QUARANTORE. — To honor Jesus Christ during the 40 hours in which he lay dead in the tomb, at a time that cannot be precisely determined, the liturgical practice arose of placing the consecrated Host, concealed in a special altar in the form of a tomb.
This devotion, under the precise title Oratio quadraginta horarum, was practiced by the Battuti of Zara as early as before 1214 in the church of S. Silvestro during the last three days of Holy Week; it was subsequently inherited by the Franciscans of the regular Third Order in that city from 1439 onward, where the Confraternity in Coena Domini of the Q. also arose. The transition from this form to the present practice of exposing the Blessed Sacrament for 40 continuous hours to the adoration of the faithful, in order to obtain the Lord’s clemency, especially in times of calamity caused by contagion and war, took place in 1527 in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Milan, at the initiative of the Augustinian Antonio Bellotto of Ravenna (d. 1528). For this purpose he established the School of the Holy Sepulchre and had adoration repeated there even outside Holy Week. The Spanish Dominican Tommaso Nieto introduced the same practice into Milan Cathedral and had it repeated several times in 1529 in the form of a three-day Eucharistic procession.
The more solemn form, introduced in 1537, of exposing the Blessed Sacrament on a special altar in Milan Cathedral and of rotating it among the churches of the city, resulted from the simultaneous initiative of s. Antonio Maria Zaccaria (v.) with his Clerics Regular (Barnabites), of his spiritual son, the independent hermit fra' Buono of Cremona (d. 1547), and of his Capuchin friend Giuseppe Piantanida da Fermo, who promoted it while preaching in the Cathedral that same year. Paul III approved the practice by an apostolic brief of 28 Aug. 1537, requested by the vicar general of Milan, also in the name of the governor and the Milanese people. In 1567 s. Carlo Borromeo regulated its observance, and in 1577 prescribed it for all the churches of the diocese.
The Capuchins, enthusiastic about the new practice of the Q., became its propagators in other Italian cities. The aforementioned Giuseppe da Fermo (d. 1556) brought it to Pavia in 1537 and subsequently to Gubbio, Borgo S. Sepolcro, Arezzo, Bologna, Faenza, etc., and in 1571 published in Milan the Metodo ossia istruzioni sul modo da tenersi per celebrare divotamente e con frutto l'orazione delle Q. In 1564 it was begun in Udine. Francesco da Suriano (d. 1567) spread it in Spoleto, Perugia, and other places in Umbria; Giacinto Natta da Casale Monferrato (d. 1626), in Brescia and Piacenza; Mattia Bellintani da Salò (v.) also published a Trattato della santa orazione delle Q. (Brescia 1588). The Friars Minor joined the Capuchins; it is known, in fact, that in Lucca the Q. were introduced in 1562 by Fr. Giovanni Antonio da Busseto, an Observant Minor. The Jesuits were no less active than these: Girolamo Otello began the practice in Messina in 1553; Fulvio Androsio in Mendola in 1556; Giovanni Guerra in Amelia in 1559; Niccolò Bobavilla in Amatrice in 1566; Carlo Mastrilli in Palermo in 1591. They were likewise begun from the Society’s respective colleges in Macerata (1556), Siena (1563), and Manfredonia (1574). In Verona, the Collegio dei 300 confratelli per le Q. arose in 1571, and in Venice, at the beginning of 1584, the Compagnia degli Emeronitti, that is, of the daytime and nighttime adorers of the Q. In Padua they were held for the first time in the Cathedral during the last three days of Carnival in 1600, promoted by the patriarch Marco Corner.
It was s. Filippo Neri who introduced the Q. to Rome in 1548, in the church of the S.ma Trinità dei Pellegrini, the well-known meeting place of his congregants. From there, in 1551, they passed to the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, whose Compagnia della Morte added to its title: e dell'Orazione, undertaking to repeat the Q. every third Sunday of the month; this practice was approved by a brief of Paul IV on 5 Nov. 1560. Foreseeing imminent disasters for the homeland and for the Church,
Clement VIII, on 25 Nov. 1592, by the bull Graves et diuturnae, prescribed the continuous daily and nightly rotation of the Q. in the principal churches of Rome, including those of the Regulars and of the confraternities, and began it himself with his court in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican on the following 29 November. The bull was accompanied by the list of churches and by the Istruzione per fare l'Orazione continua de le XXXX Hore, quite distinct from the analogous Istruzione of Clement XI of 20 Jan. 1705.
Urban VIII, by the encyclical Aeternus rerum Conditor of 6 Aug. 1623, imposed the celebration of the Q. on all the churches of the world.
In Paris they had been introduced by the Jesuit Edmondo Augerio as early as 1574; at Annemasse and Thonon in 1597–1598 by s. Francesco di Sales; in Brussels in 1624 by the Capuchin Giacinto Natta da Casale, who for this purpose had the Congregazione della Croce oro e fiamma; in Spain by the Friars Minor, commissioned by Urban VIII by a brief of 8 March 1624.
With the passage of time, the rite of the Q. continued also during the night has remained only in
Rome, where the members of the Night Adoration, instituted by Canon Giacomo Simibaldi in 1809, divide themselves into two shifts and still recite the prayers proposed by Giulio Natalini (d. 1678), canon of S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Elsewhere, for various reasons, the practice arose of exposing the Blessed Sacrament from morning until evening for three consecutive days. The Holy See granted that the indulgences attached to it could also be gained in this manner. They may likewise be gained wherever the “day of adoration” has been established, taking place in rotation in all the parishes of a diocese.