BLIND. — Scientifically, a blind person is one whose eyes entirely lack the sense of sight, meaning they are incapable even of perceiving the mere difference between light and shadow.
Socially, the definition of blindness varies by country. In some places, it is defined practically as the inability to walk without guidance on unfamiliar paths, to count separated fingers at a fixed distance (1 or 2 m.), or to perform work for which sight is essential. In the United States, an individual is considered blind if their visual acuity does not exceed 20/200 in the better eye with corrective lenses, or if their visual acuity exceeds 20/200 but their visual field is so limited that the widest diameter does not extend beyond an angle of 20 degrees. In Italy, visual acuity must not exceed one-tenth in both eyes, even with the best possible and tolerated correction; those who, despite having more than 1/10 vision, have such limitations in their visual field that the excess vision is not fully usable, or who have alterations in light perception or disorders of the eye’s muscular balance, are also considered blind.
In general, sight is regarded as indispensable for carrying out any normal activity, so the ability of the blind—often demonstrated—to engage in a profession or trade is considered an exceptional fact and attributed to special sensory compensations. In reality, any blind person who does not have additional physical or mental impairments can participate in the productive life of society, provided they receive appropriate education or re-education.
The beginning of organized educational efforts on behalf of the blind occurred in Paris at the end of the 18th century with the founding of the first institute for blind youth (1784), established by Valentin Haüy (1745–1822).
The first problem to be solved was learning, which necessitated a tactile writing system. Various systems were experimented with over time, but the one universally accepted for its completeness and practicality is the system devised in 1829 BRASILE (v.). The Braille system is based on various combinations of up to six raised dots, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet, a punctuation mark, or a graphic symbol. The same combinations are used for numbers and musical notation. The introduction of this system has made the vast realm of culture and knowledge accessible to the blind.
By replacing visual elements with tactile ones, the blind can now concretely learn subjects such as geography, geometry, and natural sciences with the aid of raised maps and drawings, models, and adapted instruments. With this specialized teaching material, the blind can develop an understanding of shapes and reproduce them through modeling and drawing.
Furthermore, auditory training is essential to help the blind develop spatial awareness, locate and appreciate obstacles, and perceive architectural forms insofar as they can be discerned through sound reflection. This enables greater ease and autonomy in movement and orientation. To a lesser extent, other senses—particularly smell—also serve as complementary aids.
It is only through this educational development that the sensory abilities of the blind arise, which the public often mistakenly attributes to a nonexistent sixth sense.
The first institute for the blind founded in Italy was the SS. Giuseppe e Lucia in Naples (1818); this was followed by the Confischi Institute in Padua (1838) and the Milan Institute (1840). Subsequently, all major Italian cities established their own institutes for the blind, often through the initiative of religious orders or private benefactors. Today, Italy boasts an impressive educational network, which has required the creation of a coordinating body: the National Federation of Pro-Blind Institutions, founded in 1923 (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, no. 147). The Federation, in agreement with the Italian Union of the Blind, secured the extension of compulsory education to the blind and the corresponding intervention of the State with subsidies for institutions and provincial payments of tuition for indigent students (Royal Decree-Law of 30 January 1923, no. 2839); the requirement for specialized training for teachers and assistants in schools for the blind through a one-year internship at the Method School for Blind Educators, established for this purpose (Royal Decree of 15 November 1925, no. 2483); and the specialization of institutions, the implementation of which is still ongoing.
Among the thirty existing institutes, fourteen—recognized by the State as educational institutions with elementary and vocational schools—are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Education, and their stateization is imminent. Notable among them, in addition to the Method School in Rome mentioned above (which, after the death of its founder Augusto Romagnoli, took his name), are the Francesco Cavazza Institute in Bologna (a music school and boarding house for medical and university students); the Martuscelli Institute in Naples (a music school and boarding house for medical students); the Serafico Institute for Late-Blind in Assisi, run by the Rogationists; and the S. Alessio Institute in Rome (a music school), run by the Somascans. Among other Italian institutions, mention should be made of the National Braille Printing House (Via Antonio Cocchi, no. 2, Florence), which provides textbooks for schools and publishes a variety of cultural books; and the National Braille Library in Monza, which holds numerous works available for loan, as well as a still-developing record library for the dissemination of talking books.
It should be noted that educational action can also have significant rehabilitative effects on those who become blind in adulthood. While they may not always achieve the same level of sensory compensation as children, they can still regain intellectual or manual work capacity. A specialized institute for vocational training in Florence provides re-education and vocational specialization for young blind people who have graduated from other institutes. At the same institute, a massage school—the only one recognized in Italy—trains massage therapists.
