FLORENCE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In Tuscany, Metropolitan (a. 1420). Suffragan dioceses: Borgo S. Sepolcro, Colle Val d'Esa, Fiesole, Modigliana, Pistoia and Prato, S. Miniato. Seat of the Etruscan regional tribunal.
The diocese extends through the Arno valley from the confluence of the Sieve to near the confluence of the Elsa: it includes part of the valleys of the Idice and the Santerno; the upper valley of the Sieve (Mugello) and part of its lower valley; part of the Chianti region, the Val di Pesa, part of the Valleys of the Elsa and the Bisenzio. It borders on the dioceses of Fiesole, Colle Val d'Elsa, Volterra, S. Miniato, Pistoia, Prato, Bologna, Imola and Modigliana. In 1592 it lost the parish of Poggibonsi, which passed to Colle Val d'Elsa; in 1785 it acquired some parishes in the Apennines, three from Bologna and one from Imola; in 1795 it received one in exchange from Fiesole; in 1916 it ceded twelve to the diocese of Prato. The diocese has an area of 2,075 sq. km. and a population of 785,000 inhabitants, of whom 775,000 are Catholics. Urban vicariates 5, comprising 83 parishes; forane vicariates 39, comprising 394 parishes. Priests 598. Male convents and religious houses 58; female convents and religious houses 219 (1948). Major seminary (theology) founded by Archbishop Della Gherardessa in 1712; Minor seminary (lyceum and gymnasium) founded by Cardinal Archbishop Dalla Costa in 1938; Seminary of Firenzuola (gymnasium) founded by Archbishop Martini in 1801. Eugenian Schools, founded by Eugene IV in 1435. The archbishop holds the title of prince of the Holy Roman Empire by diploma of Charles IV and of grand chancellor of the Florentine theological University. Patron of the city and of the ancient Florentine dominion: St. John the Baptist. Patrons of the diocese: St. Zanobi bishop and St. Antoninus archbishop.
I. HISTORICAL NOTES.
I. CIVIL HISTORY
F., Fiorenza, Florentia: perhaps so named from the prosperity of the region or of its inhabitants. It is quite uncertain that a Roman F. was preceded by an Etruscan city built on the plain by the Fiesolans for the needs of their trade. Roman F. arose under Caesar as a guard on the Arno, where the Mugnone then flowed into it, near the present Ponte Vecchio; it arose astride the Via Cassia, later restored, which, crossing the city from south to north, formed its cardo, traces of which are still recognizable in the streets of Por Santa Maria, Calimala and Roma, while the decumanus is to be identified in the streets of the Corso, degli Speziali, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and Via Strozzi. It was a modest fortress with a perimeter of 2000 m., destined to grow in importance, because it became an almost necessary station for officials, legates and merchants who from Rome headed beyond the Apennines; and because the roads to Faenza, to Lucca, to Pisa ended there.
The first contact of the Florentines with the Roman Senate is attested to us by Tacitus: the Florentine envoys asked that the Clanis not be let into the Arno, for fear that it might turn into a disaster for them. Then there is no reliable news for several centuries. F. was still a small center when in the 5th century it was the seat of a corrector, that is, governor general of Tuscia; in that century the Ostrogoths of Radagaisus dashed against its walls, and were driven off and routed by the forces of Stilicho who came to its aid. F. ran another danger at the hands of the Goths of Totila, who had to retreat at the arrival of the Byzantine forces, which dominated F., until in the 6th century, with the rest of Italy, it succumbed to the Lombard invasion. Then, Tuscia having been divided into duchies, F. too had its duke and its royal curtis; hence also the first beginning of the feudal regime, which the subsequent Frankish occupation maintained and consolidated. In his dioceses in Italy Charlemagne celebrated Christmas of 786 in F.
Under the Franks the margrave of Tuscany combined in himself the office of count of F. The capitula ecclesiastica of 825, owed to King Lothair and known as the capitulary of Olona, made F. a center of studies for the Tuscan district, because it was suited by its location to encourage attendance at the schools even of the poor. Its celebrated teachers were later a Guido, afterwards bishop, a master Peter, a legisperitus Nordilo. In the passage from the dominion of the Franks to that of the three Ottos, among the most powerful margraves was Albert of Tuscany; so much so that, in order to lower the power of the margraves, the office of count of F. was separated from them. But the margrave who remained most popular among the Florentines was Hugh (and the great baron of the Alighieri), who enriched the Florentine territory with several foundations and whose name came to be surrounded by legend. There follow the margraves Boniface and Beatrice, whose lordship is again affirmed in F., after it had for some time been a city of the Empire. Meanwhile the great struggle for the investitures between the Pope and the Emperor takes shape. Matilda, the great marchioness of Tuscia, was a valiant supporter of the reform and a faithful ally of Gregory VII in the not easy struggle for the liberty of the Church. F. remained always faithful to Matilda; even when Henry IV entered Tuscany as victor, he touched the walls of F. without taking it, and the power of Matilda seemed submerged. In 1076, when Gregory VII was moving against the Emperor, who was later to meet him at Canossa, the Pontiff had been a guest of F.
Meanwhile the first forms of communal autonomy are recognized in F. by Matilda herself. Feudal society, entrenched in the lands near the city, loosens its bonds from the imperial authority, of which it was the expression. The people has changed in its deepest strata and aspires to a liberty not felt before. F. struggles against the feudal lords, who hinder its autonomy: against the Alberti of the Val Bisenzio, against the Adimari of M. Gualandi, against the Uheldini of the Mugello, against the Cadolingi of Mangona and of Settimo, against the counts Guidi, the Ormanni, the Buondelmonti. The Commune arises. Its first consuls go back to 1138. F., which had expanded after the first half of the 11th century, had girded itself with a first circle of walls (= the ancient circle and of Dante); at the close of the following century it erects the second circle; in 1333 the last circle too will be completed. Meanwhile, in the struggle of the Communes against the Empire, it adheres to the Guelph league among the Tuscan municipalities promoted by Celestine III against Henry VII. But the division of the citizenry into Guelphs and Ghibellines occurred in 1215 because of a quarrel that arose, on the occasion of a marriage alliance, between the Buondelmonti and the Amidei. The latter and the Uberti followed the Ghibelline party, the Buondelmonti the Guelph party. When with Frederick II the Ghibelline fortunes rose, the Guelphs went into mass exile from F.; this was in Feb. 1248. When the Guelph power flourished again with the death of Frederick II and the Guelphs returned, the Ghibellines went into exile, and in union with the Sienese they fought against the Florentine militias at Monte Aperti (1260). Attempts at pacification between the two parties were made by Gregory X and then by Nicholas III, sending as peacemaker Cardinal Latino (1278). Against the Ghibelline Aretines the Guelph Florentines fought at Campaldino. But F. had no peace. The democratic experiment attempted by Giano della Bella with his ordinances of justice did not have a fortunate outcome. The Guelph city is again split into the factions of the Whites and the Blacks, the former led by the Cerchi, the latter by the Donati. Matteo d'Acquasparta, having come as peacemaker among them, fails in his mission. The attempt of Charles of Valois, openly favorable to the Blacks, likewise fails. And behold, the forces of Henry VII encamp near the city (1312); but the Emperor must withdraw from it without having obtained the obedience of the Florentines.
In the 14th century the internal disputes between the great and the people, between the fat people and the small people, continued and grew bitter. The duke of Athens takes advantage of these dissensions to establish a dictatorship there, but is driven out by a popular uprising.
