ADELFIA

ADELFIA – Sarcophagus of A. (mid-4th century AD) – Syracuse, National Museum.

The society spread to every country in Europe, and in Italy, especially in Piedmont, after the fall of Napoleon. In 1818 its adherents took the name of Sublimi Maestri Perfetti and became the leaven and secret bond of all the other sects. They also gave rise to the Federati. A. and the Federati formed a liaison and understanding committee, which was based in Geneva and answered to the Grand Orient of Paris. The driving force behind the Geneva Committee for Italy was the exiled Filippo Buonarroti. From Geneva came the impetus for the revival of Italian secret societies after the failure of the uprisings of 1820–21. The A. infiltrated the Carbonari but did not merge with them. According to I. Rinieri (Della vita di Silvio Pellico, Turin 1899, pp. 17–18), the society of the A. would be nothing more than a front for the Carbonari; but this is not true. The A. appear in the trials against the Carbonari of 1821 (Luzio, op. cit., pp. 446–504). According to the Duke of Modena, all liberal secret societies were but one society that changed its name to avoid falling into the hands of the justice system that pursued them.

ADELFIA – A sarcophagus was found in the catacomb of St John in Syracuse bearing on a panel of its lid the inscription: (h)ic Adelfa (clarissima) f(emina) posita conpar Baleri comitis (here lies A., most illustrious woman, wife of Count Valerius). The sarcophagus is the finest surviving work of early Christian art in Sicily, entirely adorned with remarkably preserved bas-reliefs (though Cavallari had great difficulty saving it from total restoration). At the centre of the chest two spouses are depicted in a shell, apparently Valerius and A. Of great interest on the left side of the lid are two enigmatic scenes that have occasioned much discussion.

The sarcophagus seems to come from a Roman workshop and is to be dated to about the mid-4th century; the lid is certainly not original and must be somewhat later. Around the first half of the 6th century both were reused for the burial of A.

ADELFIA – Dominican convent and mystical centre near Freiburg in Brisgau. The community of beguines that had existed there since 1232 was declared by Bishop Henry I of Constance on 12 December 1234 exempt from parish jurisdiction and governed by the Rule of St Augustine and the constitutions of the Dominicans. Innocent IV incorporated the monastery into the Dominican Order on 19 July 1245 and again on 18 May 1249. St Albert the Great visited it and consecrated the church under the title of the Annunciation in 1263. In the 13th and 14th centuries A. was one of the centres of German and Dominican mysticism, partly described in the convent chronicle of Anna von Munzingen (1318), published by König, whose protagonists include Mathilde Tuschelin, Elizabeth of Neustadt, Adelaide of Breisach and Agnes of Nordera.

After the fire of 1410, the noted Dominican chronicler John Meyer introduced the observant life in 1485. Following the devastation caused by the French in 1677, the monastery was moved from the suburb into the city and united with the houses of St Catherine, St Agnes and others. In 1806 it was converted by the government of Baden into an educational institution and in 1867, despite Catholic protests, suppressed.

ADELFIA – BERNHARD von ADELMANNSFELDEN – Humanist, canon of Eichstätt, b. c. 1457 perhaps at Schechingen, d. 16 December 1523. He studied at Heidelberg, Basel and Ferrara. In 1472 he obtained a canonry at Eichstätt, which he did not occupy until 1486; another he obtained at Augsburg in 1498.

He was a follower of Erasmus and an advocate of Reuchlin in the controversy over Jewish books. He adhered to Luther as soon as the latter began to make his influence felt.

When J. Eck remarked that “only a few ignorant canons stood by Luther,” A., together with Ecolampadius, opposed him with a work Canonici indociles Lutherani, soon translated into German. Eck was therefore justified in naming A. among the six whom he singled out when promulgating the bull Exurge, Domine (15 June 1520) condemning Lutheran errors.