Franciscan Friars Minor

FRANCISCAN FRIARS MINOR. - Mendicant order, founded by St. Francis of Assisi, now constituted by three autonomous families: 1) Friars Minor: O.F.M.; 2) Conventual Friars Minor: F.M.Conv.; 3) Capuchin Friars Minor: F.M.Capp.

I. FROM THE FOUNDATION TO 1517.

I. FOUNDATION AND DEVELOPMENTS OF THE ORDER

The Order of the F.M. was founded in 1208 in Assisi by St. Francis (v.), who already in the first Rule wished to call it thus out of humility, alluding probably to the "minores" of his city, that is, to those of the most modest social condition as compared with the "maiores." The primitive Rule, composed of certain Gospel texts and a few exhortations, was approved orally by Innocent III in 1209; finally in 1223 Honorius III confirmed by bull the definitive Rule, which was the summary of another Rule composed two years earlier. The F.M., besides the three essential vows, had to profess absolute poverty both privately and in common, living on alms when from work they could not obtain what was necessary for life and for the exercise of their apostolate. The Order leads a life mixed of prayer and apostolate according to the Gospel norms and the express command of St. Francis: "Non sibi soli vivere, sed aliis proficere." Therefore in chapter XII of the Rule it is further commanded to leave free all those who by divine inspiration might wish to go and preach the Gospel among the Saracens and the other infidels.

At the death of St. Francis, the Order, which had already gathered in a Chapter near the Portiuncula some thousands of religious (1219), was very flourishing in its thirteen provinces, so as to be by then known in all the principal regions of Europe, in Mohammedan Africa and in the East. But St. Francis, though confident in the stability of the Institute, died with some concern for its future vicissitudes. After his return from Egypt in 1220, he had left its direction first to the vicar Pietro Cattani, and, upon the latter's death (1221), to Brother Elias of Assisi, who governed until the General Chapter of 1227, when Giovanni Parenti was elected minister general, a learned and virtuous man, who for five years prudently guided the fortunes of the Order. Despite its vigorous development, within the Order a controversy arose concerning the observance of the Rule, which on the one hand presented painful obscurities, and on the other denied any possibility of interpretation because of the explicit prohibition of the founder inserted in his Testament, which all venerated. To calm the conscience of the friars the general, after the Chapter of 1230, had recourse to Pope Gregory IX, who had had a part in the definitive composition of the same Rule in his capacity as protector of the Order and counselor of St. Francis. The effect of this recourse was the bull Quo elongati of 28 Sept. 1230, which constitutes the basis of future pontifical declarations, and where, following a juridical criterion, any obligatory value is denied to the Testament.

Regarding the observance of the evangelical counsels it is declared that the friars are bound to observe only those expressly indicated in the Rule; the daily economic process for the use of money is then facilitated with the institution of the nuncios (later called syndics), who could receive and administer money in the name of the benefactors. From this declaration of Gregory IX it was easy for Innocent IV and Martin IV to proceed to the institution of apostolic syndics, who could administer the movable and immovable goods of the religious in the name of the Holy See, held to be the sole and true owner. Since the Minorite rule was not a perfect or adequate code of organization, other statutory norms came to integrate it from as early as 1224 (Constitutiones antiquae). In the Chapter of Rieti (1232 or 1233) Brother Elias was elected general, powerful with Gregory IX who had entrusted him with the construction of the monumental Assisi basilica. He organized the Order into 34 provinces, giving impulse to its manifold activities, bound in general only by the dispositions of the Rule; but his authoritarian character and certain excesses of rigor of his visitors, laymen like himself, aroused various complaints, wherefore in the General Chapter of Rome (1239), convoked by the same Pope, Brother Elias was relieved (absoluto) of office and replaced by Alberto of Pisa, the first general who was a priest. Suitable constitutions were compiled, which gave the Minorite family a more distinctly democratic character, while the Order always remained centralized in its government.

Thereafter the government of the Order was held by the Englishman Aimone of Faversham (1240-44), Crescenzo Griszi of Jesi (1244-47) and the bl. Giovanni Buralli of Parma (1247-57). With the election of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, in the Chapter of Rome of 1257, the Order had in the first place a wise moderator of whom there was need after the government of the man from Parma. To him are owed the Narbonne Constitutions (1260), the first legislative code possessed in its integral text, besides the Rule, and the foundation of the numerous statutes drafted in the course of the centuries. In an Order so vast in men and in ideas he strove to maintain peace internally and spiritual and scientific prestige externally: he defended the just observance of the Rule and of the pontifical constitutions, and did not permit the imposition of an excessive austerity and of an absolute poverty in buildings, in the means of study and in the necessities of life.

St. Bonaventure, made cardinal in 1273 and dead during the Council of Lyons, was succeeded by Girolamo Masci of Ascoli, formerly a missionary in the East and later pope under the name of Nicholas IV, followed in turn in 1279 by Bonagrazia of S. Giovanni in Persiceto, to whom is owed the admirable constitution Exiit qui seminat with which Pope Nicholas III, protector of the Order, proposed to resolve the controversies over poverty.

While St. Francis was still alive, and especially after his death, tendencies made headway toward forms more suited to an Order in rapid development. This did not please certain religious of greater, but very narrow, mentality, infected also with Joachimism and already repressed by St. Bonaventure, who took the name of "Spirituals." They made their influence felt especially in Provence, in the Marches and in Tuscany, where they had the adherence of men of talent and audacity. Master of the Provençals was the celebrated Pietro di Giovanni Olivi; in Tuscany Ubertino of Casale excelled, who had much to learn from Olivi during the time the latter dwelt in Florence. Finally, in the Marches the coryphaei of the new ideas were Pietro of Macerata and Angelo Clareno (v.).

Punished in 1274 and sent as missionaries to the East, these men later had recourse to Pope Clement V, who, with the bull Exivi de Paradiso (1312), sought to reduce them entirely to live in peace with the other religious, who constituted a mass of ca. 35,000 members, with over a thousand convents. Finally John XXII in 1317 and 1318 proceeded against them with various bulls, wherefore they had to submit or disappear. Under the same Pontiff there was also another grave controversy over theoretical poverty, which he resolved with the bulls Ad conditorem canonum of 8 Dec. 1322 and Cum inter nonnullos of 12 Nov. of the following year.

From this time, together with a profound vitality, one finds in the Franciscan Order, as indeed in the other religious Orders, a strong disciplinary decadence, especially with regard to poverty.

This decadence, attested by contemporary writers such as Alvaro Pelagio O. M. in his De Planctu Ecclesiae (ed. Venice 1517) and by the documents of the pontiffs and of the Order, did not stifle the spiritual, scholarly and missionary activities of the Order itself, nor did it interrupt its vast influence in every field, to the point of earning the official praises of the popes, particularly of Gregory XI. The Farinier Constitutions of 1354, which remained in force for the Conventuals until the Alessandrine of 1500, and special provisions of popes and of zealous generals, such as the Bl. Enrico Alfieri da Asti (1367-1405), restored the discipline of the internal life on the common basis of the moderate observance of poverty. Sixtus IV, who had been minister general of the Order (Francesco Della Rovere), with various bulls from 1472 to 1479 confirmed all the previous privileges and also the possessions, always under the dominion of the Holy See.

II. EXTERNAL ACTIVITY OF THE ORDER

Its services to the Church and to society are immense. To the former, in this age, it gave two popes: Nicholas IV (1288-92) and Sixtus IV (1477-84), and the antipope Alexander V (1409-10), 37 cardinals, two of whom were Observants, numerous legates, apostolic nuncios, and bishops. Thanks to the spread of the Third Order it penetrated into the innermost life of the people, transforming their life and guiding and moderating their spirits through its beneficent activity. Indeed, the friars, in every place where they managed to gain a foothold, caused piety to flourish anew, made themselves heralds of peace, extinguishing hatreds and settling public and private enmities, gave assistance in the exercise of the works of mercy on behalf of the most wretched, the lepers, and foundlings, giving rise to new charitable institutions, rose up in defense of the oppressed, branded moral corruption, preached against avarice and usury, favoring the rise of the Monti di Pietà. Among the great preachers it suffices to recall St. Anthony of Padua, Leone Perego, Gerardo Boccadabati, Hugh of Digne and Berthold of Regensburg in the 13th century; and in the 15th century the four pillars of the Observance (St. Bernardino of Siena, St. John of Capistrano, St. John of the Marches, Bl. Albert of Sarteano), together with Bl. Bernardino of Feltre, Antonio of Vercelli, Bernardino de Bustis, Michele Carcano, Cherubino of Spoleto, and the Conventuals Roberto Caracciolo of Lecce, John of Werden, and Konrad Grütsch.