After the war of the "Eight Saints" fought against the legate of Gregory XI, who threatened F., the struggle among the city parties flares up more fiercely: thus one comes to the tumult of the Ciompi and to the democratic experiment of Michele di Lando, which then ends in exile. But in this turmoil of alternating vicissitudes, in which peace seems forever denied to the Florentine Republic, there begins among others to take first place and to distinguish itself a family of popular origin, which has become great and rich in trade. Envied and opposed by many, it is also struck with exile; but soon it is recalled to its homeland and its head, Cosimo dei Medici, is, after death, proclaimed pater patriae. Lorenzo the Magnificent is in fact lord of F. without the institutional forms of the principate. Nor does the Pazzi conspiracy avail to overthrow the Medicean supremacy. The religious and social movement of Savonarola, concluded with the condemnation of the Dominican, strikes the Medicean power, but it later is reborn with Leo X. Under Clement VII the city is besieged by the imperial army of Charles V and forced to surrender (1530). The Florentine Republic ceases forever and the principate arises. First duke of F. is Alessandro dei Medici, murdered by Lorenzina dei Medici. Se-
follows Cosimo de' Medici, who with extreme rigor annihilated his enemies and with shrewd policy consolidated the power of his house; for him Pius V elevated Tuscany to a grand duchy, not without the protests of powers that were rivals of Cosimo. The Medici dynasty, thus established, ruled in Tuscany for more than two centuries, until with the death of Giovan Gastone, in 1737, the sovereignty of the grand duchy passed to the House of Lorraine with Francis II. He was succeeded, after a brief period of government held by a regency, by Peter Leopold I, an absolutist prince, author of beneficial reforms in the civil sphere, while he attempted others far less fortunate in the religious sphere. The city suffered the French occupation in 1801 and in 1807-14. In 1801, by the will of Napoleon, the grand duchy was transformed into the Kingdom of Etruria for the benefit of Louis of Bourbon, who was succeeded by the ill-fated Charles Louis. It then passed again, with the title of grand duchy, to Elisa Baciocchi. The restoration of the Lorrainers with Ferdinand III was well received by the Florentines and the Tuscans. But when the popular conscience seemed ripe for national unity, the Lorraine dynasty had to yield, and Leopold II was expelled from Tuscany, by a peaceful revolution, on 27 Apr. 1850. Florence, together with Tuscany, then became part of the Kingdom of Italy, of which from 1865 to 1871 it was the capital.
II. RELIGIOUS HISTORY
In tracing reliable information about the spread of Christianity in F. it is not possible to go back beyond the 3rd century. The first name encountered is that of a martyr; during the persecution of Decius, so the story goes, on 25 Oct. 250, at Miniato he was beheaded on the hill facing the Arno, where the basilica of the same name later arose. At the beginning of the 4th century the Christian community of F. is found gathered around a bishop of its own; in fact in 313 the bishop Felix took part in Rome under Pope Miltiades in the Synod against the Donatists. But the population was still largely pagan, when from Easter 393 to August 394 Ambrose of Milan was staying in F., and there consecrated the basilica of St. Lawrence, then extra moenia, built by a pious woman, Giuliana. That was the first cathedral of F., later replaced by St. Reparata.
The oration delivered by St. Ambrose on that occasion is still read in his works. Nor is it improbable that it was precisely on Ambrose's advice that the Florentines, deprived of their pastor, elected to this office St. Zenobius, who was present at the victory over the hordes of Radagaisus, and is the most distinguished bishop of the Florentine community in the Roman period. According to Florentine annals, the introduction of the cult of St. Reparata in F. should be traced back to that victory, while recent historians consider it imported by the numerous Greek element present in the city at a slightly later period. Among the other earliest pastors the name is known of Reparatus, who in 680 took part in the Council of Pope Agatho against the Monothelites; of Speciosus, bishop in 716; of Thomas, who participated in another synod convoked by Pope Zachary in 743; of the bishop Andrew between 809 and 897; of the bishop Podo in 987.
But religious life in its full fervor reveals itself to us later; when the last remnants of paganism are by now extinguished, and in the succession of centuries near the millennium, monastic life here too begins to establish itself and flourish. Then, while the Carolingian domination leaves traces of itself in the many churches dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, particularly dear to the Franks, monasteries arise almost everywhere: in the city and outside it, on the mountain and on the plain. Moreover, as early as the 6th century monasteries, including women's monasteries, must have existed, if it is true that Pelagius I ordered the bishop of F. to shut a sinner up in a monastery. The monastery of St. Miniato existed at least from 774, when Charlemagne made a donation of it to the monastery of Nonantola. In the 9th century the monasteries of St. Donnino, near Settimo, of St. Peter at Lecore, of St. Crisco at Campi already exist. The monastery of St. Andrew already exists in F., which in its governance has an aristocratic imprint. The Badia is the oldest Benedictine monastery founded within the circuit of the city, which Marquis Hugh enriched with lavish favors; while through him the other famous abbeys arose of Buonsolazzo, of Marturi near Poggibonsi, of the Verruca near Pisa. Nor does the life of the monasteries remain confined within the cloister; but the action that proceeds from them interferes continually in the very civil and political life of the region, which at times they themselves determine.
However, there is no doubt that monasticism takes on a new aspect and is kindled with a fervor of struggle hitherto unknown, when the Apennine slopes nearest to Florence came to know the monasteries created or reformed by St. Romuald and by St. John Gualbert. It is this saint who most concerns the history of F., because he was of Florentine origin and because F. was the center of the militia created by him, which took its name from Vallombrosa. The reform advocated in the Church by the purest and greatest figures, who with it appear at the second millennium, though not without opposition, finds wide consent in F. The voices of Peter Damian and of Hildebrand have a beneficial resonance in a notable part of the clergy. With this, the one and the other are in constant relation: and the object is the purification of the clergy from concubinage and from simony. The Vallombrosans from the monasteries of St. Salvi and of Settimo move to war against the corrupt clergy with a vehemence ignorant of obstacles; hence first the popular opposition against the monks, the night assault given to the monastery of St. Salvi, and then the insurrection against the bishop Pietro Mezzabarba, proclaimed a simoniac, and the judgment of God by fire of Peter Igneus near the abbey of Settimo; an ordeal from which the monk emerged victorious. But already under Benedict IX the Florentine Chapter had proceeded to a reform of its own, imposing on its members life in common. Pope Victor II had in 1093 assembled in F. a council, at which there had taken part, besides the Emperor, many of the most distinguished prelates of Italy and of Germany, in which severe sanctions had been published against simony and against concubinage. His successor had been Gerard, bishop of F., who had taken the name Nicholas II, without resigning the spiritual government of the city, and Nicholas II too had renewed the condemnation against the clergy infected with concubinage and simony. He, during his visits to F., consecrated the new church of St. Lawrence rebuilt on the ancient one.
