano), com a consolidação do cristianismo e dos novos modos de ocupar o solo, os frades passaram a atuar também por meio de outro dispositivo, isto é, as chamadas missões volantes ou itinerantes. Diversamente das missões de aldeamento, na missão volante o frade não se fixada por longos períodos num só lugar, mas caminhava de lugar em lugar, permanecendo por intervalos de tempo mais curtos em cada um deles, visando atender as necessidades religiosas destas localidades já cristianizadas (catequeses, distribuição de sacramentos etc.). Ainda no século XVIII, em meio às missões volantes, atender necessidades religiosas, em certos momentos, implicava em construir, sendo um dos mais conhecidos legados desse período o Monte Santo da Bahia, um dos cenários da Guerra de Canudos. Este trabalho, no entanto, dirige seu olhar especialmente para as cinco primeiras décadas do segundo ciclo italiano dos frades capuchinhos na Penha do Recife aberto a partir da reentrada dos frades em Pernambuco e da retomada do antigo hospício e prefeitura em 1841. Neste novo ciclo, os frades da Penha redirecionariam e concentrariam suas atividades para as missões itinerantes, percorrendo e construindo entre diversas localidades das antigas províncias de Pernambuco, Alagoas, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte e Ceará. Somando-se a outros trabalhos que têm avançado sobre os estudos dos legados franciscanos/capuchinhos em diferentes áreas, esta dissertação concentra-se em entender a produção espacial das missões itinerantes dos frades da Penha do Recife entre 1841 e 1889, investigando as dinâmicas que envolveram os atos do caminhar itinerante, do construir sacrificial e do deixar legados missioneiros que encontram repercussão ainda hoje na formação social e paisagística do Nordeste. Para isto, fontes diversas em seus conteúdos e temporalidades foram analisadas (como memórias, correspondências, livros, jornais, imagens e visitas a alguns dos próprios lugares produzidos durante as missões) visando compreender a espiritualidade e a incorporação dos frades e das missões itinerantes por governos e populações e, por conseguinte, suas repercussões no espaço.

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In 1841, the old Capuchin hospice of Nossa Senhora da Penha in Recife saw the arrival of the first group of Italian friars who would start a new cycle of the presence of such a Franciscan religious Order in Brazil. In discontinuous cycles, the Capuchin presence on Brazilian soil has been marked remotely since the French invasions of Maranhão in the 17th century, and also appeared in the 17th, 18th and the first half of the 19th century, grouped in two other moments: a cycle composed of the presence of Breton friars and another composed by the presence of Italian friars. With a small network of houses (hospices), but a wide network of indigenous missionary settlements coordinated by them, the Capuchins initially extended their activities mainly in the territory corresponding to the present Brazilian Northeast - below and above the São Francisco river - contributing, alongside other Orders, to the establishment of a new social order which included not only the Christianization of the native peoples but also the insertion of new forms of space. Based on a Franciscan reformist mystique in which it was important to walk, in Brazil the friars first concentrated their spatialization on the central regions of the territory where they worked in the formatting and direction of indigenous villages/fixed missions. However, as they entered the 18th century (during the first Italian cycle), with the consolidation of Christianity and new ways of occupying the land, the friars began to act also through another device, that is, the so-called itinerant missions. Unlike the fixed missions (indigenous villages), in the itinerant missions the friar was not fixed for long periods in one place, but used to walk from place to place, staying for shorter intervals in each one, in order to meet the religious needs of these already Christianized places (catechesis, distribution of sacraments, etc.). In the 18th century, in the midst of the itinerant missions, at certain times, meeting religious needs implied building, being one of the best known legacies of that period the Monte Santo of Bahia, one of the scenarios of the War of Canudos. However, this work focuses especially on the first five decades of the second Italian cycle of the Capuchin friars in Penha of Recife opened from the reentry of these religious in Pernambuco and the resumption of the old hospice and prefecture in 1841. In this new cycle, the friars of Penha redirected and concentrated their activities on itinerant missions, traversing and building among several localities of the former provinces of Pernambuco, Alagoas, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará. In addition to other researches that have advanced on the studies of the Franciscan / Capuchin legacies in different areas, this master’s dissertation concentrates on understanding the spatial production of the itinerant missions of the friars of Penha of Recife between 1841 and 1889, investigating the dynamics which involved the acts of the itinerant walking, sacrificial building and leaving  missionary legacies that still have repercussions in the social and landscape formation of the Brazilian Northeast. For this end, several different sources in their contents and their temporalities (such as memoirs, letters, books, newspapers, images and visits to some of the sites produced during the missions) were analyzed in order to understand the spirituality and the incorporation of the friars and their itinerant missions by governments and populations and consequently the repercussions of these things in the space.