The work of the Friars Minor was not lacking in the liturgy either. At the wish of Gregory IX, Aimone of Faversham reformed the Roman Missal and Breviary in the manner that later became common in the Curia and in the Church. They introduced the feasts of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Name of Jesus, of the Visitation and Espousal of the Virgin, and of St. Joseph. The battles for the defense of the Immaculate Conception, later defined as a dogma, are known to all. The veneration of the Humanity of Christ, particularly felt by the Minorites, led them to become spreaders of devotion to the Passion (Via Crucis), to the Child Jesus (the crib), to the Most Holy Name of Jesus, and to the Eucharist.

III. FOREIGN MISSIONS

They are the particular glory of the Order. St. Francis himself began them in 1219 and 1221; in the Rule there is a special chapter, the XII, for missionaries. In every century they have shed their blood for the spread of the faith. In 1220 St. Berard and his four companions were slaughtered in Morocco; in 1227 a like fate befell St. Daniel and six of his companions at Ceuta. Since the times of St. Francis they have been in Palestine, and in 1342 they obtained from the Holy See the custody of the Holy Places of the Redemption, which had been acquired for them ten years earlier by the sovereigns of Naples, and which they have guarded to this day at the price of much blood. Still in the thirteenth century John of Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruck pushed on as far as China, where they were followed in the fourteenth century by Odoric of Pordenone, John Marignolli and John of Montecorvino. The latter, thanks to the fruits of his apostolate, was elected archbishop of Khanbalik (Peking), and six confreres were sent to him as suffragan bishops, while the blessed Thomas of Tolentino with three companions and Richard of Burgundy with 5 companions suffered martyrdom in eastern India (1321).

In the fifteenth century, the Conventuals and the Observants labored especially among the infidels and the heretics of the Balkans (where they would remain almost alone until modern times), Lithuania, the Canary Islands, Portuguese Guinea and the Congo.

IV. SCIENCE

From the very moment of the Order's foundation it was conceived as a means of apostolate, all the more necessary as the errors that permeated society became subtler and more dangerous and could be overcome only by doctrine and the practice of virtue together. It is found that already around 1240 the friars were attending and teaching in the major universities; they soon built convents near them, establishing the so-called studia generalia of Bologna, Paris and Oxford, which quickly became centers of religious culture. St. Anthony, the Order's first doctor, opens the glorious series of masters: Alexander of Hales, John de la Rochelle, Adam of Marsh, St. Bonaventure, John Pecham, Matthew of Aquasparta, Richard of Middleton, John Duns Scotus; later there would be the exegete Nicholas of Lyra and the mystic David of Augsburg. In the fifteenth century the Observants, with Nicholas of Osimo and Theodoric Coeld, would give theology a special practical orientation that is manifested in particular in the Summa angelica of Angelo of Chivasso and the Summa pacifica of Pacifico of Cerano. Meanwhile, however, the great studia with their libraries continued to flourish under the Conventuals. Indeed, in 1450 there existed 16 university studia and 28 studia generalia of philosophy and theology, besides the provincial and local studia in the principal cities of the time.

It is fitting to add here also those friars who excelled in their times in other activities, such as Thomas of Celano (ca. 1255), James of Verona (1300), Jacopo de Todi (d. 1306), Giovanni Bertoldi of Serravalle, Bartolomeo of Colle (1486), Alberto of Sarteano, as writers, and Roger Bacon (1294), as a promoter of natural philosophy. Nor should we forget miniaturists such as Giovanni of Lucca, organ builders such as Urbano of Venice, mosaicists and painters such as Jacopo Torriti and other architects, glassmakers and musicians.

Furthermore, in its first three centuries of existence the Order gave the Church 22 saints, 61 blesseds and about 1500 servants of God.

V. CONSTITUTION AND ACTIVITY OF THE ORDER UP TO 1517

The legislation consisted, besides the common Rule, of special constitutions that were compiled from 1224 (Constitutiones antiquae, not preserved) to 1260, when the Constitutiones Norbonenses appeared, to 1354 (the Farinerie) and to 1500 (the Alessandrine). The Observants had the Martiniane in 1430 and the Barcellonesi in 1451. Besides the three usual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the Rule obliges "sub gravi" to the observance of 24 precepts. Special ordinances regulate studies and missions, especially those of Palestine.

A minister general who held office for three years and could be re-elected was at the head of the Order, assisted by a scribe or secretary; until 1517 he was always a Conventual. The procurator general kept a separate residence. The Observants, from 1415 in France and from 1446 in Italy and elsewhere, were governed by their vicars general and provincial. The minor reforms were mostly governed by vicars or commissaries appointed by the minister general or in the Chapters.

VI. DIFFUSION

From the very beginning it was vast and deep. At the death of St. Francis there were already 10,000 friars divided into 13 provinces. During the rest of the 13th century these were brought to 34, with no fewer than 30,000 to 40,000 religious. In the 14th-15th centuries these figures rose further thanks to the new recruits of the Observant family; so much so that in 1517 the Friars Minor all together numbered no fewer than 60,000 friars in 2,700 convents.

VII. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE OBSERVANCE

As a reaction to the aforementioned decline of the mid-15th century, a movement of restoration or reform arose and gradually established itself independently in Italy, France and Spain, with the aim not of separating from the Order, but of bringing all the religious back to the primitive and more rigorous observance of the Rule. It was a return to the primitive ideal of St. Francis.

Without starting over from scratch, the first Observants took into account the failed experiments, remained subject to the superiors of the community and of the Church, introduced no change in their habit, fixed on the ideal to be attained ("Regulam simpliciter in primaeva puritate observare", according to the saying of Pope Clement VI) and thus by example to lead the community of the Order to do the same. From humble hermitages, from the sacred places holding the memories of primitive Franciscanism and of its founder, the Observance spread gradually during the 15th century throughout Italy, soon passing to central Europe, to the Slavic countries and beyond, embracing every field of activity (social action, preaching, missions among the infidels); and the phenomenon of the 13th century repeated itself, because scholars, jurists, nobles, university students by the dozens entered among the Observants. And the restoration was not limited to the First Order, but gradually extended also to the second and third, particularly to the regular female one. The first attempts had been those of Giovanni della Valle (1334) and of Gentile da Spolato (1351), but the true initiator of the Italian Observance was the lay brother Paolo or Paoluccio di Vagnozzo Trinci, a nobleman of Foligno, who in 1368, with the license of the general Tommaso Frignano, withdrew with some companions to the hermitage of Brugliano between Foligno and Camerino in order to observe the Rule in its rigor. In 1384 he began to receive novices, and at his death (1391) the convents of the Observance numbered 22 with about seventy religious, risen to about 200 in 34 hermitages in 1451. The name of Bl. Paoluccio was later overshadowed when St. Bernardino of Siena and his disciples St. John of Capistrano, St. James of the March, Bl. Alberto da Sarteano, the four pillars of the Observance, steered it toward its greatest heights.

The Observance in Spain and in France. - The origins of the Observance in Spain are more obscure; it is known, however, that around 1400 it was already beginning to flourish there, and with various aims such as the eremitical life, preaching, and pastoral study.