But the crucial moment of the reformist movement against the clergy fallen from its dignity and forgetful of its aims is by now past. To new orientations of city life, new institutes. In F., divided between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Order of the Servants of Mary carries out its activity advocating peace among the troubled spirits of its native city. They, almost from their origins, are the confidants of Florentine Guelphism; when Cardinal Latino composes the peace between the opposing parties, the Servants of Mary are made guardians of the acts of peace. They have their convent near St. Mary of Cafaggio; later that church will be transformed into the sanctuary of the Most Holy Annunciation, a well-known center of Marian piety. Meanwhile the new Orders of the Dominicans and the Franciscans also opened their convents in F.; and soon they had there their flourishing Studia. To the activity of the Dominicans of St. Mary (not yet St. Mary Novella) must be attributed the victory over the Patarines, who had a worrying diffusion in the city. Of all the medieval heresies that of the Patarines succeeded in a particular way in organizing itself in the city and in the countryside and in constituting a hierarchy presided over by a bishop of their own; and at a given moment they represented a serious danger not only for the orthodoxy of the city, but, given the principles they professed, also for the very stability of the communal institutions, until the Dominican St. Peter Martyr overcame and defeated them, forcing them to flee. Against the heretics the communal statutes themselves of 1325 contained condemnations: as, afterward, they contained them by name against the Fraticelli. Moreover, the Synod held by the bishop Francesco da Cingoli in 1327 also threatened very strong sanctions against the Patarines, imposing that the houses be demolished where they had conferred their consolamentum. This was the first diocesan Synod, from which issued a body of constitutions to be observed by clergy and people; however, there is no doubt that other synods had been celebrated before 1327; among them one by the bishop Ranieri in 1073 in St. Reparata, which then shared with St. John the honors and prerogatives of cathedral.
Between the 13th and 14th centuries F. lived the most glorious age of its communal fortunes. It was then that faith inspired and gave substance to the greatest creations of Florentine genius: the Commedia, the particular expression and vision of a believing citizen; S. Maria del Fiore, the collective work of a believing people. And meanwhile popular piety was sublimated in humble saints of the countryside: Verdiana da Cattelfiorentino, Giulia da Cortaldo, Giovanna da Signa, Giovanni da Vespignano. Then, in the rebirth of national thought and spirit, the convents of the city became a beacon of light for Christian Humanism; they gave the Commune theologians and diplomats. Great was the influence that Luigi Marsigli exercised from the convent of S. Spirito on the culture and political life of the city; the humanists Coluccio Salutati, Niccoli, and Tommaso da Sarzana frequented S. Spirito. In the monastery of S. Maria degli Angeli, Florentine youth gathered around Ambrogio Traversari: among them also Giannozzo Manetti and Matteo Palmieri. The blessed Dominici alternated his cell in S. Maria Novella with the chair of the Studio, where he lectured on the canons. But Accioli had already founded the Certosa at the gates of F., and had endowed it, so that masters and pupils might be there. Later the convent of S. Marco would rise, dear to the holiness of Antonino and to the purest art of the Angelico. The 15th century is truly very rich in notable events for the religious history of the city. Martin V received at F. the obedience of John XXII and elevated the city to metropolitan see (1420). Eugene IV found refuge there in 1434 against the insurrection of the Romans, which had forced him to flee. And he carried out a great reform in the Florentine convents, some of which he suppressed and others he assigned to other religious families. He consecrated S. Maria del Fiore (1436), then completed with Brunelleschi's dome, erected for its service and for the Christian-humanistic culture of the clergy the Scuola Eugeniana, reformed the statutes of the theological University, and himself held for some time the office of Florentine archbishop. But the name of Eugene IV is linked to that of F. also because it was in S. Maria del Fiore that on 5 July 1439 the great ecumenical Council of Ferrara-F. concluded. The Florentine Chapter asked the Pontiff that the plenary indulgence assigned by Eugene IV to 25 March, the anniversary of the consecration of the Cathedral, be transferred, in memory of the achieved union, to 5 July of each year. To Eugene IV F. also owes the appointment of St. Antonino as its archbishop (1446-1501 [v.]). The 15th century closes with the religious-social movement of Savonarola, which started from the convent of S. Marco, founded by St. Antonino.
The 16th century advances. The Florentine Leo X, formerly a canon of S. Reparata, closed the Lateran Council (1517), and his cousin Giulio dei Medici, whom he had created archbishop of his homeland, celebrated the Provincial Synod (1518) which intended to reorganize ex toto the discipline and religious life of the entire ecclesiastical province; a Synod that has particular importance not only because it marks the attempt at the immediate implementation of the conciliar constitutions, but also because it represents a bulwark against the already visible prodromes of the reform: against false preaching, against the dangers of the humanistic school, against erroneous philosophical propositions, against the excesses of the press, against increased superstition. Notable Protestant infiltrations did not occur: Pietro Martire Vermigli, a Florentine, propagated his doctrine elsewhere; Pietro Carnesecchi, a friend of Duke Cosimo, stayed little in F., and was handed over by Cosimo to the Roman Inquisition. The best-known episode is that of the senator Bartolomeo Panciatichi, and of a few others with him, who, wearing the "sambenito," abjured heresy. On the contrary, almost still at the dawn of the century, the humble piety of Domenica del Paradiso, foundress of the monastery of the Crocetta, not hostile and not disliked by the Medici, became very popular in F. Then a flowering of saints: the blessed Bartolomea Bagnesi; St. Caterina dei Ricci, a Florentine, who brought luster to a monastery of nearby Prato; St. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, the aesthetic of the Florentine Carmel, who consumed herself in penance for the sanctification of the clergy; the blessed Ippolito Galantini, who founded a Congregation of laypeople for catechetical teaching, which spread also outside F.; St. Philip Neri, who left his native city to become the apostle of Rome. Meanwhile the new religious Congregations penetrated the city. First the Jesuits, called by Eleonora of Toledo, who opened their house near the present church of S. Giovannino, with schools for youth. In 1626 the Barnabites came to Florence, who distinguished themselves in assistance to the plague-stricken during the contagion of 1630; in 1630 the Scolopi came to attend to the instruction of the children of the people.
Causes of disturbance arose in the religious field later on: under the reforming prince Pietro Leopoldo I. Jansenistic tendencies were promoted by the bishop of Pistoia, Scipione dei Ricci, formerly vicar of the Florentine archbishop Incontri. There were disagreements and even quite lively polemics among the clergy, but not a heartfelt and profound adherence to Jansenism. The people remained hostile and extraneous to that movement. Regalist tendencies also asserted themselves then, which had life among the clergy until Pietro Leopoldo had a successor in Ferdinand III, under whom the direction of government was different. Under Pietro Leopoldo he had summoned to Palazzo Pitti the assembly of the Tuscan bishops, which was to prepare the national Council; but it came to nothing, thanks also to the archbishop Martini. And therefore the project of the Council foundered. Under the Napoleonic occupation there was the episode of the archbishop Eustachio d'Osmond (1810), bishop of Nancy, intruded into this see by Napoleon. He abandoned F. only with the withdrawal of the French troops. Among the clergy who opposed him, some were deported: among these Ferdinando Minucci, later archbishop of the city. Among the events of the last decades is to be remembered the diocesan Synod celebrated in 1905 by the archbishop Miatrangeio, after more than a century and a half. In 1934 the First Etruscan Council was held in F. under the presidency of Cardinal Archbishop Elia dalla Costa as pontifical legate, and in 1935 the diocesan Synod was celebrated, convoked by the same archbishop. Another synod was announced by Cardinal Archbishop E. dalla Costa for May 1946 and was, like the previous one, celebrated in S. Maria del Fiore on the 8th and 9th of that month.