Experience over the past half-century has shown that the blind can engage in manual labor in activities or stages of production where sight is not essential. Apart from massage and the tuning and repair of musical instruments—fields in which the abilities of the blind may equal or even surpass those of sighted individuals—other artisanal activities are open to the blind, such as brush-making, weaving, knitting, paper and cardboard work, and weaving. The blind can also work in regular industry, for example
In the calibration of metallic objects. Moreover, special devices, such as, for example, the telephone switchboard which replaces acoustic signals with optical ones, allow the blind to be profitably employed.
It should be noted that, until 1918, work for the blind was considered more as an element of leisure on a charitable level rather than as an actual possibility of productivity. Experiments carried out in the United States (Ford) and in Germany, however, demonstrate the opposite, namely the possibility of integrating the blind both into general industry and into special laboratories, where they would work with the aid of machines and objects. The latter system has prevailed in Italy, with the establishment of the National Work Agency for the Blind (1934), which coordinates the activities of various workshops for knitting, weaving, hemp processing, sack making, shoemaking, metalwork, etc., scattered throughout Italy; this body operated without burdening public funds until 1944, but unfortunately has recently suffered the severe consequences of the post-war period.
Intellectual work offers the blind vast possibilities. Today in Italy there are numerous teachers in public and private schools (1,500 blind individuals) and professionals who exercise their activity in the legal profession, journalism, and the management of commercial and industrial enterprises, etc.; music, both as teaching and performance, also constitutes a strong field of activity for the blind with specific aptitudes.
The blind’s capacity in the organizational field has been demonstrated throughout the world, and particularly in Italy, by their professional associations. In Italy, the Italian Union of the Blind, founded in 1920 to foster collaboration between civilian and war-blind individuals, has gradually assumed ever greater importance, until obtaining recognition of “the representation and protection of the moral and material interests of the disabled in life before public administrations and all bodies and institutions whose purpose is the assistance, education, and work of the blind” (Royal Decree-Law No. 1047 of 26 September 1947).
To the Union, which carries out its activities through a central headquarters (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, No. 1477), 23 regional or interprovincial sections, and numerous subsections and representatives, the State has entrusted increasingly greater tasks. In 1948, in application of Article 38 of the Constitution, funds were for the first time granted to the Union for the distribution to all needy blind individuals of a monthly assistance allowance, the amount of which is still modest; this concession, renewed for the year 1949, is still provisional in nature, but tends to become permanent.
Furthermore, through the activity of its building agency, the Union provides its members with public housing according to a comprehensive construction plan in various cities.
The Union publishes three monthly periodicals in Braille: *Corriere Braille*, *Gennariello* (for children), and *Faro* (musical), and one in print, *Corriere dei Ciechi*.
Among the main foreign institutions dedicated to the education, work, and assistance of the blind, the following should be noted: the Association Valentin Haüy pour le bien des aveugles, Paris; the Ligue Braille, Brussels; the Stichting «Het Nederlands Blindenwezen», Amsterdam; the Binnendienstdienst, Marburg-Lahn; the Österreichischer Blindenfürsorgeverein, Vienna; the Dansk Blindesamfund, Copenhagen; the Ostlandske Blindeforbund, Oslo; the Blind Institute, Tomteboda (Sweden); the National Institute for the Blind, London; St. Dunstan’s College, London; the Irish National League of the Blind, Dublin; la Organización Nacional de Ciegos, Madrid; the Schweizerischer Blindenverband, Zurich; the American Foundation for the Blind, New York; the Perkins Institute, Watertown, Mass. (U.S.A.); the American Foundation for Overseas Blind, New York. From the International Conference on Blindness held in Oxford (August 1949), a steering committee was elected to establish an international federation of the blind, with a provisional headquarters in Paris.
THE BLIND IN CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
The healings of the blind performed by the Lord soon appear in Christian funerary art, both in painting and sculpture.
The cemetery paintings present the scene of the miracle according to the account of St. John (9:1 ff.); however, Christ touches the head of the blind man, not his eyes.
The oldest representation was found in a cubicle of the Domitilla catacomb, seen intact by Bosio (*Roma sotterranea*, Rome 1632, p. 249); the fresco was detached by Boldetti and given, along with others from the same catacomb, to the Benedictine Placido Scannacca, who placed them in his monastery of St. Nicholas in Catania, where they are preserved, albeit defaced by restorations (H. Achelis, *Römische Katakombenbilder in Catania*, Berlin 1932, p. 14 and figs. 8, 96).