The French Observance was born around 1388-90 in the convent of Mirabeau and spread through the provinces of Touraine, Burgundy and France. Now favored, now opposed by their provincial superiors of the community, the French Observants of these three provinces (11 convents) appealed to the Council of Constance (1415), which granted them the right to elect a provincial vicar for each province and a general vicar for all three. The constitution Supplicationibus personarum of 23 September 1415 thus marks the date of the canonical approval of the French Observants and, practically, of all Observants (cf. L. Oliger, Arch. Franc. hist.,

9 [1916], p. 3-41). Soon, however, misunderstandings began between Conventuals and Observants; for the former, to whom belonged the government of the whole Order, did not intend, nor were they bound, to change their own manner of life; the latter, growing in number of convents and religious, while not wanting the division of the Order but its reform, attempted to promote it under various forms and, guided by St. John of Capistrano, tried to obtain it at the Chapter of Assisi of 1430 with the Martinian Certifications, by which the Observants renounced the vicars and autonomy, while the others gave up their possessions. Beginning with the general Guglielmo da Casale, all swore: "Volumus stare et vivere et mori in dicto Ordine nostro sancto fraternititer secundum constitutiones et reformationes praedictas". But the general himself, 40 days later, asked for dispensation from the oath and on 23 August obtained from the Pope the brief Ad statum which abolished the capitular decisions on poverty. When St. Bernardino was appointed vicar general of the Italian Observants in 1438, Eugene IV attempted to have the Observant Alberto da Sarteano elected general of the Order in 1443 without succeeding; and then in 1446 with the bull Ut sario he granted to all Observants the general vicars cismontane and ultramontane and the provincials, which made them practically independent, save for the juridical bond with the ministers general and provincial of the Conventuals. In the meantime the same Pope had assigned to the Observants the convents of the Portiuncula and of La Verna, the Custody of the Holy Land (1434-39), the convent of the Ara Coeli in Rome (1444-45); other convents passed directly to the Observants in Italy and abroad.

Secondary reforms. - Alongside the Observance, other minor reforms succeeded one another within the Franciscans during that century. Such is that of the Amadeites (1457-1464 ca.), of Bl. Amedeo Manes de Sylva with about thirty convents, and the Capreolanti in Italy with a group of Clareni who returned to the Order in 1473; the friars of the Cappuccola or of the Holy Gospel in Spain; the Coletans with about forty convents in France and in Flanders; the Martinians and the Observants "under the ministers", so called to distinguish them from the common Observants called "under the vicars".

II. THE GREAT DIVISION OF 1517. THE OBSERVANCE. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS MINOR (O.F.M.).

Leo X at the generalissimo Chapter of 1517, with the constitution Ite vos of 29 May (cf. L. Di Fonzo, La famosa bolla di Leone X «Ite vos» non «Ite et vos» (29 maggio 1517), in Miscellanea Francescana, 45 [1945], pp. 164-171), granted to the Observants the right to elect their own superior with the title of "minister general" and to hold the official seal of the Order with precedence over the Conventuals themselves. The superiors of the latter were from then on to call themselves "Masters general and provincial" and to seek confirmation from the ministers of the Observance, thus completely reversing the previous juridical position. This, however, was never carried out. From this moment in any case there was the separation, with the complete autonomy of the two families of the Conventuals and the Observants.

With the F. M. the Pope united the other small congregations of the Amadeites, Coletans, Clareni, Discalced and others, ordering that they be called simply F. M. or F. M. of the Regular Observance; the latter denomination is the one that remained officially. Thus united, the Observants numbered ca. 30,000 friars with ca. 1,500 convents divided into 53 vicariates, now become regular provinces. During the 16th-17th centuries they grew ever more in number, so that in 1700 they reached the number of 70 to 80 thousand, scattered in all Catholic nations and in the flourishing missions of every continent. Holiness flourished in a marvelous way among them, since to this day they have given the Church 41 saints and 84 blesseds.

I. THE MINOR REFORMS

Although united in the same Franciscan spirit, the Observants were not equally so in government and internal discipline; for already in the 16th century the families of the Discalced, the Recollects and the Reformed were arising and developing among them.

The Spanish Discalced (1487), after having accepted the bull of union of 1517, rose again through the work of Giovanni Pasquali (Pasqualiti), placing themselves under the subjection of the Conventuals; they remained there until the death of St. Peter of Alcantara, who had given them credit and diffusion, and with 1562 they returned under the Observants. They led a most austere life and had great diffusion in Spain and Portugal, so much so that at the end of the 1700s they constituted ten great provinces there. They were greatly deserving for their missions among the infidels in Brazil, Mexico, and the East Indies as far as the Far East. The Alcantarines at the end of the 1700s numbered about 7,000 with 20 provinces and 450 convents; they had given to the Church, besides St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Paschal Baylon and the blessed Giovanni da Prado, and in Italy St. John Joseph of the Cross and the blessed Egidio, and in 1597 and 1624 saints and blessed martyrs in Japan.

The Recollects, so called from the houses of recollection instituted from 1502 in the Spanish Observant provinces, by order of the ultramontane vicar general Marziale Boulier, were much favored by the great general Francesco degli Angeli Quiñones, the future cardinal of the Holy Cross, who gave excellent statutes for these houses of recollection. From such convents, gradually united, the Recollect provinces were born; the first was formed in Portugal in 1563, but shortly afterward it was aggregated to the family of the Discalced; the second arose in Spain with the name of the Tarraconensian province and was founded in 1581 by Angelo del Pas, its first and last provincial. More deeply this reform took root in France, where in 1612 the two provinces of St. Denis and St. Bernardino flourished with the Custody of St. Anthony; later two other provinces were added there. Also in Belgium and Germany all the Observant provinces embraced the Recollect form at the end of the 17th century; the same happened in England and Ireland. The Recollects counted 490 convents and 11,000 religious in 22 provinces at the end of the 1700s.

More important was the family of the Reformed, whose origin is connected to that of the Recollects, proceeding from the same tendency to establish in the individual Observant provinces houses of retreat in which to live with greater austerity. Clement VII, with the bull In suprema of 16 Nov. 1532, established that in each province one or more convents should be erected where friars desirous of a stricter manner of life could retire, observing however the constitutions of Nicholas III and Clement V; he reserved to them the right to elect their own custos and to designate the local superiors. Until the middle of the 16th century their propagation was very slow in central and especially southern Italy; more rapid was the development in Lombardy and the Veneto; it then penetrated into Austria and Germany and Poland; Urban VIII, in 1639, with the bull Innocenti nobis, elevated the custodies of the Reformed in Italy and Poland to provinces. The Reformed, who had their principal convent at St. Francis and Ripa in Rome, the seat of their procurator general, extended their apostolate to the missions among the infidels of Africa and Asia, especially of China. Of their saints, there are remembered St. Pacificus of San Severino in the Marches and St. Leonard of Port Maurice in Rome, of the so-called "Riformella" founded in 1662 by the blessed Bonaventure of Barcelona.

In 1762 they counted 18,992 religious divided into 808 convents and 38 provinces. Besides these families, one should remember within the Observants the special houses of recollection and retreat which, dependent in all things on the major Superiors, united to the austerity of life the apostolate especially of the native missions. In these there distinguished themselves St. Theophilus of Corte and his master the blessed Thomas of Cori. Toward the end of the 1700s the Cismontane and Ultramontane Observants were divided into 87 provinces with 2,330 convents and 39,000 religious. But with the end of that century the persecutions against the religious began. In France the Commission of the Regulars, in Germany, Austria, Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples the princes suppressed various convents; with the French Revolution the convents all of France and Belgium disappeared and they were decimated in Germany and Italy; in Spain the revolution of 1833 reduced to a small number the 19,000 F. M. who were there until then; in Latin America with the wars of independence the religious, especially the Spanish, were targeted and driven out; in Russia and Poland too they were almost totally extinguished during the 19th century. In Italy they were involved in the suppression of 1866, later extended also to the Veneto and Rome; only after 1880 did a greater tolerance permit a gradual recovery, so that from the 11,000 F. M. of 1890, we have today reached 24,993 religious and 9,000 aspirants distributed in 2,336 houses and 92 provinces. Italy is represented there by 6,509 religious in 605 convents and 20 provinces. Dependent on the Order are 12,500 associations of the Franciscan Third Order with ca. 1,400,000 enrolled; aggregated to it are 394 male and female tertiary Congregations with ca. 70,000 members.