III. ILLUSTRIOUS FIGURES
Worthy of mention are: Bishop Gerard, who became Nicholas II (1059-61); Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, Leo X (1513-1521); Cardinal Archbishop Giulio de' Medici, Clement VII (1523-34); Cardinal Archbishop Alessandro de' Medici, Leo XI (1605); Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, Urban VIII (1623-44); Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini, Clement XII (1730-40). Likewise to be remembered: Archbishop Francesco Gaetano Incontri, author of works of moral theology; Antonio Martini, translator of the Bible; Eugenio Cecconi, historian of the Councils of Ferrara-Florence and of the Vatican. In the 15th and 16th centuries many humanists were canons of S. Reparata: Angelo Poliziano, the poet; Marsilio Ficino, founder of the Platonic Academy; Leonardo Bruni, secretary of the Republic; Gentile da Urbino, lecturer in the Studio; Scipione Ammirato, the historian; Francesco Berni, the poet. Other ecclesiastics who distinguished themselves in the republic of letters: Benedetto Varchi, philologist and historian; Benedetto Buommattei, grammarian and Dante scholar; Monsignor Giovanni Della Casa, poet and treatise writer; Pier Francesco Giambullari, who wrote on history and on language; Vincenzo Borghini, scholar of Tuscan and Florentine antiquities; Antonio Francesco Gori, archaeologist and epigrapher; Anton Maria and Salvino Salvini, of whom the one was most learned in the classical languages, the other wrote on academic subjects and on Florentine matters; Giovanni Lami, most erudite, but around whose name so many controversies arose in the 18th century. Nor is to be forgotten Cardinal Agostino Bausa, a Dominican, formerly master of the Sacred Palaces and then archbishop of Florence in the last years of the 19th century.
IV. CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS, LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES
From the time when the Studium generale was erected in F. by bull of Clement VI, given at Avignon on 31 May 1348, and this had its privileges confirmed by an imperial diploma of Charles IV, the University of the theologians formed the most conspicuous part of the Studium itself. The first degree in theology was conferred in 1349 on friar Francesco di Biancozzo dei Nerli amid the unanimous enthusiasm of the Florentines. While the other branches of the Studium, for various reasons — the first being that at a certain period some chairs were transferred to Pisa — ceased from their activity and existence, the theological University is the only university college that represents the uninterrupted continuity of the Florentine Studium from its origins down to the present day. It received distinguished privileges from the pontiffs. It was reformed by Eugene IV; from Leo XIII it received new constitutions. At present the Florentine theological College, after the publication of the apostolic constitution Deus scientiarum Dominus, 24 May 1931, has suspended the conferring of degrees. Important: the Capitular Archive of S. Maria del Fiore for the ancient documents preserved there; the Archive of the Opera di S. Maria del Fiore for what concerns the fabric of the Cathedral; the Archive of the Archiepiscopal Curia; the Archive of the Laurentian Chapter. Noteworthy for the number of its publications, especially of the 17th-18th century, is the Library of the major Seminary, at which there is a section of manuscripts on Florentine subjects.
Bibliography28 works
Emilio Sanesi
V. ARCHAEOLOGY
No precise information exists about the beginnings of Christianity in Florence; it is nevertheless very probable, and certain elements seem to confirm it, that it found its first center in the Jewish community of Greek-Eastern origin which, as is usual, had settled on the outskirts of the city, near the road that left from its southern gate: immediately south of the Arno this road divided into two branches, one heading east toward Chiusi (the so-called Cassia Nova), the other descending directly south, toward Volterra and Siena. Remains of a cemetery basilica came to light in Florence in 1948 following excavations conducted by the Superintendency of Antiquities in the area of the ancient church of S. Felicita. This basilica had three naves: it measured about 26 m. across the front and about 40 m. in depth; the central nave was 10 m. wide, the side naves 6 and 10. The numerous formae of the common type have yielded various funerary inscriptions — to which must be added those discovered in the past in that area — for the oldest of which, dated to 405, the construction of the building can be fixed to the end of the 4th century - beginning of the 5th. It is therefore the oldest building of Christian worship whose remains have been found in Florence; among the inscriptions found in the area are mentioned a deacon, some lectors and personages invested with civil and military offices. The dedication of the church, that of another church situated on the same side dedicated to St. Felix, the cult of St. Lawrence, to whom the first basilica within the city is consecrated at the end of the 4th century, prove that the new faith came to Florence, in all probability, from Rome, or at least that the Florentine Church must have been in close relations with the Roman Church.
A later tradition attributes to the time of the persecution of Decius the martyrdom of St. Minias, who would then have been laid on the hill that overlooks the city: but it is a late tradition and, it seems, of no reliability.
The first certain mention of a Florentine bishop is that left to us by Optatus of Milevis; among the participants in the Roman Synod of 313 against the Donatists, he names a Felix a Florentia Tuscorum: whether he was the first bishop of the city cannot be affirmed with certainty. In 393 Ambrose was in Florence, where he consecrated the church dedicated to St. Lawrence, founded by a pious matron Giuliana: a fragment of an inscription found in the underground chambers perhaps belongs to the generous donor. At this same time St. Zenobius lived and governed the Florentine church, dying, it seems, in 417.
Besides the materials found near the church of S. Felicita, mention should be made of some seals found in the Borgo SS. Apostoli, and of a sarcophagus, brought to light in the bed of the Arno, near the Ponte della Vittoria in 1933: datable to the 4th century, it represents scenes not among the most common: the farewell of the Apostles to Jesus, the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the refusal by the three young Hebrews to adore the statue of Nebuchadnezzar.
In Florence there have furthermore arrived at various times Christian monuments found in Rome: among them particularly important are two bronze lamps, now in the archaeological museum: one has as its handle a laurel wreath, within which is the representation of Moses striking water: a man scoops it into a bowl. The other is the celebrated lamp of the Valerii, found near the house of this noble family on the Caelian. It has the form of a ship: a figure, in which some have wished to recognize St. Peter or the Redeemer himself, holds the rudder, another in the attitude of the orant stands at the prow and is perhaps St. Paul: the interpretation is, however, much debated. To the mast, which supports the sail, is attached a tablet with the inscription: « Dominus legem dat Valerio Severo. Eutropi vivas ». Its most probable date is the 4th century.
Bibliography13 works
Pietro Romanelli
VI. ART
From the end of the thirteenth century until the beginning of the sixteenth, Florence was the liveliest center of artistic culture in all of Italy.
In architecture the Romanesque style did not bring the characteristic Lombard forms to Tuscany, but only certain elements of them became acclimatized there: the Florentine Romanesque churches in fact continued the basilical forms, as in the church of the SS. Apostoli and in S. Jacopo Soprarno, while the Baptistery so closely repeats the ancient forms that it was believed to be a work of the classical period by the men of the fourteenth century. Similar characteristics are found in S. Miniato al Monte and the Badia Fiesolana, in which churches the dichromy is peculiar.
(by courtesy of Dr. G. Maetzke)
FLORENCE, ARCHDIOCESE OF - Inscription of Theotelinos dated to 405 found in the basilica beneath S. Felicita.
The Gothic, which created two masterpieces in S. Maria Novella and in S. Croce, nevertheless seems to stop at the surface of the elements without entering into the organism of the construction: the Loggia dei Lanzi, with its three round arches, already preludes the Renaissance; while the Cathedral, in whose interior the gallery, in the central nave, seems to check the ascending sweep of the Gothic lines, has a dome as its crowning; Giotto's campanile is Gothic only in its details.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century the new architecture arose in Florence through the work of Filippo Brunelleschi (v.). To explain the reappearance in it of the classical spirit, it is not necessary to accept Vasari's account of Brunelleschi's journey to Rome together with Donatello, because in Florence Brunelleschi could find classical inspiration in the Romanesque monuments, all full of the ancient spirit. Brunelleschi, who defined the laws of perspective, represents on this side the mathematical conception of the Renaissance and provided painters with the most characteristic means of renewing their art, which in the fifteenth century is characterized by the conquest of the third dimension.