Ngongo Mbata, the main and most affluent center of the Kongo kingdom’s Mbata province in the seventeenth century, is well known from the historical sources, but virtually unexplored in archaeological publications. Ngongo Mbata is unique in that it hosted a monumental stone building about which the historical record remains silent. This makes it particularly challenging from the point of view of historical archaeology. In this paper historical data, unpublished excavation results from the 1930s and our own fieldwork undertaken in 2012–13 are brought together, to tell a new story of early African-European contacts in the interior of West Central Africa.

En este artículo incluimos en el catálogo religioso del pintor Virgilio Mattoni (1842-1923) dos acuarelas sobre cartón realizadas para la Orden de los Hermanos Menores Capuchinos de Sevilla a comienzos del siglo XX. Constituyen el colofón a una época en la que se gestaron varias obras como fruto de las relaciones entre el artista y la institución, que comenzaron hacia 1895. El papel de Fray Diego de Valencina fue fundamental para ello, figura interesante e importante en el seno de la Orden y en la vida intelectual de la época en la ciudad, con quien Mattoni compartió inquietudes y una cercana amistad. El interés común hacia las artes y, fundamentalmente, hacia la pintura, fue el desencadenante de estos encargos. No fue este el único caso, ya que el capuchino mantuvo estrechos vínculos personales y culturales con otros artistas y eruditos de importante proyección, como fueron Gonzalo Bilbao o José Gestoso.

Registrum scripturarum della procura generale dell'Ordine Cappuccino, 1761-1768, a cura di Giuseppe Avarucci (Monumenta Historica Ordinis Minorum Capuccinorum, 43). Roma 2022, 24 cm., 815 p., ill.  ISBN 978-88-99702-24-3

Il volume contiene le pratiche dell’ufficio del procuratore generale dell’Ordine dei cappuccini, Girolamo Maria da Caltanisetta, per gli anni 1761-1768. Il testo è tratto dal manoscritto AF 4 dell’Archivio Generale. Si tratta di un manoscritto di 321 carte, dove sono inseriti anche 11 fogli volanti. Fogli e fascicoli sono stati recuperati in un luogo dell’archivio generale saturo di umidità, che ha prodotto un grave degrado delle carte, già in stato precario a causa dell’uso di inchiostri acidi e corrosivi, che hanno causato gravi perdite in molteplici carte del manoscritto. Il recupero e l’ordinamento di fogli e fascicoli del manoscritto, come oggi si presenta, è stato composto verso la fine del XVIII secolo. Contiene 467 pratiche. Nel manoscritto, in stato del tutto precario, si contano più di ottanta carte con perdite e gravi squarci, che vengono opportunamente segnalati nelle note.
Il contenuto delle pratiche rispecchia la situazione della vita delle varie province dell’Ordine, in un periodo di cambiamento della società e pure della vita dei conventi e dell’impegno spirituale e pastorale dei singoli frati. Viene ben presentato il mondo dei fratelli laici, nuovo per le numerose rivendicazioni circa la qualità della loro vita che trascorre dedita a gravosi lavori, pretesi da molti guardiani, spesso trascurano la loro formazione spirituale e religiosa. Molti sono i casi di fratelli laici che godono di grande stima e benevolenza da parte dei fedeli. La formazione culturale dei frati, finalizzata al ministero della predicazione, è attentamente sostenuta, mentre si è meno attenti alle continue e pressanti richieste dei fedeli per le confessioni. Alcune province chiedono alle congregazioni romane varie dispense da obblighi previsti dalle costituzioni dell’Ordine.
Si osservano anche delle ombre, come i processi penali contro i frati che infrangevano la regola e la legge, ma non mancano pagine luminose di storia personale e comunitaria. Si percepisce chiaramente che il tono e il contenuto delle pratiche è segnato dallo spirito di novità e di libertà che si stanno affermando nella vita degli ecclesiastici e della società italiana ed europea nella seconda metà del Settecento.
Il testo è corredato di note sulle provincie dell’Ordine, dei conventi e dei singoli religiosi, e di dettagliati indici dei nomi che facilitano la consultazione.

http://www.istcap.org/component/k2/mhomc-43.html

Uno studio iconologico condotto su alcuni episodi fondamentali della tradizione iconografica del santo cappuccino Lorenzo da Brindisi rivela lo sforzo congiunto di artisti e teologi volto ad attingere per via iconica al potenziale controversistico che aveva caratterizzato gli interventi dottrinali del frate.

