BIBLIOTECA BALMES. - A center of advanced religious culture created by Fr. CASANOVAS, ICNASI (v.), it was continued in 1923 as a section of the *Foment de Pietat* (an organization promoting Catalan religious literature, founded in 1913 by the priest Mossèn Eudald Serra y Buixò).
Its activities extend beyond the modern library to include periodic conferences, advanced religious culture courses for laypeople, and publications. Among these, noteworthy are the *Obras completas* of Balmes edited by Fr. Casanovas (33 vols., 1925-26), the *Obras completas* of the bishop of Vic, Dr. Josep Torras y Bages, patriarch of modern Catholic Catalonia (30 vols., 1935, in progress), and the *Biblioteca històrica* of the Biblioteca Balmes, which has published, among others, the foundational studies by Fr. Casanovas on Balmes (3 vols., 1932) and on Josep Finestres and 18th-century Catalan culture, of interest for its relations with Italy, particularly after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 (3 vols., 1933-35); the work of Fr. Art. Codina, a Jesuit, on the *Origenes de los Ejercicios espirituales de san Ignacio de Loyola* (1925), that of the priest Sang Capdevila on *La Seu de Tarragona* (1935), the *Episcopologio de la sede barcinonense* by Canon Seb. Puig (1929) with many documents on Pope Luna, Alfonso Par’s *La fortuna dello Shakespeare en la lit. española* (2 vols., 1935), and F. Stegmüller’s *Francisco de Vitoria y la doctrina de la gracia en la escuela salmantina* (1934), among others.
The Balmes Library’s periodical publication is *Analecta Sacra Tarraconensis*, which appeared from 1925 to 1931 as large annual volumes and then continued as a journal; since 1928, the librarian J. Vives has been publishing the *Bibliografia hispánica de ciências histórico-ecesiástiques*, an indispensable repertory for those interested in the history of the Church in Spain. Among the most frequent contributors are P. Batlle, J. M. Bover, J. Carreras y Artau, P. Ginebra, E. Junyent, J. M. Madurell, F. Mateu, F. Miquel, B. Pascual, J. Rius y Serra, J. Sanchis y Sivera, F. Segarra, J. Serra y Villaró, F. Valls, M. B., as well as foreign scholars such as G. M. Bertini, A. Ferrara, J. Wilpert, H. Finke, J. Vincke, G. Schreiber, K. Bihlmeyer, J. Lebreton, A. Mallon, J. Vieillard, B. de Gaiffier, and G. de Tervarent.
In 1939, the institution took the name Balmesiana, under which the Biblioteca Balmes operates as a section; its general directors have subsequently been the Jesuits Fr. F. M. Palmés and Fr. C. de Dalmases. The *Analecta* resumed their previous activity immediately, as did the *Biblioteca histórica* and the *Biblioteca Filosófica*, in addition to the new *Biblioteca teológica* and the *Obras* of Fr. Casanovas in Spanish (18 vols., 1942... in progress). Among the most recent publications of particular interest to Italy are those by J. Serra y Vilaró, *San Próspero de Tarragona y sus discípulos refugiados en Italia el año 1711* (1943), and by M. B., *Francisco Gustá: Barcellona 1744-Palermo 1816* (1942).
Until 1936, there was also a *Officina románica*, with its *Anuari* and *Biblioteca*, directed by Fr. José Calveras, a Jesuit.