Brunelleschi's art spread throughout all Tuscany; all the Florentine architects, including in many respects Alberti (v.), educated in the humanistic school, proceed from his premises down to Michelangelo; thus do Michelozzo (v.) in the Convent of S. Marco, Giuliano da S. Gallo (v.) in the Madonna delle Carcari in Prato and in S. Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence, and Benedetto da Maiano (v.), Giuliano da Maiano (v.), Bernardo Rossellino (v.) and Cronaca follow the Brunelleschian tradition.
Michelangelo (v.) himself, in the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, maintained the scheme of the Old Sacristy, though interpreting it with his particular conception of architecture as of masses in movement.
Michelangelo, although he worked almost always in Rome, dominated Florentine architecture of the sixteenth century. In his homeland the most characteristic architect of the time was Vasari, a mannerist, an elaborator of forms by then acquired.
The first sculptor in whom it is possible to recognize the characteristic acute Florentine spirit is Arnolfo di Cambio (v.), also architect of S. Reparata, then of S. Maria del Fiore. His sculptural works are however for the most part outside Florence, especially in Rome, where they spread among the marble-workers the Florentine elegance and spirituality.
In the fourteenth century the Sienese Tino da Cammino (v.) educated numerous pupils in Florence. Andrea da Pontedera (v.), called Pisano, who underwent the Giottesque influence, in 1330 received the commission for the first door of the Baptistery and later worked on the reliefs of Giotto's campanile. From him derives Andrea di Cione called l'Orcagna (v.), who in 1359 completed the tabernacle of Or S. Michele, a work at once of architecture and of sculpture.
At the end of the fourteenth century, in the Porta della Mandorla of S. Maria del Fiore, the precursor signs of the Renaissance in sculpture begin to appear: realism and the imitation of the antique (images of pagan divinities, sirens, singers, etc.).
The competition announced in 1401 for another bronze door of the Baptistery saw Lorenzo Ghiberti as the winner, who, while adhering to the still Gothic scheme of Andrea Pisano, produced a personal work for the balance and the synthetism of the representation. The comparison between this door and the third, which occupied Ghiberti until 1452, shows the evolution accomplished by Florentine sculpture: the Gothic panels with mixtilinear frames disappear, giving way to very wide backgrounds; classical niches receive statues; the bas-reliefs, vying with painting, come alive with numerous figures and present landscapes in the background; with great realism the portraits of various artists of the time are represented in the roundels together with the sculptor's self-portrait, and fruits and flowers are reproduced in the decorative festoon. Likewise pictorial quality and perspectival breadth dominate in the urn of S. Zanobi and influence even Donatello.
Donato di Betto Bardi, called Donatello (v.), holds in Florentine sculpture a position analogous to that held by Brunelleschi in architecture and by Masaccio in painting. He removes from sculptures every Gothic residue, and, without ever imitating it, appears a continuator of the antique; the pictorial bas-relief reaches in him, by means of stiacciato and the skillful gradation of planes, the resolution of the problem of form in movement, which together with that of volume the Florentine artists continually set themselves; the volumes are attenuated in the stiacciato in order to achieve motion.
From Donatello depend Michelozzo (v.) and Bertoldo (v.). Around him flourish, variously influenced by himself and by Ghiberti, Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino (v.), Agostino di Duccio (v.), Desiderio da Settignano (v.), Mino da Fiesole (v.), Benedetto da Maiano (v.); the tendency toward the real is accentuated in Antonio del Pollaiolo (v.) and Andrea Verrocchio (v.), a master in painting to Leonardo da Vinci.
The Della Robbia (v.) bring to sculpture the singular contribution of their glazed terracottas, a precious ornament of Florentine buildings.
In the sixteenth century Florentine sculpture shows three tendencies. One, personified by Michelangelo, is followed by Raffaello di Montelupo (v.) and by Montorsoli (v.); another, which has its head in Andrea Sansovino and is developed by Jacopo Sansovino (v.), proposes as its ideal the grace of the fifteenth century united with classical form; a third is represented by Baccio Bandinelli (v.) and by Ammanati (v.), who end by becoming blind followers of Buonarroti.
Even more vigorously than in architecture and sculpture the Florentine school asserted itself in painting. The founder of Florentine painting is Cimabue (v.), who undertook to free it from the conventional Byzantine forms and gave it those characteristics that would always distinguish it from all the others. According to the intellectualistic conception that the Florentines have of reality, drawing dominates in it, which by means of a functional line suggests the volume of the represented object. By means of chiaroscuro this is then represented detached from the background with an effect of relief.
Such characteristics decidedly distinguish Florentine painting from Sienese and from Gothic painting, which instead considers the line not as a functional element but as an ornamental and calligraphic element, that is, as a simple contour emptied of its content, and arranges the composition entirely on one plane, without relief. To the Florentine plastic conception color is subordinated, which for the most part merely fills in the drawing and is always subordinated to the opposition of light and dark necessary for relief: in the Sienese school, on the other hand, the coloring, because limited to effects of surface, is clear and brilliant.
All the characteristics of Florentine painting are summed up in Giotto (v.), who frees it completely from the Byzantine formulas.
Giotto sees objects as broad, compact masses; he organizes the composition of his paintings with an architectural and spatial sense, in the same spirit as architecture, in which the aesthetic effect is born from the contrast of weight with support, and from the sense of volume.
In keeping with the Italian character, in narrating the sacred stories Giotto is logical, clear, measured and convincing.
In the second half of the fourteenth century there appears an exchange of influences, one might almost say a compromise, between the Florentine and the Sienese schools. After a brief interlude of late Gothic, represented by Lorenzo Monaco (v.), in which an exasperated linear calligraphy is joined to Sienese grace and Florentine vigor, the Renaissance begins.
Masolino (v.), although still bound to the current of Florentine Gothic, applies perspective in his paintings, opening up receding rows of columns in the Banquet of Herod, but his figures, even while standing out against the background opened up by the third dimension, do not partake of the perspectival organism, as later, like true stage wings, will be the case in the paintings of Piero della Francesca.
Masaccio (v.), who is held to have been a pupil of Masolino, renewed painting. From Brunelleschi he learned perspective, from Donatello he derived the sculptural plasticity of his figures. Masaccio thus ideally continued Giotto, whose plastic solidity and monumental aspect he renewed.
The art of Masaccio, like that of Giotto, had no true continuators; his grandiose synthesis gave way to a realistic tendency. The exception is Fra Angelico (v.), a singular artist still dependent on the tradition of Florentine Gothic, a supreme and unsurpassable interpreter of religious ideality.
A pupil of Angelico, but lacking his magical power of spiritualization, Benozzo Gozzoli (v.) represented sacred scenes with very great narrative skill, with a relishful brio and popular simplicity.
Reality is strongly felt by Andrea del Castagno (v.), in whom the plastic tendency of Florentine painting is increasingly accentuated, to the point of giving his figures the character of wooden sculptures with violently marked contours, agitated in order to convey motion, the other half of Florentine art.
The rules of the rediscovered perspective are passionately followed by Paolo di Dono, known as Paolo Uccello (v.), who leads one to see distant things, softens the relief of bodies and ends by obtaining the effects of intarsia through the juxtaposition of zones of color. So as not to disturb the perspectival vision, movement comes to a halt, and his static battles appear to us in an unreal stylization. But there are also in him a tragic feeling and heroic grandeur, as can be seen in the Universal Deluge of the cloister of S. Maria Novella.