With the bull Felicitate quadrum Leo XIII on 4 Oct. 1897 established that the four families of the Observants, Recollects, Discalced or Alcantarines and Reformed should be united into a single body, so that, just as until then they had obeyed a single general, henceforth they should also have a single procurator with equal legislation, habit, regime and denomination of F. M.: this union lasts to this day. Through it the Order is governed by a minister general who holds office for six years, and by a council or definitory composed of the procurator general and seven definitors for the various languages and nations. The General Chapter assembles as a rule every six years. The individual provinces are governed by a provincial minister, assisted by a custos and four definitors who are all renewed every three years in the Provincial Chapter; the formed houses are governed by a guardian, the residences and colleges by a president.

The official bulletin of the Order, Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, the oldest review of its kind (1882), serves as a link between the various houses.

II. THE MISSIONS OF THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS MINOR

In the 16th century the Observant F. M. extended evangelization to Portuguese India, the Philippines, China, Japan, where St. Peter Baptist and six companions suffered martyrdom. But the greater glory is the evangelization of America; the Antilles, Mexico, New Granada and then the whole of Central and South America saw missions and then Franciscan provinces being founded. Nor were they occupied only with the missions, but at the same time they studied the ethnography of those peoples and wrote their history. Bernardino de Sahagún, Toribio Motolinía, Jerónimo Mendieta, Andrés Olmos, Juan de Torquemada, Marco da Nizza are the principal among these. Nor should Juan de Zumárraga, first archbishop of Mexico, be forgotten, and St. Francis Solanus, called the apostle of the New World, together with many others who labored in this field in the following centuries.

The 17th century sees Franciscan martyrs in Albania, Morocco (Bl. Juan de Prado), Abyssinia, Tunisia, India and again in China, where they would also labor in the following centuries. At present the sons of St. Francis are in all parts of the unbelieving world. Entrusted to them are 90 missions with more than 4000 missionaries, 157 million unbelievers, 11 and a half million Catholics, 50 seminaries with 1500 seminarians, 6474 schools with 316,561 pupils, 158 orphanages and 83 nurseries with 11,000 boys and girls; 496 hospitals and dispensaries and 5 leper houses. Worthy of mention are the 8 blessed martyrs of Damascus of 1880, Bl. John of Triora immolated in China in 1816 with many others who still await the Church's recognition; finally the last 8 martyrs of China, victims of the Boxer persecution (1900), of whom 3 were bishops, beatified on 24 Nov. 1936, the last of the series.

Nor should the labors among heretics, especially Protestants, be forgotten: in Holland with the holy martyrs of Gorcum and those of Alkmaar, in England with Bl. John Forest, John Jones, John Wall, in Ireland with its 100 martyrs, in France where 200 were killed for the Faith. Worthy of remembrance are some of the greatest champions who fought Protestantism, such as John Wiggers, John Bergaigne, Bernard Dapperi, Nicholas Farber, Conrad Kling, Gaspar Scharageyer.

III. PREACHING AND STUDIES

The glorious series of preachers of the preceding age continued also among the Observants; let us recall Evangelista Marcellino, Diego Estella, Tommaso Ilirico and above all Francesco Paninarola in the sixteenth century; in the following century: Evangelista Traversari da Momigno, Bartolomeo da Saluzzo, who left a broad memory also as a writer of asceticism; in the eighteenth century St. Leonardo da Porto Maurizio and Piermaria da Pederobba; then Pacifico Deani, Leopoldo da Gaiche, Lodovico da Casoria down to Agostino da Montefeltro and Teodosio Somigli.

In the field of learning: Francesco Licheto (1520), Luca Wadding the great annalist of the whole Order, Antonio Hickey; the great masters of moral theology and law: Patrizio Sporer (1683), Beniamino Eibel (1756), Annaleo Reiffenstuel (1703), then Domenico de Gubernatis, Lorenzo Cozza (1749), Claudio Frassen (1711), Lucio Ferraris (1750), Giovanni Antonio Bianchi (1758), Fedele da Fanna (1881), Marcellino da Civezza (1906).

Today the Order has its general house in the new large building constructed on the Via Aurelia behind the Vatican, and its study centers in the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum on the Via Merulana in Rome, in the colleges of Quaracchi near Florence, Cardenal Cisneros in Madrid, the St. Bonaventure Institute (State of New York) and Siena College in Londonville (State of New York), in the general studies of S. Chiara in Naples and S. Antonio near Buenos Aires; nor should the two Academies be forgotten: that of Franciscan history in Washington, with the journal The Americas, and the Marina of Rome with its publications. The Or-

The order publishes numerous scholarly periodicals, such as the Archivum Franciscanum historicum of Quaracchi for the critical study of Franciscan history, the Archivio Ibero-Americano of Madrid, Franziskanische Studien of Paderborn in Germany, Studi francescani of Florence, Itinerarium of Buenos Aires, the Revista eclesiastica brasileira, the Antonianum of Rome, organ of the Athenaeum of the same name.

Literature: L. Wadding, Annales Minorum, 20 vols., 3rd ed., Quaracchi 1931-48; D. De Gubernatis, Orbis seraphicus, 6 vols., Rome-Lyon-Turin-Quaracchi 1682-1945; P. van den Haute, Breviarium historicum, Rome 1777; F. A. Benoffi, Compendio di storia minoritica, Perugia 1820; L. Patron, Tableau Synoptique, Paris 1807; H. Holzapfel, Manuale historiae Ord. Fratrum Minorum, Freiburg im Br. 1909; L. d'Alençon, Leçon d'histoire franciscaine, Paris 1918; M. Faber, Pullinans, Il b. Pontusio Triaci da Policia e i M. Conventini, Foligno 1926; Gratien de Paris, Hist. de la fondation et de l'évolution de l'Ordre des FF. MM. au XIIIe siècle, Paris 1928; A. Gemelli, Il francescanesimo, Milan 1932, 6th ed. 1947 and various translations; R. M. Huber, A documented history of the franc. Order, 1772-1777, Milwaukee 1944.

For the Missions: Marcellino da Civezza, Storia universale delle missioni francescane, 11 vols., Rome-Prato-Florence 1857-1895; id., Saggio di bibliografia... sanfrancescana, Prato 1879; id., Cronaca delle Missioni francescane, 6 vols., Rome 1880-86; G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell'Ordine francescano, 20 vols., Quaracchi 1906-48; A. van den Wyngaert, Sinica Franciscana, 4 vols., Quaracchi 1907-42; L. Lemmens, Geschichte des Franziskanerordens, Münster 1920; Compositio Missionum Ord. Fratrum Min., Quaracchi 1933.

Studies: L. Wadding, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum, Rome 1610, 1906; I. H. Sbaralea, Supplementum et castigatio ad scriptores Ordinis s. Francisci, ibid. 1806, 1908-36; I. Felder, Storia degli studi scientifici nell'Ordine francescano, Italian trans., Siena 1911; M. Erick, De evolutione historica studiorum in Ordine Minorum, Ragusa 1942.

Hagiography: Arturus a Monasterio, Martyrologium Franciscanum, Paris 1638, 1653, Venice 1870, Rome 1930; F. Huber, Monologium... Minoritici instituti... Munich 1608; Marco da Lisbona, Cronache degli Ordini istituiti dal p. s. Francesco, Italian trans. by Grazio Diela, Brescia 1581, Milan 1609, Venice 1585, Naples 1680; B. Marzata, Leggendario francescano, 12 vols., Venice 1721-32; Léon de Clary, L'anima serafica, 4 vols., Quaracchi 1808-1900.

Spirituality: U. d'Alençon, L'âme franciscaine, Paris 1913, 1930; V. Breton, La spiritualité franciscaine: synthèse, anthologie, ibid. 1935, Italian trans., Milan 1938; L. Voutley, Itinerarium animae Franciscanum, Rome 1938; L. Bracaloni, La spiritualità francescana, Milan 1937, Venice 1940; Vitus a Bussum, De spiritualitate Franciscana, Rome 1940.

