Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, p. 833

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MONUMENTA HISTORICA SOCIETATIS IESU. — Publication of documents for the history of the Society of Jesus, begun in Madrid in 1894 and continued in Rome from 1929, issued under the direction of the Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus, attached to the Order’s General Curia: it had published (up to 1951) 73 octavo volumes.

The project of the founder, Giuseppe Maria Vélez (1843–1902), and of his first collaborators, strongly supported by the generals Antonio Maria Anderledy (d. 1892) and Ludovico Martin (d. 1906), was to bring together in an organic corpus the principal documents concerning the origins and early development of the Order. While this project is moving toward completion, for several years the M.H.S.I. have devoted their principal effort to the history of the ancient missions in the section Monumenta Missionum S. I., divided into two further sections: Missiones orientales and Missiones occidentales. At present, the missions of India, the Moluccas, China, and Japan are being studied in the first subsection; Mexico, Peru, and Brazil in the second.

The following have so far been published: Monumenta Ignatiana (21 vols., in 4 series), Rerum S. I. Historia (the so-called Chronicon of Fr. Polanco, 6 vols.), Monumenta Xaveriana (2 vols.), Fabri monumenta (1 vol.), Lainii monumenta (8 vols.), Epistolae p. Alphonsi Salmeronis (2 vols.), Epistolae pp. Broët, Jaji, Codurii, Rodericii (1 vol.), Bohadillae monumenta (1 vol.), S. Franciscus Borgia (5 vols.), Polanci complementa (2 vols.), Epistolae p. Hieronymi Nadal (4 vols.), Ribadeneira (2 vols.), Monumenta paedagogica S. I. (1 vol.), Epistolae mixtae ex variis Europae locis ab anno 1537 ad 1556 scriptae (5 vols.), Litterae quadrimestres (7 vols.). In the new section Monumenta missionum S. I., the following had been published by 1951: Epistolae s. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scripta (2 vols.), Monumenta antiquae Floridae (1 vol.), Documenta Indica (2 vols.).

BIBL.: C. Gómez Rodelec, Historia de la publicación • M. H. S. I. • Recuerdo del primer centenario del restablecimiento de la misma Compañía, 1814-1914, Madrid 1913; A. Huonder, Die M. H. S. I. oder die ältesten Geschichtsquellen des Jesuitenordens, in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 87 (1913-14), pp. 470-92; P. Leturia, Le genuine fonti storiche circa le origini e il carattere della Compagnia di Gesù (A proposito del cinquentenario del • M. H. S. I. •), in Civ. Catt., 1944, IV, pp. 222-31; D. Fernández Zancío, P. Leturia, Cinquentenario de M. H. S. I. 1804-1944, in Archivum historicum Soc. Iesu., 13 (1944), pp. 1-61.

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