Piero della Francesca (v.) raises perspective to the level of a true scientific discipline, happily posing and solving the problems of linear and aerial perspective, succeeding in conveying the sense of the air and light that vibrate around objects. His compositions are true architectures; his figures have a vivid sense of volume obtained by means of a skillful gradation of tones of colors. Piero understood that perspective was the only means of uniting drawing with color, without incurring the drawbacks into which the Florentines and the Sienese fell.
Alongside the search for form, there develops in Florentine painting (as in sculpture) the search for movement, which, alongside Andrea del Castagno, has its convinced followers in Antonio del Pollaiolo (v.) and in Botticelli (v.), who obtain it through the line that continually animates the form.
The problem of movement will be taken up again and solved in another and deeper manner by Leonardo da Vinci (v.), with his vibrating chiaroscuro, which reveals images from shadow to light with the most delicate transitions. He gives the Florentines an isolated example of true painting devoid of sculptural relief, in which volume is obtained in the very depth of the represented environment and immersed in that atmosphere.
In the sixteenth century Florentine painting is personified in Michelangelo, who, as architect, sculptor and painter, pushes all the characteristic elements of the school to their utmost possibilities, and especially form and movement. In him form, more than volume, becomes mass, and gigantic blocks opposed to one another in perpetual struggle and perpetual motion are all his works.
With him, Florentine art passes to Rome, so that F. loses its primacy and its school is no more than a provincial school.
Bibliography3 works
Vincenzo Gobio
VII. - ABBEY OF S. MARIA. - A famous monastery, commonly called the Badia, founded by Willa, daughter of Marquis Boniface. After Willa's death, her son Hugh confirmed and increased his mother's donations to such an extent that he was considered the founder of the Badia. After his death, on 21 Dec. 1001, the monks celebrated his anniversary every year, as Dante recalls in the Paradiso (XVI, 128-29), speaking "of the great baron, whose name and whose worth - the feast of Thomas comforts"; Dante had his own house near this monastery, to which he alludes again with the verses: "Florence, within the ancient circle - from which she still takes both terce and none" (Par., XV, 97-98). In 1436 it was united to the Congregation of S. Giustina. Suppressed in 1810, it was restored in 1819 with a minimal part of its ancient properties. After the new suppression of 1806 the monks remained in a few rooms, taking care of the parish until 1919. The premises had been used as schools and judicial offices.
It was rich in men distinguished for holiness and learning: among these are remembered d. Vincenzo Borghini (v.), d. Agostino Rabatta, the bishop d. Pier Luigi Galletti (v.), card. d. Angelo M. Querini; under the guidance of the monks of the Badia studied G. B. Niccolini.
The present church was built in 1625 by Segalobi on the foundations of Arnolfo di Lapo (13th cent.), to whom the beautiful bell tower is attributed. The portal, sculpted by Benedetto da Rovezzano, has been recently restored. Among the works of art it contains - especially notable are two tombs sculpted by Mino da Fiesole, one of which, from 1481, holds the bones of Count Hugh - is the famous painting by Filippo Lippi, representing the appearance of the Virgin to St. Bernard. The Library and the splendid choir books are partly dispersed, partly found in the Laurenziana and the Magliabechiana of Florence; the papers are in the State Archive of the same city. -See plates XC-XCIII.
Bibliography5 works
Tommaso Leccisotti
II. COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.
Lasting from 1438 to 1445, the ecumenical Council of F. is divided into three phases: 1) the conciliar sessions of Ferrara (from 1 Jan. 1438 to 10 Jan. 1439). 2) The conciliar sessions of F., which resulted in the decrees of union of the Greeks, the Armenians and the Copts (1439-42). 3) The conciliar sessions of Rome (1443-45). The history of the Council of F. cannot be fully understood unless account is taken of the long negotiations that took place between the Holy See and the Greeks under Martin V and Eugene IV (see the documents indicated in the bibliography).
I. FERRARA (1438-39)
On 8 Jan. 1438 the b. Niccolò Albergati solemnly opened the Council in the cathedral of S. Giorgio in Ferrara. Present were only 4 archbishops and 20 bishops, all from Italy, Spain and France. The president of the Council made a declaration in favor of Pope Eugene IV and of the legitimacy of the transfer of the Council from Basel to Ferrara. Seven other conciliar sessions followed, of which the third, on 10 Jan., promulgated a decree against the synodals of Basel, and the eighth, on 8 Feb., after the arrival of the Pope (27 Jan.), another of the same tenor. The number of participants in the Synod of Ferrara grew; already at the same session, on 11 Feb., there were present 5 cardinals, 4 archbishops and 36 bishops. Moreover, on 8 Feb. the Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus, the patriarch Joseph II and ca. 20 Byzantine bishops had arrived in Venice, and they immediately sent a delegation to Ferrara. The Latin embassy, that is the bishops Antonio of Porto, Pietro of Digne, Cristoforo of Coron and the provost Nicholas of Cusa, was able on its part to report on 1 March to the Council the negotiations successfully concluded by that same delegation at Constantinople, despite the very strong difficulties opposed to the Pope's envoys by the representatives of the remaining synodals of Basel. A most important moment was marked by the arrival in Ferrara (8 March) of card. Cesarini, who no longer wished to serve the cause of the Council of Basel, which was in conflict with the supreme head of the Church. The Greek emperor made his solemn entry into Ferrara on 4 March; the patriarch of Constantinople on the 8th of the same month.
A fine representation of the Byzantine Churches followed them: the bishops of Heraclea, Ephesus, Sardis, Monemvasia, Trebizond, Cyzicus, Nicaea, Nicomedia, Lacedaemonia, Leabe (Mytilene), Stauropolis, Tirnovo (Bulgaria), Rhodes, Amasia, Silistra (Romania), Melenic (Bulgaria), Maine (Peloponnese); moreover a bishop and a protopapas of Moldo-Wallachia (Romania), 2 bishops of Georgia, and later, in mid-Aug. 1438, the metropolitan of Kiev, Isidore, and the bishop of Suzdal. The patriarchs of Alexandria, of Antioch and of Jerusalem; the bishops of Caesarea, of Side and of Sebaste were represented by some of the above-named bishops and by Gregory Mammas, the emperor's confessor and future patriarch. Six hegumens, as procurators of the Greek monasteries (Arbea, etc.), 4 deacons of Hagia Sophia (sauroforoi) and distinguished laymen, among whom Demetrius, the emperor's brother, and George Scholarios, who would later be named patriarch, were in the retinue of the imperial court and of the patriarchal curia.
The first solemn common session of the Latins and the Greeks took place in the cathedral of S. Giorgio on 9 Apr. 1438 in the presence of the Pope. An important decree, drawn up in Latin and in Greek, was promulgated, sanctioning the ecumenicity of the Council of Ferrara. The second common session of the Latins and the Greeks was held only on 9 Oct. 1438; the cause of this delay is to be sought in the will of those assembled to satisfy the desire of the Byzantine emperor, who insisted that new invitations be sent out to the Western princes and to the synodals of Basel to participate in the Council of Ferrara. However, the interval between the first and the second session of the Council was, in part, occupied by the "conferences of Ferrara," which discussed Purgatory and other connected questions.
