RICCI, LORENZO. - Jesuit, 18th general of the Order, b. in Florence on 2 Aug. 1703, d. in Rome in Castel Sant'Angelo on 24 Nov. 1775.

Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1718, he taught rhetoric and philosophy at Siena (1725-31), theology at Rome (1743-49); then he was spiritual director of the students at the Roman College (1751-55), afterwards secretary of the general L. Centurione (1755-58) and finally general (25 May 1758).

He had a generalate of continual anxieties and martyrdom. As soon as Clement XIII was elected pope, R. presented a petition against the injustices committed by Cardinals Saldanha and Atalaja in the visitation of the Jesuits' houses in Portugal, and received from him, with the dearest demonstrations of affection, three recommendations for those stormy times: silence, patience, prayer, which R. in turn recommended in successive circular letters to his subjects. Clement XIII took every care to help the General, and a sign of his benevolence was the bull Apostolicum pascendi of 7 Jan. 1765. But this did not calm the storm unleashed by his adversaries: in 1759 the Jesuits were driven out of Portugal; in 1763 out of France, in 1767 out of Spain, until the brief of suppression came (1773). R. was shut up as a prisoner first in the English College, then in Castel Sant'Angelo, where he languished amid the worst treatment for more than two years. Five days before dying, in the act of receiving Viaticum, he repeated in the presence of the vice-castellan the protest, already put in writing, declaring his own innocence and that of the whole Order (cf. E. Rosa, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 437-39). Then justice was done him with solemn funerals at S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, with the approval of Pius VI.

R. was noted for too much weakness and remissiveness, even by several of his religious, as being capable only of praying and being patient and not of acting in defense of the Order, but in reality he lacked neither prudence nor active industriousness, only that he had to act concealing every step, even from intimates, as appears from the documents preserved. As for the fable that two Jesuits had from R. the order to poison Clement XIV, cf. B. Duhr, I Gesuiti, Favole e leggende, I, Florence 1908, pp. 62-75. Regarding then the famous phrase: Sint ut sunt aut non sint, it is to be noted that it is not R.'s, but Clement XIII's, uttered against the proposal of the French government to nationalize the French part of the Order, separating it from the others (cf. F. X. de Ravignan, op. cit. in bibl., I, p. 105).

Bibliography11 works

BIBL.: Sommervogel, VI, pp. 1785-92; IX, 805; J. Crétineau-Joly, Clément XIV et les Jésuites, Paris 1847; G. Boero, Osserv. sopra l'ist. del pontificato di Clemente XIV, scritta dal p. A. Theiner, 2 vols., 2nd ed., Monza 1854; F.-X. de Ravignan, Clément XIII et XIV, 2nd ed., Paris 1856; A. Carayon, Le p. R. et la suppression de la C. de J. en 1773, ibid. 1869; B. Duhr, L. R., in Stimmen der Zeit, 114 (1927-28), pp. 81-92; G. C. Cordara De suppressiones S. I. Commentarii, ed. edited by G. Albertotti, Padua 1923; B. Duhr, Gesu. der Jesuiten in den Ländern dest. Zunge, IV, 1, Munich-Ratisbon 1928, pp. 6-15; E. Rosa, I Gesuiti dalle origini ai giorni nostri, 2nd ed., Rome 1930, pp. 383-440; G. C. Cordara, De suis ac quorum rebus... usque ad occasum S. I. Commentarii, ed. edited by G. Albertotti, Turin 1933, p. 400 add.; Pastor, XVI, 1 and 11 (see indexes).

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Ricci, Lorenzo

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