Finally: Marinus a Neukirchen, Constitutivum gener. I Ordinis seraphici series chronologica, in Collect. Franc., 12 (1942), pp. 3377-98; D. de Lequile, Hierarchia franc., 2 vols., Rome 1664; J. Takacs, A Szent Ferenc-Rend Hierarchiája... Budapest 1927; H. Holzapfel, L'origine dei Monti di Pietà (1462-1543), Rocca S. Casciano 1904; F. Ozanam, I poeti francescani in Italia, Italian trans. by P. Fanfani, Prato 1854; E. Clop, Le chant dans l'Ordre séraphique, Solesmes 1900; A. van Dijk, Il carattere della correzione liturgica di Fra Alcuino da Faversham, O.F.M. (1723-24), in Ephemerides liturgicae, 59 (1945), pp. 172-223, 60 (1946), pp. 309-67; Etudes franciscaines, Paris 1899-1940; Archivum Franciscanum historicum, Quaracchi 1908-49; Studi francescani, Arezzo-Florence 1914-49; Franziskanische Studien, Münster 1914-1940; Collectanea franciscana, Assisi-Rome 1913-49.

Riccardo Pratesi

III. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS MINOR CONVENTUALS.

They are called simply Minorites in the German-, Hungarian-and Slavic-speaking countries, simply Franciscans in Poland and in America (Franciscans and Black Franciscans), Cordeliers and Grey Friars respectively in France and England. The remote origin of the name Conventuals goes back to the bull Cum tamquam veri of 5 April 1250 (repeated in 1252), by which Innocent IV declared "conventual," that is, equal in rights to collegiate churches, the majority of the churches of the Order's community; from those distinguished churches the appellation began to pass to the friars, and having become better established as a specific designation in the 16th century, by distinction from the Observant Friars, it became official in 1517. - From this time (from 1250) the Friars of the Minorite Order were called M. Conv.; a common title which, after other reforms arose in the following centuries, became specific to the ancient family (Wadding, Annales, 1250 n. 3, Suppl., III, p. 255).

I. HISTORY OF THE ORDER

After the division of 1517 the Conventuals still counted 34 provinces and 2 vicariates, about 1,200 convents with a number of religious ranging from 20,000 to 30,000.

With 1517 a new period of history began for the Conventuals. With the bull of concord Omnipotens Deus of 12 June (1517) and with the benevolent understanding of Leo X and the following pontiffs, the Order preserved its full independence. The title of minister general too was resumed in the same century, having been used in the meantime by some popes and confirmed by Sixtus V. After a brief revival of the Sixtine Statutes of 1469, the new constitutions Pione were compiled in 1565, and the Urbane of 1628, which lasted practically until 1932. Pious, learned and zealous generals, such as Antonio de' Sapienti of Aosta (1562-66), the procurator and then vicar general Felice Peretti (1566-68, later Sixtus V), the ven. Filippo Gesualdi of Castrovillari (1593-1602) and Giacomo Montanari of Bagnacavallo (1612-23), promoted discipline and every activity everywhere, particularly scientific activity, even while enduring the grave blows inflicted on the Order by the Lutherans and Anglicans who destroyed 4 entire provinces in the German lands and in the British Isles (1538), the loss of another 4 provinces of France to the benefit of the Observants, and the complete expulsion from the 3 provinces of Spain and Portugal at the hands of Philip II, under St. Pius V, in 1566-67.

Under the obedience and protection of the Conventuals there placed themselves after 1517 the revived Discalced of Spain, with the subsequent reform of St. Peter of Alcantara, until the latter's death (1562), and then for about a century the same family of the Friars Minor Capuchins (1528-1619). A small Congregation of Reformed Conventuals, discalced and of a very austere life, which arose in Naples in 1562 through the work of Fr. Michele Pulsarini, later made illustrious and promoted by the bl. Giambattista Lucarelli of Pesaro, with various convents in Italy and in Poland, was reunited with the Order in accordance with the Urban Constitutions (1628) and special decrees of Urban VIII (1626) and of Clement IX (1669). Some friars merged with the Alcantarines whom they had helped to establish themselves in the Neapolitan area.

At the Council of Trent the Order, which was represented there by 91 fathers and theologians, accepted along with all the other mendicant Orders (with the exception of the Observants and the Capuchins) the so-called Tridentine Privilege, that is, the faculty of possessing in common (1563) and no longer under the proprietary dominion of the Holy See, as was the custom until then, but with the private poverty of individual friars remaining firm.

Despite the losses suffered, the 17th and 18th centuries were for the Order a time of great splendor and numerical development. In 1771, with the consent of the royal court of France and of Clement XIV, the centuries-old dispute of the 4 former Conventual provinces of France was concluded; these, together with another 4 of the same Observants, united with the 3 surviving Conventual provinces and, merging, formed 8 new ones with about 2,100 religious, distributed in 39 custodies and 283 convents, including the ancient Parisian Studium. At the end of the 18th century the Order thus counted 40 provinces, 1,257 convents and 25,000 friars. But the French Revolution and the subsequent suppressions decreed by Napoleon and by almost all the European states in the 19th century harmed the Conventuals more than the other Franciscan families, stripping them of their manificent churches and their ancient convents which, conveniently converted into warehouses, barracks, municipal buildings, seats of libraries and archives, could not easily be redeemed.

From the end of the 19th century - when the Order was reduced to 358 houses, with 1481 religious - and particularly after the First World War (1914-18), the Order has resumed vigorous life in almost all nations: in the United States of America (1852-58), Spain (1905), France (1875, 1935, 1948), Central and South America (1947), etc. In this work of restoration various generals distinguished themselves, such as Giuseppe M. De Bonis (1809-24), during and after Napoleonic times, Bonaventura M. Soldati (1879-91), later created archbishop, and Lorenzo Caratelli (1891-1904), who reopened convents and Seraphic colleges. The bulls Septimo iam pleno and Pancis ante diebus (1909) of Pius X defined the juridical relations and the historical denominations of the three present-day Seraphic families. The Conv. today count 32 provinces, 434 convents, 3340 professed religious, and another thousand aspirants and oblates. Of the provinces, 12 are in Italy, one province or commissariat in almost all European nations, 2 in Poland, 1 in the Near East with convents in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Syria, 4 in the United States of America with various houses in Canada, convents or missionary residences in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, China, Japan (commissariat), Java and Rhodesia (Africa).

II. INTERNAL CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT

With the Seraphic Rule of 1223 (whose original text with the papal bull is preserved by the Conventuals in the basilica of Assisi), the latest general constitutions of 1932 are today in force, conformed to the new code of canon law, which gather up the substance of all the constitutions from the 13th century onward. The colleges, the studies, the missions and other general works have their own particular legislation. The Order is governed by the minister general and his council of 4 assistants (or definitors) for the various languages, in addition to the procurator general, all of whom are elected in the General Chapter every six years. The provinces are governed by the provincial minister, with a council composed of a secretary and 2 definitors; each province is divided into custodies, headed by a custos; the convents are placed under guardians or presidents, the study colleges under rectors or masters of the clerics: all these offices are renewed every three years in the Provincial Chapters.

Particular characteristics. - The Conventuals still preserve today, unlike the other Franciscan branches, the original titles of the ancient provinces of the Order and their division into custodies or lesser geographical districts, the ancient general archive, with documents prior to the division of the Order (bulls from the 13th century onward, Regesta Ordinis from 1488); moreover, the title of the ancient magisterium in Sacred Theology and Arts (Father Masters, cf. Constitution of 1932, nos. 423-30), like the Dominicans, Augustinians, Servites, etc.

They still keep and officiate the great sanctuaries, the basilica and tomb of St. Francis, with the sacred convent in Assisi (there too the proto-convent of Rivolorto, from 1208), the pontifical basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, and the most beautiful and largest Franciscan churches, with the bodies of the ancient saints and blesseds. Among them, S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, S. Croce in Florence, the S. Francesco of Bologna, Ferrara, Treviso, Siena, Pisa, Perugia, Palermo, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo etc., the S. Lorenzo of Vicenza and Naples, the SS. Apostoli in Rome; in all 13 basilicas. The churches of S. Francesco of Lyon and of Cologne, with the bodies of St. Bonaventure and of the blessed John Duns Scotus, are still, from the beginning of the last century, in the hands of the secular clergy.