The miracle is then represented in an arcosolium of Priscilla (Wilpert, *Pitture*, pl. 70, 1); in three cubicles of the Ad duas lauros cemetery (ibid., pl. 68, 3; 105, 2; id., *Ein Cyklus christologischer Gemälde aus der Katakombe der heil. Petrus und Marcellinus*, Freiburg in Br. 1891, pl. 1-4).
In sculpture, however, more representations are distinguished; on some sarcophagi the scene of the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, narrated by Mk. 10:46-52 and Lk. 18:35-43, is found; a typical example is the fragment from the Villa Doria in Rome.
The healing of the man born blind is one of the most frequently represented subjects on ancient Christian sarcophagi; Garrucci and Le Blant had listed fifty-seven examples; Wilpert added more than twenty (the examples listed by Garrucci and Le Blant are in Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, II, p. 296, no. 2; those by Wilpert, ibid., nos. 3 and 4). The most characteristic specimens are provided by fragments from the cemeteries of St. Callistus, St. Sebastian, and Praetextatus (ibid., pl. 228, 3; 229, 7; 231, 7).
A fine example was found in a recently discovered sarcophagus near the confession of St. Peter in the Vatican. A group of sarcophagi, however, presents the scene of the healing of two blind men, according to Mt. 20:30-34, to whom the Lord touches the eyes and restores sight; generally, the first blind man leans on a staff, while the other guides himself by placing his hand on the shoulder of the former; this scene usually opens the Christological series in the center of sarcophagi, particularly in Gaul, e.g., on the sarcophagi of Digne (Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, II, p. 295, pl. 230, 5), Clermont (ibid., p. 295, pl. 230, 5), Valence (ibid., pp. 295-96, pl. 214, 6), Leiden (ibid., p. 296, fig. 93), Tarragona (ibid., p. 296, pl. 230, 5).
The Roman prototype is the Lateran sarcophagus 125; in the sarcophagus of Bassus at Pretextatus there are three blind men (ibid., p. 296 and pl. 207, 1).
St. Mark speaks of the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida (Mk. 8:22-25). The scene is represented on a sarcophagus now in the apse of the basilica of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls. The Lord holds the blind man’s head in His hands and touches his right eye with His right hand (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 296, pl. 197, 5).
In early Christian non-funerary monuments the healing of the blind appears: on one of the carved wooden panels of the doors of St. Sabina in Rome (5th century); on a silver vase published by Bottari (Sculture, pitture sacre estratte dai cimiteri di Roma, I, Rome 1737, p. 18, 5).
Still in the 5th century scenes of the healing of the blind occur on gold-glass vessels, in ivories, as for example in the chapel at Brescia or on a diptych of the cathedral of Palermo (Venturi, I, fig. 382); in textiles, as attested by Asterius of Amasea (PG 40, 166-67); while the miracle of the blind of Jericho appears in the mosaic cycle
Blind — Healing of the Blind Man Born (Jn. 9:1 ff.).
Rossano Purple Codex (6th century).
of St. Martin — in caelo aureo (S. Apollinare Nuovo) in Ravenna. In the 6th century the healing of the blind recurs on one of the ivory tablets of a Gospel book from Milan (R. Garrucci, Storia dell’arte cristiana, Prato 1881, pls. 454-55).
The expressive representation of the healing of the blind man born is found in the Codex of Rossano (6th century) and that of the blind of Jericho in one of the five miniatures of the Sinopensis Gospel, of the same century (H. Omont, Notice sur un très ancien manuscrit de l’évangile de s. Mathieu en onciales d’or sur parchemin pourpre et orné de miniatures conservé à la bibliothèque Nationale n. 1286 du Supplément grec, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits, 36 [1901], pp. 599-675). In sculpture the healing of the blind is on the ciborium of St. Mark’s in Venice (Wilpert, Mossthen, pp. 814-15 and figs. 377-78); in painting the scene is depicted on one of the columns of the presbytery of Sta. Maria Antiqua in Rome from the time of John VII (705); it recurs again on the altar of Vuolvinio in St. Ambrose in Milan (824-59); in ivory on a small plaque of the pulpit of Salerno (late 11th century); the blind Bartimaeus is represented in a miniature of the so-called Gospel of Otto III of Bremen; in the second half of the 12th century in the mosaic cycle of Monreale; later still in the mosaic cycles of the monastery of Chora, now the mosque of Kahriédjami in Constantinople, and in the church of the Metropolis of Mistra. — See Pl. CI.