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Montecassino and Benevento in the Middle Ages: Essays in South Italian Church History, by G. A. Loud (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000; pp. 334. 57.50 £). In the Mezzogiorno of the central [...]

This article traces by a process of synthesis the developments which led Pope Paull III, the last and one of the most significant representatives of the Renaissance papacy, to suppress all forms of religious dissent in Italy, in the hardest and most unyielding manner – without, however, combating the abuses of ecclesiastical discipline and benefices critizised by the Protestant Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the ways in which 15th-century nuns financed, shaped and used works of arts and architecture at the Benedictine convent of San Zaccaria in Venice, Italy. Involvement in two major episodes of building and decoration in the 15th century; Contributing factors to the nuns' outrage and disillusionment during the period; Imposition of radical reforms on the nuns' communities during the period.

Focuses on elections of abbesses and notions of identity in 15th- and 16th-century Italy, particularly in Venice. Anatomy of an election of 1509 by a nun from San Zaccaria in Venice; Nuns' election practices during the period; Visual representation of various abbesses from Florence, Pavia and Venice.

»Kardinäle in der Funktion eines Premierministers, ca. 1450 - ca. 1750«. From the late 15th until the late 18th century, 15 Italian men shared a particular occupational life course, by becoming prime minister as well as cardinal to the Church of Rome. Some became prime minister after having been cardinal; others had a reversed career of becoming prime cardinal after having been prime minister. It is obvious that personal experiences will have influenced the policies they set out, especially when a prime minister had been a cardinal before. But, on the other hand, the impersonal cultural life script of being a cardinal or being a prime minister may have predominated personal inclinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces an upcoming 22 to 24 My 2013 international conference on the national churches in Rome, Italy, from 1450 to 1650.

Summary: This essay explores the activities of the Italian consortium of S. Alessandro in Colonna in Bergamo, through an analysis and translation of the Regola (Rule) that governed it for nearly five centuries. Written in Latin in 1363-65, and republished in Italian in the late sixteenth century, the statutes and other primary source documents of this confraternity reflect the (admittedly modest) aspirations, disappointments, and achievements of one group of Bergamo's citizens as they sought to achieve the "sacred miracle" of brotherhood. The essay also compares the consortium of S. Alessandro in Colonna to other Bergamasque confraternities, especially the large and powerful Misericordia Maggiore (MIA), with a particular focus on how confraternities in Bergamo supported lay and clerical education. Specific topics include the membership, organization, and social purpose(s) of a rather ordinary confraternity, here considered both as an individual case study and as a vehicle of comparison with similar pious associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article explores the origins of the complex relationship between Church and State in Italy. The author traces the historical and political context, and analyzes the various phases of the slow process of interpenetration between Catholics and Liberals in the life of the new State: from the absolute intransigence of dawn of Unity to the early loosening of the opposition at the turn of the 20th century, to the structuring of an autonomous presence of Catholics in politics, followed by the final settlement of 1929. The author suggests that it is crucial to take into account the historical contingencies in the evolution of relations between Church and State.

By studying two ancient inventories --one of which original-- this contribution wishes to shed light on the relations between the precious furnishings of a medieval church and the liturgical, cultural and political events related to them. In this sense, the church of George of Antioch's Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, built in the Norman part of Palermo, with its conspicuous collection of icons and images, reveals the cultural syncretism typical of Sicily between the 12th and the 14th centuries, where the encounter between the West, Byzantium and Islam favoured the birth of a highly refined artistic language and a culture with a Mediterranean vocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the morning of September 29, 1978, John Paul I was discovered dead. One of the shortest pontificates in history ended after 33 days. The Vatican announced that the 65 year-old pope died of a heart attack according to God's unfathomable providence. The sudden papal death gained worldwide media attention. Two issues were extensively discussed in the press: Firstly, what meaning might lie in the premature death that ended the pontificate after such a short time. Secondly, there was speculation on possible alternative explanations for the pontiff's lonely end, because the official cause of death was promptly questioned by the newspapers. In their opinion the stress of the office and the strains of the curial bureaucracy decisively weakened the pope's fragile health. Journalists reckoned that he left a remarkable legacy: His unique personality was reflected in the extraordinary circumstances of his death. These characteristics would determine the election of his successor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sixteenth-century writer Ortensio Lando (ca. 1512-ca. 1553) wrote many of his works pseudonymously and borrowed liberally from the works of others. Part of a community of professional writers who experimented with collaborative modes of literary production, Lando was also deeply invested in the currents of religious reform that swept through sixteenth-century Italy. In his extensive literary recourse to female personas, Lando privileged contemporary women who shared his own heterodox religious views. This essay examines Lando's female impersonations with particular attention to his use of Lucrezia Gonzaga da Gazzuolo (ca. 1521-76), whose complex literary relationship with Lando is illustrated by her presence throughout his literary corpus, and by his role in the book of Lettere published under her name. It argues that the relationship between these two figures can be best understood as a literary and spiritual partnership, one that meshed Lando's editorial expertise with Gonzaga's fame as a woman of extraordinary virtue and spiritual authority, a reputation that Lando himself helped to create. In an era when print publication by women was still far from common, such collaboration constituted an alternative path to literary expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Jews and the Italian racial laws of the Fascist era, focusing on the diocesan press of the Catholic Ecclesiastical Region of Triveneto, Italy during the period from 1920 to 1945. Topics discussed include images of Jews in the press of this region, including the cities Padova, Udine, and Venezia, the concept of Jews as affiliated with Communism, and the involvement of the Catholic Church and the Catholic press in Triveneto in anti-Communist activities.