The Conventuals today dress in black (instead of the ancient ash-grey color in use until the Napoleonic suppressions), with a hood and a hanging scapular-mozzetta, and they wear regular shoes and a hat. The general Curia is located at the convent and basilica of the SS. Apostoli in Rome (since 1463); the official bulletin is the Commentarium O.P.M. Conv. (since 1905). Dependent on the Order are 480 associations of the Franciscan Third Order with about 230,000 members, about 400 confraternities of the Cordbearers of St. Francis; aggregated to it are some sixty Congregations of tertiary Sisters, both Franciscan and non-Franciscan; there should be added moreover, for the use of the liturgical calendar or for historical and spiritual ties, 351 monasteries of Urbanist Poor Clares with about 6,000 nuns.

III. EXTERNAL ACTIVITY

The following merits and works are briefly recalled from 1517 to the present. The Martyrology of the Conventuals is enriched by 2 new saints and 2 blesseds, 9 venerables and over 800 servants of God: among them St. Joseph of Cupertino (d. 1662) and Bl. Gianfrancesco Burti, martyr of the French Revolution together with 37 other confreres. The Order has given the Church 2 more popes: Sixtus V (Fra Felice Peretti) and Clement XIV (Fra Lorenzo Ganganelli); 7 cardinals and about 300 archbishops and bishops. The Office of the Inquisition was continued by the Conventuals until the 18th century in the cloisters of Florence, Padua, Venice, etc. (about ten tribunals in Tuscany, in the Veneto and in Istria); to them are entrusted two official consultorships at the Holy Office (since 1560) and at the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1725), and since 1774 the Office of the ordinary apostolic penitentiaries, 12 in number, in the Vatican Basilica; they also held the penitentiaries at Loreto from 1773 to 1934.

1. In the liturgy

In the liturgy they promoted, together with the other Franciscans, the spread of the Way of the Cross (A. Gigli), the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus (1530), the pious exercises of the "Corda Pio" and of the "Transitus" in honor of the Passion of the Lord and of the stigmata of St. Francis (F. Gesualdi), the cult of St. Joseph (patron of the Order, 1741) and above all the doctrine and cult of the Immaculate Conception (official patroness, 1719), which today is propagated in the form of spirituality and of a vast apostolate through the widespread association of the "Militia of the Immaculata," with over 2 million members, instituted in 1917 by Fr. Maximilian M. Kolbe, a great Marian apostle of our days, founder of the two "Cities of the Immaculata" in Poland (Niepokalanów, 1927) and in Japan (Mugenzino-Sono, 1930), with an imposing editorial and Marian apostolic activity. Mention is also made of the liturgists A. M. Azzoguidi and A. Brandimarte, hymnographer of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and private librarian of Leo XII; the ascetical writers Card. L. Brancati with his classic work "De oratione christiana," A. Bigoni and the ven. Benvenuto Bambozzi.

2. Preaching and anti-heretical activity

They distinguished themselves as preachers and orators: Lodovico Placenti, Francesco Visdomini, Cornelio Messo who preached at the Council of Trent, T. Marotti, in the sixteenth century; B. Fausti, Agostino Cassandri, the German Enrico Stolysen, Vito Fagari (or Saiz), G. F. Bernabei, F. A. Gervasi, Giancarlo Vipera, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; as apostles of charity and social apostles, the aforementioned Visdomini for the ransom of the slaves of the Turks, A. Berlenar, apostle of Austria, Filippo da Ravenna and Carlo Sparavelli, Annibale Santucci and Mauro Saraceni among prisoners and the hanged, the tireless Swiss pedagogue, pioneer of popular schools, Gregorio Giraud (1850), Bernardino Metz among the workers in Holland (1915). Polemicists and anti-Lutheran writers were Tommaso Murner, Pietro de Cornibur, the Alsatian moudace Giovanni Pauli, C. Clinge, A. Hofstadt, F. Polignano. The Conventuals had various martyrs in Austria, England (1538) and Poland (15 in the years 1656-57, at the hands of the Cossacks and Swedes), in Hungary and Transylvania. Among the anti-Quietists and anti-Jansenists, Card. Brancati and Domenico A. Baldassarri (1791).

IV. MISSIONS

The missionary apostolate of the Conventuals was not very extensive in the last four centuries because of Spanish predominance, which excluded them from Spain and from the great colonial possessions of India and the New World. Thus a missionary province erected at the end of the sixteenth century in Peru could not last long. However, the ancient missions in the province of the East were preserved, with its center at Constantinople (where they were for a long time patriarchal vicars) and branches in the Greek incipello, in Turkey, Syria and throughout the liberal part of Eastern Europe. From 1622-28 the ancient mission of Moldavia and Wallachia was expanded (transformed into a province in 1893), with numerous missionaries, apostolic prefects and bishops, sent for the most part from India: among them Francesco Antonio Frascella, later archbishop and apostolic delegate in the Indies and Japan (d. 1653), Angelo Petricca, Felice Antonio Zauli, F. A. Manzi, Bernardino Pianzola, G. A. Paroni, P. R. Ardoini and A. Camilli (1916). In the seventeenth century the Conventuals worked in Russia, Lithuania and among Cretans, Jews and schismatics in the difficult mission of Mesopotamia, already abandoned by other religious institutes. The servant of God Pietro Zirano fell a martyr in Algeria (1619) together with other confreres who went to console and free Christian slaves. In 1710 the missionary College was instituted in the S. Convento of Assisi, later transferred to Rome (1749-1897), of which the first rector and procurator of the missions was Fr. Lorenzo Ganganelli. But from 1924 date properly the restoration of various modern colleges for the missions (Rome, Assisi, Brescia), the foundation of a "Franciscan Missionary Crusade" (a quasi-province that recruits and educates missionary vocations) and the opening of new missions in China (Shensi), Africa (1929), Japan (Marian mission, 1930), Indonesia (Olava, 1937), Albania (1940), Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, etc. The Order today counts 13 missions, among them 1 apostolic vicariate, 136 missionaries, 130 schools with 7050 pupils, 7 hospitals, about sixty other institutes, orphanages, nurseries, etc. and 3,000,000 pagans to be evangelized.

V. SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

The Conventuals distinguished themselves particularly, as in past centuries, in the vast field of sacred and profane science and culture. Having lost in the sixteenth century the Studia of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Toulouse, Salamanca, etc., they preserved the other ancient university and general Studia, reorganized in the number of 8-10 "Colleges" in the sixteenth-nineteenth centuries at Rome, Assisi, Bologna, Naples, Prague, Cologne, Malta, Kraków, Urbino, and with them the other general and provincial Studia, distributed into gymnasia of the first, second and third class, in the number of 10, 20 and 43 respectively, besides the minor seminaries. This reorganization, codified in the Urban Constitutions (1628), was provided for by the general Giacomo Montanari with the celebrated Reformatio studiorum issued at Cologne in 1619, after the recognition made there of the bones of the blessed Duns Scotus. Among the university Colleges the pontifical "College of St. Bonaventure" or Sixtine stood foremost, erected by Sixtus V in the convent of the SS. Apostoli, which, for three centuries (1587-1573), was the highest scientific institute of Bonaventurian and Scotist studies, not only of the Conventuals but of the entire Franciscan Order. At the same time, Conventual philosophers and theologians continued to teach as "public lecturers," especially in the chairs of metaphysics and Scotist philosophy, in the principal universities of Europe.

Among the doctors and writers let us recall only the philosophers and theologians A. Trombetta, O. Preconio, Cardinal Costanzo Torri da Sarnano, A. Fabri, the Bonaventurians Pietro Capullio, Matteo Ferchio, R. De Augustinis, the Scotists Angelo Volpi, Bartolomeo Mastro, Bonaventura Belluti and Cardinal Lorenzo Brancati, Ottaviano Strambisti, Sebastiano Dugapier, Andrea Sgambati, G. B. Marrocu, G. B. Tonini defender of Rosmini, the aforementioned philosopher and pedagogue Gregorio Girard, G. M. Caroli, the moralists and canonists Mastro, F. Steidel, M. Schwartz and Raniero Sassavelli; the controversialists Giovanni Kymon, Marco Ant. Capelli, Egidio da Cesario; the writers on Sixtus of Siena (who later passed to the Dominicans), Marco de Berulle, Antonio Kulekstein; illustrious historians of the Church and of the Order: Pietro Ridolfi da Tossignano (1607), F. Ciatti da Perugia, G. Franchini, Antonio and Francesco Pagi correctors of Baronio, the celebrated critics and bibliographers Giovanni Gusino Sbaniglia (1704) and Nicola Papini (1834), F. A. Benoffi, St. Rinaldi (1837), Luigi Palomino (1906), Corrado Eulchi (1923), D. M. Sparacio (1929).