These assemblies, however, did not have a public conciliar character, but took place as private meetings between the two delegations. The Latin one included Cardinals Cesarini and Capranica, the Latin Archbishop of Rhodes Andrea Chrysoberges O.P., and Giovanni di Torquemada, the future cardinal. The Greek one, heavily influenced by the emperor, included the metropolitans Mark of Ephesus, Bessarion of Nicaea, Sephrosios of Anchialos, and Methodios of Lacedaemonia. After some preliminary sessions (between 24 April and 12 May 1438), the most important discussions began on 4 June. Archbishop L. Petit has the great merit of having discovered and published in 1920 the Greek text of the speeches delivered on this occasion by the Latins and the Greeks, and G. Hofmann was able to publish the Latin text of the orations delivered by the Latins. Cardinal Cesarini set forth on 4 June the Catholic doctrine on Purgatory, adducing in support of his thesis arguments drawn from Holy Scripture and from tradition. The Dominican Torquemada replied to Bessarion's speech of 14 June, giving theological explanations faithful to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas on the question under debate. Mark Eugenikos and Andrea Chrysoberges also delivered speeches. A definitive result was not to be expected immediately, since these conferences were not public; nevertheless, in this way favorable ground was being prepared for agreement, which in fact was obtained a year later, in Florence, also on the dogmatic point of Purgatory. The public conciliar sessions of Ferrara (between 9 October and 13 December 1438) dealt with the question whether it was lawful to add a dogmatic formula to the so-called Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (Denz-U, 86) and whether the Council of Ephesus had expressed a prohibition in this sense (cf. Denz-U, 125). The Greek speakers, to whom the Latins granted the advantage of opening the public discussions, affirmed that it was not permitted to increase (or diminish) the Creed, and that the Council of Ephesus had forbidden any addition to the Creed, even if it should happen to be in conformity with the faith. This view was expressed above all by Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion. Cardinal Cesarini,
Archbishop Andrea Chrysoberges and the Franciscan Luigi, Bishop of Forlì, for their part advocated an opinion contrary to that of the Greeks. Ambrogio Traversari, general of the Camaldolese and very well versed in Latin and Greek patrology, earned merit for having placed the patristic texts at the disposal of the synod fathers. Although the sessions from the ninth to the fifteenth (with the twelfth, on the occasion of the reception of the embassy of the Duke of Burgundy, sent to pay homage to the Council) dealt extensively with the aforementioned question of the Synod, the Greeks did not yield to the Latins. It was a great stroke of fortune that the transfer of the Council from Ferrara to Florence and the days occupied by its preparation somewhat calmed spirits. The bull sanctioning the change of venue was promulgated at the last Ferrarese session on 10 January 1439. The reason for the transfer is to be sought above all in the financial straits of the pontifical Curia, which also bore the burden of maintaining the Greeks — straits which were remedied by the generous offer of Florence, which even before the Council had aspired to the glory of becoming its seat, as appears from the records of the Florentine signoria.
II. FLORENCE (1439-43)
Pope Eugene IV solemnly departed from Ferrara for Florence (via Modena) on 16 January 1439. Patriarch Joseph followed on 26 January and arrived in Florence on 15 February, celebrated by the Florentine clergy and people, who prepared lodging for him in the Palazzo dei Fiorentini in Pitti. The Greek Emperor made his solemn entry into Florence on 14 February 1439 and was hosted in the Palazzo de' Peruzzi. After a session (26 February) on the topics to be treated and on the date of the public conciliar sessions, the latter were inaugurated at S. Maria Novella on 3 March, and were followed, in the same month, by 7 others. The 8 public sessions of March 1439 dealt with the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
The two principal speakers were Giovanni di Montenero (of Genoa), provincial of the Dominicans, on the Latin side, and Mark Eugenikos on the Greek side. Of particular note were the expositions of the Dominican at the meetings of 21 and 24 March; in these two sessions Giovanni di Montenero gave extensive arguments on the theme drawn from Holy Scripture, from the Latin and Greek Fathers, from the ecumenical councils and also from the Synods of Toledo. In other sessions there was lengthy discussion of the authenticity of a text in the third book contra Eunomium of St. Basil (PG 29, 655, note 79). The concepts of nature, person, substance, principle, and cause also had to be explained in order to give greater clarity to Greek thought. In this regard Giovanni di Montenero was able to place at the service of the good cause his thought formed by the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. An immediate result in the form of concord between the Latin and Greek synod fathers on the question of the Filioque (v.) was not, however, obtained in the first 8 public sessions of Florence, but they certainly prepared the way for union. It is to the credit of Pope Eugene IV, who did not despair even in critical situations, that he allowed a certain flexibility which made more concrete results possible. Thus between 30 March and 27 June 1439 there were various forms of negotiations between Latins and Greeks in separate groups; personal interventions by the Pope; private sessions of the Greeks under the influence of the Emperor and of some zealous supporters of union, such as Bessarion, Isidore of Kiev, George Scholarios, etc., and separate meetings of the Latins under the influential guidance of Cardinal Cesarini. The Greeks were given the opportunity to become better acquainted with the Catholic position on the primacy of the Pope in two speeches by Giovanni di Montenero on 16 and 20 June, and with the doctrine on the Eucharist in two other speeches by Giovanni di Torquemada (16 and 18 June 1439). By these means a first agreement on the Procession of the Spirit had by now been obtained, an agreement accepted also by the patriarch before his death (10 June). Cardinal Cesarini was able to inform the Latin synod fathers on 27 June that concord between Latins and Greeks on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, on the question of the Creed, on the Eucharist, on the last things (Purgatory, etc.), and on the primacy of the pope was by now was an accomplished fact; moreover, he was able to announce that the Greeks were ready to make a public declaration on the words of the eucharistic Consecration. There remained only the drafting of the bull of union of the Greeks and the promulgation of the union, to be made in a most solemn session. A mixed Latin and Greek deputation drafted the bull of union between 28 June and 4 July in the church of S. Croce; on 4 July its Latin and Greek text was accepted by the deputies, 12 from each side. A Latin synod in the presence of the Pope on 4 July published through Tommaso Parerucelli (the future pope Nicholas V) the bull of union, and on the following day all the Latin synodals gave their subscription to this document in the presence of ten Greek witnesses, and the Greeks, who had already signed the same bull in the presence of 4 Latin witnesses, ratified on 5 July through Bessarion the declaration in favor of the words of consecration against the epiclesis of the dissidents. On this there still exists an original protocol drawn up on 17 Aug. 1439. In the cathedral of F. on 6 July pope Eugene IV celebrated the solemn Mass in the presence of the Latin and Greek synodals; the gonfalonier Filippo di Giovanni Carducci served at the altar. The whole city celebrated this day, which was a Monday, and the following one as a feast. After the Mass under Brunelleschi's dome, in the middle of the choir, card. Cesarini ascended a tribune in the form of a pulpit and read the Latin text of the bull of union, and the Latin synodals pronounced their consent. With the same ceremonial Bessarion read the Greek text, to which the Greeks publicly consented. The bull of union, of which many authentic documents still exist, was signed by the Pope, by 8 cardinals, 2 patriarchs and 8 Latin archbishops, 52 bishops, 7 archdeacons, 4 generals of orders and 41 abbots; the Greek column of the bull was signed by the emperor John VIII, by 20 prelates (metropolitans, bishops, vicars of patriarchs and bishops), by 5 clerics present, by a sect legitimately represented and by 6 representatives of Greek monasteries. The bull contains the dogmatic definition on the 5 articles of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, of the Symbol, of Purgatory and of the beatific vision, of the Eucharist (that is, that the matter of the Eucharist is unleavened [v.] or fermented bread), of the primacy of the pope.
