Italy Sacred

ITALY SACRED. - Title given by the Cistercian Ferdinando Ughelli (v.), abbot of Sts. Vincent and Anastasius at Aquae Salviae (Rome), to his history of the Italian episcopal sees: Italia Sacra sive de episcopis Italiae et Insularum adiacentium, rebusque ab iis praeclare gestis, deducta serie ad nostram usque aetatem. Opus singulare Provinciis XX. distinctum, in quo ecclesiarum origines, urbium conditiones, Principum donationes, recondita monumenta in lucem proferuntur, 9 vols. in-4°, Rome 1644-62. Normally recourse is had to the editio secunda, aucta et emendata (the title remained unchanged), edited by N. Coleti, 10 vols. in-fol., Venice 1717-22. It is a grandiose work that cost the author more than 10 years of arduous labors, briefly outlined in the Praefatio ad lectorem. Ughelli gathered the immense material needed both directly and through intermediaries; however, from several dioceses he did not receive even any kind of reply to his letters. Cardinal Carlo Emanuele Pio di Savoia, bishop of Albano, Porto and Ostia (cf. I, 2nd ed., col. 85) and Filippo Casoni, bishop of Borgo S. Donnino (cf. II, col. 71), gave him generous encouragement and advice.

Following the geographers of the time, he divided Italy into 20 provinces with the adjacent islands and arranged them in the following order:

I (1644, 1717). - I. Latium with the sees immediately subject to the Holy See. - II (1647, 1717) - II. Aemilia, III. Flaminia, IV. Picenum, V. Umbria Senorum with the metropolises: Bologna; Ravenna; Fermo; Turin. - III (1647, 1718) - VI. Hetruria with the metropolises: Florence, Pisa, Siena. - IV (1652, 1719) - VII. Insubria, VIII. Liguria, IX. Pedemontium with the metropolises: Milan; Genoa; Turin. - V (1653, 1720) - X. Forum Iulii, XI. Venetorum dominium, XII. Patriarchate of Venice with the metropolises: Aquileia; Grado; Venice; Zara. - VI (1659, 1720) - XIII. Campania Felix, XIV. Aprutium, XV. Provincia Hispinorum with the metropolises: Naples, Capua, Sorrento; Chieti, Lanciano; Compsa. - VII (1659, 1721) - XVI. Lucania sive Basilicata, XVII. Apulia tum Daunia cum Pencetia, with the metropolises: Acerenza and Matera, Amalfi, Salerno; Bari, Nazareth, Siponto, Trani. - VIII (1662, 1721) - XVIII. Samnium with the metropolis: Benevento. - IX (1662, 1721) - XIX. Provincia Soleruitana, XX. Calabria with the metropolises: Brindisi, Taranto, Otranto; Cosenza, Reggio, Rossano, S. Severina (in the original edition there follows the anonymous De Rebus Frederici Imperatoris, p. 751 ff.; and a brief appendix to the preceding volumes, p. 889 ff.). - X (1722) - Appendix in qua praeter Anecdota Ughelliana antiquati Italiae episcopatus supplementa quaedam et correctiones ad novem praecedentia volumina et multiplices indices generales proferuntur.

The Anecdota contain various important chronicles (of Fossa Nova, of Pisa, of S. Sofia of Benevento, etc.), the De rebus Frederici and the Menologium Graecorum iussu Basilii iunioris. The author treated neither Sicily nor Sardinia. Sicily already had its Sicilia Sacra by Abbot R. Pirri (Notitiae Sicilensium Ecclesiarum, 3 vols., Palermo 1630-49), from which Ughelli drew inspiration for his work; Sardinia received its own a century later, through the work of the Conventual A. F. Mattei, Sardinia sacra seu de episcopis Sardis historia, 1 vol., Rome 1758.

Each province has its brief historical notice with the list of metropolitan sees; each metropolitan see and the related suffragan sees are provided with a summary general historical notice followed by the episcopal catalogue with very brief biographical notes often accompanied by documents, coats of arms, seals or monograms. Each volume is furnished with the following indexes: of saintly bishops; of bishops, arranged chronologically; of the names and surnames of bishops, and of subjects. In the last volume there is the chronological index of the published documents.

Despite the author's immense erudition, the work was not free from gaps, inaccuracies in the transcription of documents, and errors, aggravated also by the carelessness of the Roman publisher Mascardi. Various scholars (18th-19th centuries) attempted to remedy this, but with scant results. The first was the Cistercian abbot Giulio Ambrogio Lucenti with his Italia Sacra R.mi P. D. F. Ughelli abbatis Cisterciensis restricta, aucta, veritati magis commendata... in-fol., Rome 1704 (which was to comprise 4 vols., but only the first appeared, dedicated to Latium and the sees immediately subject). Greater fortune, though still quite imperfect, had the editio secunda, aucta et emendata, edited by the Venetian priest Niccolò Coleti, published from the presses of his brother Sebastiano; Coleti's additions are in italics, placed between parentheses and quotation marks, sometimes preceded by the word additio. Coleti indicates at the beginning of the individual volumes who lent him generous collaboration. Benedict XIV had promoted a third edition of the I.S.: to that end Fr. Nivardo del Riccio published its prospectus in 1763 and Cardinal Valenti sent a circular to the Ordinaries of Italy on the matter, but nothing further was done; likewise the Notae et additiones ad Italiam Sacram of the Conventuals Giacinto Sbaraglia (d. 1763) and Stefano Rinaldi (d. 1822), whose manuscripts are preserved in the archive of the Order at SS. Ananoli (Rome), never saw the light, nor did the edition that the Jesuit Domenico Coleti, nephew of Niccolò, was preparing in 1796. Ughelli's I. S. was not improved by the 21 vols. of the Venetian priest Giuseppe Cappelletti, Le Chiese d'Italia dalla loro origine sino ai nostri giorni (Venice 1844-71; it came out in fascicles, the last is from 1871), because the author lacked a serious historical-critical formation. Cappelletti arranged the episcopal sees by States: Papal (I-VII, 1844-48); Italian Austrian (VIII-XII, 1851-57); Italian Sardinian (XIII-XIV, 1857-58); the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla, Modena, Lucca, and Corsica (XV, 1859); the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (XVI-XVIII, 1861-64); the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with Rhodes and Malta (XIX-XXI, 1864-71).

Contributions of the first order for a new I. S., besides many local monographs written with rigorous critical intent, are those of L. Duchesne (v.), of F. Savio (Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia dalle origini al 1300 descritti per regioni, I. Il Piemonte, Turin 1899; II-IV. La Lombardia, Florence 1913, Bergamo 1932, a work of great value, left incomplete; the author declares in the preface [p. XII]: "I take Ughelli, Coleti's edition, as the basis of my research, nor do I extend myself at all to repeat what seems to me to have been treated accurately by him"), of Eubel (his episcopal lists begin with 1198 and go for now to 1667); of F. Lanzoni (a critical study of much value on the Italian episcopal lists up to 604). Despite its defects, Ughelli's I.S., which in its time served as a model for the brothers of Ste-Marthe for their Gallia Christiana, remains still an indispensable working tool for many dioceses; it is certain that a new I.S., as Muratori already wrote, "would redound to the honor of our Churches" (Epistolario di L. Muratori, ed. M. Campori, X, Modena 1906, p. 4384).

A. Pietro Frutaz