The implications of strict enclosure for the architecture of women religious have rarely been examined, even though the legislation often specifies a variety of barriers, screens, and wheels to protect and separate communities of women from the outside world. This essay examines the architecture of several Clarissan convents in Italy in order to study the character, location and evolution of the nuns' choirs over the course of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. I will propose that the increasing importance of eucharistic devotion in the late thirteenth century generated a new type of church and choir plan that is exemplified in the monumental convent church of Sta. Chiara in Naples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of a conference paper by Andrew Chen is presented which discusses public flagellation practices of a confraternity in Pavia, Italy in 14th century, its abolishment in 15th century and the ritual geography of 27 churches mentioned in a 15th-century processional.

This article addresses the historiographical effects associated with the founding of the regnum Siciliae in 1130 by Roger II and the takeover of Sicilian royal rule by Emperor Henry VI in 1194. The narratives of Alexander of Telese, Falco of Benevento, Petrus of Eboli and the so-called Hugo Falcandus are examples of medieval contemporary historiography. These authors address a history that they themselves lived through. In all cases, changes in the balance of power in the authors' social environment led them to write their historical works. There was a connection between the political events of their present and their respective intentions to represent them („Darstellungsabsicht"). The question of their specifically local context of origin allows us to make well-founded assumptions about the argumentative intent inherent in the texts, with which the historiographers attempted to influence the political conditions of their own day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1598, the year that Duke Cesare d'Este (1562-1628) lost Ferrara to papal forces and moved the capital of his duchy to Modena, the papal Inquisition in Modena was elevated from vicariate to full inquisitorial status. Despite initial clashes with the duke, the tribunal began not only to prosecute heretics and blasphemers, but also professing Jews. Such a policy towards infidels by an organization appointed to inquire into heresy ("inquisitio haereticae pravitatis") seems unusual. How did the papal Inquisition come to assume authority and prosecute Jews in early modern Italy? Examination of trial procedure of Jews as opposed to that of Christians will help decide if there is anything distinctive about the Holy Office's treatment of Jews. It will be argued that inquisitorial tribunals were disarming the Jewish threat to Christian society, not for its own sake, but as an attempt to impose social and religious discipline on the Christian community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the twentieth century the Catholic Church promoted women's associations in an attempt to reassert Christianity in a struggle against its liberal and socialist adversaries. Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) called on Catholics to address a raft of serious problems resulting from social and economic transformations. This gave rise to a Christian Democratic movement and, within it, to Catholic feminism. Focusing on two Catholic women's periodicals, L'azione muliebre and Pensiero e azione, the author studies the emergence and the nature of Catholic feminism as well as its suppression by the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The histories of two Bolognese monastic houses, Santa Maria del Monte della Guardia and Santa Caterina, reveal the complex relationships between some religious women's communities and monastic orders. They began as communities in small, regional congregations; became Augustinian in the mid-thirteenth century due to papal intervention; and were Dominican by the fifteenth century. Amid these changes, both communities attempted to retain elements of their early status and practices rather than accepting integration into larger orders. Whereas much scholarly attention rightly has been paid to convents that strove for incorporation into the religious orders, examinations of communities with more fluid affiliations can complement these studies and provide a fuller picture of medieval religious women's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay presents an in-depth analysis of the printing and publishing practices of 16th century Italy, particularly focusing on the Roman Catholic mass chanting element of the Gradual. The history of choral choir book publishing in the era is overviewed. The sundry and subtle variations undergone by the style in printed editions throughout the century is examined. The author supports the understanding that music was very rigidly adhered to at the time.

The article announces several pending conferences on Christian church history, including the Byzantine Studies Conference of Sofia, Bulgaria on August 26, 2011, the international workshop "Jews in the Ecclesiastical, Roman-Barbarian, and Byzantine Law (Sixth to Eleventh Centuries)," in Fontevraud Abbey, France on October 17-18, 2011, and the lecture "Cristiani d'Italia," by Norman Tanner and Alberto Melloni at Gregorian University of Rome, Italy on December 6, 2011.