The union of the Armenians was promulgated with the bull Exultate Deo (v. DECRETUM AD ARMENOS) in the same cathedral on 22 Nov. 1439 in the presence of the Pope, 8 cardinals, 43 Latin bishops, archbishops and patriarchs, 25 Latin abbots, of the Armenian doctors (vardapet) Serkis and Thomas, and of the Armenian monk Nerses. The bishop of Padua Pietro Donato read the Latin text of the bull, the Armenian monk Nerses a compendium of the same bull in Armenian, and Francesco Basilio gave the Latin version of this compendium.
The preparation of this union had begun in the year 1433, followed then by negotiations conducted by the Genoese colony of Caffa (Feodosia) in the Crimea with the Armenian patriarch Constantine V, who, in his letters to the consul Imperiali and to the Armenians of Caffa, gave, on 5 July 1438, full faculty to his delegates Serkis, Marchos, Thomas and Gioacchino bishop of Pera (Constantinople) to conclude the union in the Council of the Pope. The Franciscan Giacomo de' Primadizi accompanied the Armenian delegation to Genoa and to F. Discussions followed between a deputation of the Council and the Armenian delegation on the controverted points, discussions happily crowned by the union. Also from the Armenian archbishop of Lwów (Poland), Gregory, a deputation came to the Council, which, after some discussions, accepted the bull of union of the Armenians on 15 Dec. 1439.
The Holy See and the Council had sent immediately after the union of the Greeks the Franciscan Alberto da Sarteano (Tuscany) as legate to the Copts and the Ethiopians. He had conversations with Nicodemus, abbot of the Abyssinian monastery of Jerusalem, who wrote a letter to the Pope on 9 Nov. 1440, and with the Coptic patriarch John XI, who had his residence in Cairo, and who also sent a message to the Pontiff on 12 Sept. 1440. The pontifical legate returned to Florence in the summer of 1441 with a delegation of the Coptic patriarch and another of the Ethiopian abbot of Jerusalem. The two Eastern delegations presented themselves to the Council on 31 Aug. and 8 Sept. 1441. Deliberations followed between a conciliar deputation and 8 Coptic and Ethiopian monks on the subject of the faith and the Sacraments. On 4 Febr. 1442 the bull of union of the Copts was promulgated in the church of S. Maria Novella in the presence of the Pope, 20 cardinals, among them Bessarion, 32 Latin bishops, archbishops, patriarchs and 11 Latin abbots, among whom (as already in the bull of union of the Greeks) was the abbot of the Greek monastery of Grottaferrata, and in the presence of the Orientals. The Arabic text of the bull and a brief Arabic declaration of fidelity to the Pope was read in the Council by the Coptic abbot Andrew, delegate of the Coptic patriarch. He also signed the Arabic text of the bull. It is to be noted that the bull of union of the Copts contains an ample exposition of the doctrine on the Most Holy Trinity and on the canon of Holy Scripture and has incorporated the bull of union of the Greeks and that of the Armenians, with additions concerning the words of the Consecration and the lawfulness of tetragamy.
Besides the union of the Greeks, of the Armenians and of the Copts, concluded at F., and their correlative decrees, other most important decrees were issued in this conciliar city. They deserve special mention here: the bull Maiora vir Dei of 4 Sept. 1430 against the illegitimate Council of Basel, and the monitory against the antipope Felix V of 23 (?) March 1440 and the bull of the transfer of the Council from Florence to Rome (approved also by part of the preceding Council) on 24 Febr. 1443.
III. ROME (1443-45)
Pope Eugene IV left F. on 7 March 1443 with 15 cardinals. The pontifical Curia stopped at Siena until 14 Sept.; there the blessed card. Niccolò Albergati died; there Isidore of Kiev, cardinal, received an embassy for the East. The first solemn conciliar session of Rome took place on 14 Oct. 1443 in the Lateran. On 10 Jan. it was decided, in a conciliar session, a religious procession in thanksgiving for a victory of the Christians over the Turks, announced by the apostolic legate in the East, Cesarini; this was held on 12 Jan. 1444. On 30 Sept. 1444 the union of the Syrians of Mesopotamia was concluded in the Council, preceded by deliberations between the Syrian archbishop of Edessa, Abdala, delegate of the patriarch Ignatius, and a conciliar deputation on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the two natures and the two wills of Christ. The union of the Chaldeans and Maronites of Cyprus was promulgated on 7 Aug. 1445. It had been prepared by the legation of Andrea Chrysoberges, archbishop of Rhodes, who had already earlier obtained the adherence of the Chaldeans and Maronites in the church of S. Sophia in Nicosia. Timothy, metropolitan of the Chaldeans, and Isaac, procurator of the Maronite bishop, were sent to Rome and both pronounced in the Council a profession of Catholic faith also in the name of their compatriots. The Pope, on the occasion of the acceptance of their union, also promulgated a decree that forbade calling the Chaldeans and Maronites heretics, and established the rights of the Chaldean metropolitan, of the Maronite bishop and of their Catholic successors.
In the last part of the Council the convention of the Patarine heretics of Bosnia was obtained, who had sent an embassy to pope Eugene IV.
IV. EFFECTS OF THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
It cannot be denied that the Council of F. produced dogmatic, theological, historical, juridical and cultural effects. One need only look at the registers of the pontifical bulls that relate to the preparation, the celebration and the subsequent repercussions of the Council in the new edition published by G. Hofmann to be convinced of this.
Humanism drew nourishment from the encounter of the Easterners with the Westerners, an encounter that lasted, in continuous familiarity of life, for several years. And already the cause of the unity of the Church, considered merely from the historical point of view, was not to be underestimated, even though a great part of the Byzantine bishops did not afterwards maintain the solemn pledge of fidelity given to the Pope with the signing of the bull of union. The Council gave to future cardinals (Bessarion and Isidore of Kiev) and 3 patriarchs of Constantinople of the Catholic faith: Joseph II (who died during the Council) and his successors Metrophanes and Gregory Mammas; in the Islands of Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus, in the city of Modon and elsewhere there remained good groups of Greeks faithful to the union sanctioned by the Council. The union of the Armenians in Caffa sustained itself until the massacre carried out by the Turks in that city in 1475. Concerning the fidelity of the Coptic patriarch there is a testimony down to the times of Pope Nicholas V (1450). Still Callixtus III (1455-58) and Pius II (1458-64) showed themselves energetic supporters of the union concluded at F., and found at least in a part of the Easterners a favorable reception. The decree of the union of the Greeks remained the dogmatic norm of the future unions of the Ruthenians (1392-96), of the Romanians (1697), of the Melkites (beginning of the 18th century), etc. The Vatican Council made use of this decree, and the Council of Trent that of the Union of the Copts in the question of the canon of Sacred Scripture. The decree of the Armenians exercised the acumen of Catholic theologians who, however, did not arrive at a single opinion in its interpretation, and especially of the part concerning the Sacraments. Nor, according to Hürth, did Pope Pius XII wish, in his apostolic constitution Sacramentum Ordinis of 30 Nov. 1947, to put an end to the theological controversy over the theological value of this decree. On the other hand the constitution emphasizes that at the Council of F. the Greeks were admitted to the unity of the Church without the condition of a change of their rite of Ordination, which knows only the imposition of hands without the tradition of the instruments.