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  • Gli archivi per la storia degli ordini religiosi. Vol. 1: Fonti e problemi (secoli XVI–XIX)
  • Robert Bireley S. J.
Gli archivi per la storia degli ordini religiosi. Vol. 1: Fonti e problemi (secoli XVI–XIX). Edited by Massimo Carlo GianniniMatteo Sanfilippo. [Studi di storia delle instituzioni ecclesiastiche, 1.] (Viterbo: Edizioni Sette Città, 2007. Pp. 304. €25,00. ISBN 978-8-878-53090-4.)

Recent years have seen a steadily growing interest in the history of religious orders and congregations, especially of the early-modern period. This highly useful volume provides valuable information about the archival sources and the literature for their study, and it proposes insightful directions for future research. The volume is composed of twelve contributions of varying scope with a clear emphasis on the early modern period and on Italy.

In a masterful treatment Silvano Giordano points up the importance of the Vatican Archives for the history of religious orders from the Council of Trent to the reform measures of Pope Innocent XII in 1698. Following the council with its measures for the reform of religious orders, the Congregation of the Council, which was charged with interpreting and enforcing the council’s decrees, was entrusted with the oversight of religious orders, but the Congregation for Bishops and Religious emerged by 1594, which oversaw the relationship between bishops and religious orders as well as among the orders themselves. Although scholars have investigated this congregation’s archives for the history of individual orders, the papacy’s policy toward religious orders in general or of its comparative treatment of different orders has not been covered. Giordano calls for this research. In addition, further attention might be [End Page 99] given to the archival material regarding the reform of religious orders in Italy undertaken by Popes Clement VIII and Innocent X as well as Innocent XII, who established a new Congregation for Religious Discipline with universal jurisdiction. Giovanni Pizzorusso discusses the material for the history of religious orders in the archives of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which was established in 1622. He notes the tension that often existed between the congregation and the Jesuits who enjoyed nearly complete independence from the congregation. The archive contains valuable materials on the Rites Controversies as well as on the Suppression of the Jesuits in which the Propaganda seems to have had some part. The archive also reveals the variety of views about the need to adapt traditional religious life to the vastly different situations in missionary territories.

Matteo Sanfilipo focuses on the religious orders and the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He finds considerable material, for example, on the controversies De Auxiliis, Quietism, and the Chinese and Malabar Rites. Interesting, he notes, would be a study to determine the orders to which the congregation turned for its consultors in various periods. Fiorenzo Landi notes the increasing attention devoted to appraisal of the importance of the orders for the economy in early-modern Italy and suggests that many sources have been underused thus far in this regard. Flavio Rurale emphasizes the richness and solid organization of the Jesuit archives in Rome, a heritage attributable to the concern of Ignatius Loyola for communication within the order. But Rurale recognizes gaps in the Jesuit archives where materials were removed at some point, such as those records pertaining to the Suppression. In his study of the Barnabites, the Piarists, and the Somaschi, Maurizio Sangalli stresses the importance of the archives and archivists for maintaining the identity of an order.

Of great value is the contribution of Giancarlo Rocca who brings out the significance of women’s orders and congregations for the history of the education of girls and young women in Italy from the Middle Ages up to the present day. He provides a brief overview of this history along with many suggestions for lines of research and for archives to be consulted.

Contributions of lesser scope deal with the Theatines by Andrea Vanni, five Dominican convents of women in Piedmont and Lombardy by Laura Facchin, the Carthusians in Lombardy by Andrea Spiriti, and the establishment of the Capuchins in Poland in the seventeenth century seen through...

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