This study focuses on the role of monasteries in the medical provision of the late eighteenth-century Hungarian Kingdom, with a special interest in monastery pharmacies located in rural environments. These pharmacies and their apothecaries were gradually disappearing agents of the medical marketplace from the 1770s as a result of the strengthening endeavor of the Habsburg rulers to control the professional standards and business activity of the medical personnel in their realms. This effort coincided with the introduction of new church policies that aimed at reducing the number of monasteries and channeling their resources into pastoral care. By pointing at the impact of ecclesiastical reforms on the medical oeconomy, I argue that state interference did not merely fill the gaps in the medical supply, but it also redefined the already existing networks and activity of various practitioners, as it can be seen from the examples of the apothecary-surgeon brothers of religious orders. I will present three case studies through which I will shed light on the local embeddedness of three monastery pharmacies, namely: the Franciscans of Keszthely, the Capuchins of Hatvan, and the Paulines of Lepoglava. I will explore how successfully (or unsuccessfully) the dissolution of these monasteries could put an end to the activity of the lay brothers who were in charge of running their pharmacies and often fulfilled the tasks of surgeons, too, both inside and outside their monasteries. By exploring the ambiguities surrounding these healers, who were simultaneously associated with a stable place and with the image of itinerant healers and who routinely crossed the borders between domestic and public, charitable and commercialized, professional and popular healing practices, I will also show why they could not be compatible with the standardizing endeavors of the state.

I cappuccini e la peste. Taranto 1643: un’epidemia dimenticata, in Società, diritto e religione durante le epidemie. Problemi e prospettive, a cura di
Francesco Castelli e Stefano Vinci, Editoriale Scientifica Napoli, 2022.

In the Taranto of the seventeenth century there is a high mortality rate, precisely between the months of July-September 1643, caused by the spread of a virulent epidemic as the plague. the news was taken from the documentation of the Capuchin Province of Terra di Otranto, kept in the State Archive of Milan, and compared with the data contained in the register of the death of the Diocesan Historical Archive of Taranto. Between confirmations and historical inconsistencies, the essay presents a systematic reflection in the light of the documents found.

[Conversion and Family in Two Italian Literary Texts of the Seventeenth Century]. In seventeenth Century Italy Scotland became one of the most powerful symbols of persecution of Catholics by Protestants. This was in large part thanks to the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots being related in a myriad of historical texts, tragedies, oratorios and poems. In this context two “biographies” were published in Italy in 1644 and 1677 that narrated the vicissitudes of the lives of two Scottish capuchins in which the topic of religious identity is closely intertwined with gender issues. The first, written by the Archbishop of Fermo Giambattista Rinuccini and entitled Cappuccino Scozzese (Scottish Capuchin) (1644) tells the story of the noble George Leslie (d. 1637) who, born into a Protestant family, after his conversion to Catholicism in France, entered the Capuchin Order in Rome. The second, written by the Sicilian writer Antonio Lupis and entitled Marchesa d’Hunsleij (Marchioness of Huntley) (1677), relates the story of John Forbes (1571–1606), son of a Catholic mother and a Protestant father who decides to follow his maternal religion. Both biographies, which enjoyed outstanding editorial success, are true stories though take some liberties with historical reality. The central themes of both biographies are conversion and family conflict. And in both biographies one of the main figures is the mother of the capuchin. In one case the child leads to his mother’s conversion while in the other the mother pushes her son to conversion. If Lupis’ book, as evidenced by the title, is actually the biography of Forbes’ mother, this is also the case of Rinuccini’s Cappuccino Scozzese where the fulcrum around which revolvs the story is really the conversion of Leslie’s mother. In the comparison between historical truth and fiction the essay investigates how the two authors have addressed the theme of “conversion” from a gender point of view.

Actualmente la mayor parte de los autores coincide en atribuir la fundación de la Hermandad de la Divina Pastora de Cantillana a la actividad como predicador y misionero realizada por fray Isidoro de Sevilla, que concibió esta advocación mariana en 1703 y erigió varias corporaciones para rendirle culto durante el primer cuarto del siglo XVIII 1. La base de esta atribución se encuentra en un artículo publicado por Alonso Morgado 2 , que la sitúa "por los años de 1720", sin revelar sus fuentes, lo que ha llevado a los autores citados a situar su fundación en ese año concreto. Nuestra interpretación es que Morgado se refiere a la década y no al año 1720 en concreto. Mucho más desapercibida ha pasado la afirmación de fray Ambrosio de Valencina 3 , que atribuye también la fundación a fray Isidoro, en 1729, aunque igualmente sin pruebas documentales.