ALBANESI. – Members of a particular sect of Italian Catharism (v. CATARI), concorezzesi (v.) bagnolesi (v.). As early as the second half of the 12th century, the Italian Cathars divided into absolute dualists and mitigated or monarchian dualists; at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the former constituted the movement of the albanenses, with its hierarchical and doctrinal centre in Lombardy. This designation is more probably derived from the locality of Albano (S. Alessandro, province of Bergamo), or perhaps from some leader named Albanus; they are also called de Desenzano, after the town of that name on Lake Garda, or after Desenzano al Serio. The Albanese Cathar Church was found in Verona and in many cities of Lombardy. Around the middle of the 13th century, its actual members numbered approximately 500, according to the calculations of R. Sacconi, but they were also increasing in the Cathar ecclesiastical districts of the Marca Trevisana, Tuscany, and the Spoleto Valley. It derived its dualistic faith from the Eastern Church of Dugunthia (or Drugutia, Brugutia, Drogometia, Druguria, Diniguttia, etc.). The identification, now considered more probable, with Drogocetia = Dragoviça, a locality inhabited by the Dragovicians, a Bulgarian-Slavic population of southern Thrace and Macedonia, remains subject to revision. A Cathar leader, Nicetas or Niquinta, who came to Lombardy and was present in 1167 at the Cathar assembly of Saint-Félix de Caraman (Toulouse), led Marco, the bishop of the Italian Cathars, from the mitigated dualism of the Bulgarian Church to the absolute dualism of the Dragovician Church. When Catharism fragmented, he was succeeded by Giovanni l'Ebreo. Later we encounter Marchisio de Sorano (or Soiano), bishop of the a. de Desenzano, with his coadjutor Amizo, and Nicola di Vicenza. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the oldest faction of the a. was headed by the bishop Balasinanza (or Bellasmanza) of Verona.
To explain evil and sin, this sect teaches the eternal coexistence of two principles: the good god, creator of his angels and of his world—that is, of incorporeal or celestial nature—and the evil god, creator of his evil spirits and of the terrestrial world, animals, and bodies. These two realms will have no end and will remain in continual opposition. Lucifer, son of the evil god, whether by cunning or by military conquest, brings evil into the celestial realm: the seduced souls are imprisoned in human and animal bodies, into which they transmigrate in expiation, in order that they may all return to their primitive state, reuniting with their own bodies and spirits left in heaven. Jesus Christ, son of the good god and inferior to him, came to call back these souls; he was born of an angel, the Madonna, and had a human body and material actions only apparently. The Old Testament is the work of the devil, except for the Wisdom Books and the Prophets. Some doctors intensified and elaborated this dualistic scheme. The Bergamask bishop Giovanni de Lugio, followed by Giovanni de Cucullio, headed a faction of the younger members from the first quarter of the thirteenth century. In his teaching he excludes creation ex nihilo: both the good and the evil principle composed their own world from the four coeternal elements—fire, air, water, and earth—which were respectively of invisible and material nature. According to a stricter interpretation, the souls of both realms are likewise coeternal with their principles. Among the celicoli themselves there unfolds a life similar, although spiritual in nature, to that of the earthly world. Everything recounted in the Old Testament and concerning Jesus Christ actually happened, but in the higher world. The good god is neither free nor omnipotent nor omniscient, because he is limited by the evil god, who introduced sin among the celestial creatures. Some myths speak of invasions and seductions of souls in the terrestrial world also by the celicoli. The life and passion of Jesus in this world would correspond to a similar life followed by an identical passion on the part of the son of the evil god in the celestial realm. Every soul will return to its respective world; nevertheless, this duel between the two realms, which personify evil and good, begins again, always and inevitably. The logic of this dualistic parallelism is the balance of power, operations, and effects between the two opposing principles.
Unlike the other Cathars, the a. attach no value, because it is a material act, to the imposition of hands either in the rite of the consolamentum or in that of confession; likewise, in the fractio panis they do not consider that the bread, as a creature of the devil, can be blessed. Because of their common absolute dualism, and also through alliteration, the name a. has been erroneously substituted for and albigesi (v.), a term designating the Cathars of Languedoc, who generally professed strict dualism.