Worthy of mention among the men of letters and poets: the Dante scholars Baldassarre Lombardi (1802) and St. Ignadi; among the astronomers and scientists B. Capridoni, Ilario Altobelli (the elder, 1837), the mathematicians Luca Facoli da Borgo Sansepolcro (1817) and P. Bernabei (1823); the geographer and cosmographer Vincenzo Coronelli (1718), the Hungarian naturalist Pio Tanna (1884). In the various arts, the architects Giovanni Gioacondo da Verona and L. Toringola, the painters G. Sacchi (1809) and P. Sarullo (1803), the glassmakers Gabriele da Camerino and T. Rondoni, the art critic Guglielmo Della Valle (1806).

Finally, a renowned musical school and tradition, unique in the history of religious Orders, with the celebrated chapels of Assisi, Bologna, Padua, Venice, etc., from which came more than 300 musicians of worth. Let us recall only, in the long series, Rufino d'Assisi (flourished in 1520-30), inventor of music for two choirs before Willaert, O. Colombani, Costanzo Porta da Cremona (6101), with the disciples L. Baldi, Girolamo Drura (author of the "Transilvano," the first piano method), V. Bona; the Bohemian Bolcalco Czernohorski, the Dalmatian Giovanni Bucacci, F. A. Vallotti, the supreme contrapuntist Giambattista Martini (1784) with the disciples L. A. Sabbatini and Stanislao Mattei (1826), in whose school the greatest musical geniuses of Italy (Donizetti, Rossini, Morlacchi, etc.) were trained. Father Martini founded and endowed at Bologna one of the richest musical archives in the world, leaving there 17,000 volumes; the Bologna Musical Lyceum still bears his name. More recent: F. A. Capanna, Alessandro Borroni (1896), L. Caratelli and the converted Jew Emilio Nona (1910).

The Order today has as its principal centers of study the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure in Rome (since 1904) and the general Studium of Rensselaer in America, aggregated to the Catholic University of Washington, and other general Studia and colleges of theology and philosophy; moreover 5 Studia and 6 theological institutes for laypeople in Italy, at Florence, Padua, Naples, etc., a provident post-war institution (1944) for the diffusion of theological culture among the laity, with complete four-year or two-year programs. Historical organ, Miscellanea francescana (Foligno-Rome, 1886 agg.), quarterly.

Per gli studi e scrittori: G. Franchini, Bibliografia... di scrittori M. Conv., Modena 1893; D. Sparacio, De verupli. D. Bonaventura Collegio de Urbe synopsis hist., Roma 1923; id., Fremantati bibliografie di scrittori... M. Conv. dal 1900 al 1920, Assisi 1931; S. Papini, Scriptores... ab n. 1920 ad a. 1920, in Misc. franc., 30 (1930); id., Lectores publici O.F.M. Conv. a corr. XIII ad XIX, ibid., 31-33 (1931-33); F. A. Benoffi, Degli studi dell'Ordine dei M. ibid., 31-32 (1931-33); L. Di Fonzo, La studio del Dottore Serapico nel Collegio di S. Bonaventura in Roma, ibid., 20 (1940), pp. 133-86; id., Studi, studenti e maestri nell'Ordine dei Franc. Conv. dal 1922 al 1927, ibid., 44 (1944), pp. 187-193.

Miscellany: G. Abate, Il Collegio per le missioni, e Procuratori generali per le missioni... in Min. franc., 20 (1929); id., Series episcoporum O.F.M. Conv. am. 1941-1950, ibid., 31-32 (1931-32); B. Montanari, Series chronol. praefectorum apost. et episcoporum O. F. M. Conv. in Moldavia et Valucria, corr. XVII-XIX, in Comment. O. F. M. Conv., 37-39 (1940-42); id., Le missioni O.F.M. Conv. ad acc. XVII, in Miscell. franc., 46 (1946), pp. 294-314; B. M. Hess, Manuale de Regula et Constitutionibus O.F.M. Conv., Vatican City 1943; G. Goleardi, Serie dei padri e teologi Franc. M. Conv. al Conv. di Trento, in Miscell. franc., 47 (1947), pp. 321-411; Miscellanea francescana, Foligno-Rome 1886-1949; S. Francesco, Assisi 1920-30; Il Sacco, Padua 1929-32; Città di Vita, Florence 1946-49, organ of the Theological Studies for laypeople.

IV. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS MINOR CAPPUCCINI (O.F.M. CAPP.).

This reform, which had such great importance for the spiritual life of the 14th century and afterward, first in Italy and then among the other Christian nations and in the missions, traces its first origin to Fra Matteo da Bascio of the Observants of the Marca d'Ancona. Through his own personal initiative and without any intention of proselytism, he revived the reformist aspirations that animated the most fervent religious of the Observance. In 1525 he obtained from Clement VII permission to wear, in imitation of St. Francis, a coarse habit with a long pyramidal hood, to observe the Franciscan rule to the letter and without dispensations or privileges, to live in strict poverty, and to exercise the ministry of preacher of penance. His first followers were the two brothers Ludovico and Raffaele da Fossombrone, who defended and organized the expansion of the tiny family, placing it in 1527 under the favorable obedience of the F. M. Conv., while the same Pope, with the bull Religionis celta of 3 July 1528, promulgated the act of canonical erection of the new Congregation, which was called that of the F. M. of the eremitical life, according to the constitutions of the first Chapter held at Albacina in 1529. The popular name of Capuchins derived from the shape of the hood. They were characterized by a very strict poverty and by a spirit of contemplation and of prayer by day and by night. The friars supported themselves by daily begging, dressed coarsely, with uncovered head and bare feet, wore beards, and gathered in hermit "places" near narrow chapels, with an external activity of popular preaching, manual labor, and works of mercy. Their seraphic interiority and ascetic rigor, the heroism of their charity in the care of the sick and of plague victims, brought back into the pleasure-seeking and sumptuous society of Humanism the austerity and the poetry of the Franciscan origins; the people surrounded them with veneration; the esteem and support of prelates and princes were a valid defense before the curial hierarchies and the Supreme Pontiff himself against the opposition of the superiors of the Observance, who defended the unity of the Order.

From this, many fervent and learned religious flocked to the new family; in 1532 the group of Calabrian reformed joined it, the following year they established themselves in Sicily, and in 1535 in the lands beyond the Po, counting in 1536 about 700 religious, divided into 12 provinces. The new Constitutions, composed during the government of Bernardino d'Asti (v.), gave impetus to preaching and admitted sacred studies. The storm unleashed by the passage to heresy, in 1542, of the vicar general Bernardino Ochino (v.), tested the soundness of the reform, which the Council of Trent excluded, together with the Observants, from the obligation of common possessions (1563). In 1571 the Capuchins of the Italian provinces numbered 3,300; Gregory XIII on 6 May 1574 permitted their expansion into the regions beyond the Alps, and in that year they established themselves in France, in 1578 in Spain, in 1581 in Switzerland, in 1585 in Belgium, in 1593 in the Tyrol, in 1599 in Bohemia and at Vienna, in 1600 at Munich, in 1603 in Alsace, in 1611 in the Rhineland, in 1612 in Westphalia. The clerics completed their studies in the general and provincial schools where learned theologians taught, among them Girolamo de Pistoia (v.) and Pietro Trigoso da Calatayud (v.). St. Lawrence of Brindisi (v.) led the opposition to the Protestants in Bohemia and Bavaria; other confreres fought the Huguenots in France, where Father Angelo di Joyeuse assumed the military command of the Catholic League. Eloquent preachers worked for the safeguarding of the Faith and the reform of the customs of the Italian people. St. Joseph of Leonessa (v.) went as far as Constantinople, while other missionaries reached the African and Levantine coasts, the islands of the Mediterranean, and Brazil (1612). There were many orators and writers of valuable ascetic works. An intense social activity accompanied the oratorical action, with charitable institutions for poor children and penitent women, with service in hospitals and lazarettos, with grain banks in times of famine, and with assistance to soldiers. When, in 1619, the Order obtained complete independence, with its own minister general, it counted 14,846 religious divided into 40 provinces and 1,030 convents.

