MONTALCINO, DIOCESI DI

Image from page 800
Image from page 800

MONTALCINO, DIOCESE OF - Pulpit of the ancient convent of the Osservanza at Colombario near Seggiano from which St. Bernardino preached (1404) and wooden Crucifix used by the Saint in his sermons - Montalcino.

He insists on the education of the intellect, while neglecting the other faculties, which are also important: memory, inclinations, character; likewise the arts, which have a strong formative power; as for female education his ideas are quite weak and monastic: for him, a woman is sufficiently learned if she can distinguish between her husband’s shirt and jacket. Even more deficient is the absence of the pedagogical value of religion, without which one cannot form a strong and upright conscience. Strange, then, is the idea that the love borne towards one’s children should yield to the love of the fruits of one’s intellect, for these are far more truly our own.

Despite these shortcomings M. is rightly considered one of the fathers of pedagogy; the pedagogist is a representative of common sense, who starts from the admirable principle “the child is not a vessel to be filled, but a lamp to be lit,” and later pedagogists have more or less derived from him, at least until the time of Rousseau.

BIBL.: J. Langlais, La pédagogie de Rabelais et de M., Paris 1905; L. Ambrosi, M. M. e la sua pedagogia, Roma 1907; P. Volley, L’influence de M. sur les idées pédagogiques de Locke et de Rousseau, 1811; P. Porteau, M. et la vie pédagogique de son temps, 1813. Celestino Testore

MONTALCINO, DIOCESE OF. - Town in the province of Siena, episcopal see, with a territory partly in the province of Siena and partly in that of Grosseto. It borders on the dioceses of Siena, Pienza and Chiusi, Sovana and Pitigliano, and Grosseto.

It has an area of 800 sq. km., with a population of 40,000, of whom 39,980 are Catholics. With 35 parishes served by 41 diocesan priests and 4 regulars, 3 male religious communities and 12 female (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 275).

Before Pius II established the diocese of M., its territory had long been divided