In 1734 they reached a total of 32,821 members, with 63 provinces and 1,715 convents and hospices, besides the numerous residences in the mission countries. A. Monzon illustrated with historical sense their beneficent power and vast social influence. Capuchin holiness opposed to the 17th-century pomp and rationalistic pride the figures of the blesseds Benedetto da Urbino (v.), Bernardo da Corleone (v.), Bernardo da Offida (v.), and Crispino da Viterbo (v.). The study of the young was ordered in the 17th century according to a seven-year school program, and sacred culture was directed predominantly to the exercise of preaching. Popular missions were carried out with the practical aid of devotional and penitential rites and processions, of sacred representations, of solemn erections of crosses, images, and chapels. They spread in a particular way the Eucharistic prayer of the Forty Hours (v.). In 1743 Benedict XIV entrusted to the Capuchins the preaching in the Sacred Apostolic Palace. Among the dense ranks of orators there distinguished themselves in Italy the blessed Angelo d'Acri (v.), Emanuele Orchi (v.), representative of exaggerated 17th-century style, Adeodato Turchi (v.), renewer of eloquence; in Spain Giuseppe da Carabantes (v.), the blessed Diego da Cadice (v.), and Michele da Santander; in France Onorato da Cannes (v.) and Francesco da Tolosa (v.); in Switzerland Philipp Tanner; in Germany Procopio da Templin, Dionisio da Lussemburgo (v.), and the catechist and popular writer Martin of Cochem (v.). Others, such as Marco d'Aviano (v.), liberator of Vienna against the Turks in 1685, carried out diplomatic activity with the Catholic states. Noted in France is the political influence of the éminence grise Joseph Le Clerc du Tremblay. In northern Germany and the Low Countries the Capuchins conducted internal and parochial missions against Calvinism; other missionaries departed from the continent for England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the Rhaetian missions Fedele da Signaringa (v.) fell as a martyr. In the theological disciplines the Capuchin authors, although not forming a single school because of the various Scotist and Thomist orientations and personal eclecticism, showed a certain preference for St. Bonaventure. In ascetics they distinguished themselves by the vast diffusion of spiritual works, such as Alessio Segala da Salò (v.), Gaetano Migliorini da Bergamo (v.), Benedetto da Canfield (v.), and Costantino da Barbençon (v.). They polemicized effectively against Molinism and Jansenism and the Gallican, Febronian, and Josephinist theories. Missions were organized on the various continents. Joseph du Tremblay sent the French F. M. Capp. to Constantinople, Greece, and Syria in 1625, to Mesopotamia and Persia in 1628; the Italians established themselves in Armenia and Georgia in 1661, from where in 1713 they pushed on into Russia. The apostolic prefecture of Tibet was entrusted to them (1704-45), from where they founded missions in the kingdoms of Nepal, Patna, and Bettiah. Italian F. M. Capp. established themselves at Algiers and Tunis in 1624; the French in 1624 and then the Spanish in Morocco; the French in Egypt in 1631; the blesseds Agathangelus and Cassian (v.) pushed on into Ethiopia, suffering martyrdom there in 1639 at Azozò near Gondar. From 1634 they are in Guinea and from 1645 in the kingdoms of the Congo; from 1650 in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in Maine, and in Virginia, in 1633 in the Lesser Antilles, at Santo Domingo in 1680, in Venezuela in 1650. In 1642 the missions in Brazil were organized; the French worked from 1722 in Louisiana, yielding their place in 1766 to the Spanish.

Because of the suppressions, in 1847 the Capuchin Friars Minor had fallen to 11,152, in 1888 to 7,628, but even in such different conditions their activity continued uninterrupted in the traditional forms of their apostolate. The minister general Bernard Christen de Andermatt (v.) gave the Order a vigorous organizational revival. The new social problems were addressed with various works of assistance: in the German-speaking countries, the institutions of Fr. Cyprian of Eggsheim (v.) spread them; in Switzerland those of Theodosius Florentini (v.); Theobald Mathew (v.) fought alcoholism in Ireland and America; Joachim Haspinger (v.) defended the freedom of the Tyrolean people; Maximilian Tarejwa and Agrippino Konarski fell as victims for the independence of the Polish homeland. Widely known are the apostolate of Cardinal Guglielmo Massaia (v.) in Africa, the work of the Capuchin Friars Minor in Eritrea, the constructive action of Bishop Anastasius Hartmann (v.) and of other missionaries in India. In 1841 the College of St. Fidelis for the missions was founded in Rome; in 1883 the Oriental Institute for the missions in the Balkans and the Asiatic Mediterranean; the whole missionary activity received a more effective organization in 1884-87. At present there are 43 missions properly so called with 992 missionaries. In

1911 the International College of St. Lawrence of Brindisi was inaugurated in Rome for higher and university education; in 1920 the Historical Institute was established at Assisi and in 1940 transferred to Rome, with a program of historical and bibliographical research and publications. Various journals of culture and action spread Franciscan learning and piety, especially through the Third Order and the associations of the "Friends of St. Francis." Recently the Church has recognized the sanctity of St. Francis of Camporosso (v.) and of St. Conrad of Parzham (v.). In Nov. 1948 the major superiors promoted an international congress in Rome to adapt apostolic activities to the particular needs of today. The Order numbers 14,095 members, in 65 provinces or commissariats and 1,126 houses.

Ilarino da Milano

V. FRANCISCAN ARCHITECTURE.

The religious movement stirred up by the Franciscans gave great impetus to the construction of churches, and the importance they gave to preaching required special conformations of the sacred buildings. Given the rapid diffusion of the Order, most of the Franciscan churches arose in the two centuries following the death of the founder, coinciding with the full flowering of Gothic architecture, so that in Italy they are among the best expressions of that style. They do not, however, present characteristics that substantially differentiate them from other contemporary churches.

The first builders, in order to adhere to the vow of poverty affirmed by the Rule, followed Cistercian models and adapted them to the new requirements, so that the result is on the whole a greater sense of space through the grandeur of the single nave, and an effect of luminosity through the absence of pillars or projections outside the choir and the chapels. Significant in this regard are the norms laid down by St. Bonaventure in the chapter held at Narbonne in 1560, which prescribe limiting vaulted covering to the presbytery alone. But except for some Umbrian churches that had an exposed roof supported by trusses (Gubbio, Narni, perhaps Perugia, all later rebuilt) or by large arches (Sangemini), the arrangement was not observed, and ribbed groin vaults were used to cover the entire space. On the other hand, the norms concerning the exclusion of superfluous ornaments, including pictorial decoration and stained-glass windows, were more closely observed (the church of Assisi represents almost an exception).

A substantial difference from Benedictine churches lies in their location, since while the latter ordinarily arose outside the inhabited centers, constituting, with the adjoining monasteries, centers of autonomous life, the Franciscans settled within the towns the better to carry out their spiritual ministry in direct contact with the population.

Great variety is also observed from the point of view of plan. The single nave is adopted in St. Clare of Naples, and prevails in Umbria: Perugia, Terni (enlarged to three naves in 1445), Gualdo Tadino, and in Tuscany, where the Egyptian-cross plan is common at Pistoia, Pisa, Arezzo, Siena. The three-nave plan (generally with the central nave twice the width of the side ones and with considerable longitudinal development) is used in the Egyptian-cross arrangement in St. Croce of Florence (the most grandiose architectural expression of the Order after the church of Assisi), at Ferrara and at Pavia (both altered in the sixteenth century); and it varies from the simple rectangular form ending in one or more apses (Mantua, Parma, Piacenza), to the Latin cross (Cremona), up to the more complex arrangements with radial chapels around the choir (Bologna) or the singular conformation of St. Maria dei Frati in Venice.

Worthy of mention are the churches erected in Latin America, and particularly in Mexico where the Franciscans, bringing the faith first among the natives, gave rise, through the translation of Renaissance forms with local materials, to characteristic expressions of art. - See plates CXIV-CXVI.

Mario Zocca