RELIGIOUS STUDIES. - A bimonthly review, "critical and historical, promoter of religious culture in Italy." Founded in 1901 in Florence by the then Fr. Salvatore Minocchi and ceased in 1907.
The review intended to publish archaeological, philological, historical, social, and artistic studies that would give a general idea, as exact and complete as possible, of modern religious thought, with special attention to the traditions and history of Christianity and of the Roman Church. In addition to the scholarly articles, it contained a miscellany of brief documents and studies, a review of recent publications, and chronicle. Besides the director, G. Bonaccorsi, E. Buonaiuti, C. De Sarlo, U. Fracasani, F. Mari, C. A. Nallino, Fr. G. Semeria, and N. Terzaghi collaborated on it. But from its very first issue it aroused strong controversy on the part of many Catholic writers, who discerned in various articles undoubted tendencies toward rationalism and modernism (cf. A. De Santi, Il nuovo periodico fiorentino « S. R. », in Civ. Catt., 1901, I, pp. 450-64; and Il giudicio della Civ. Catt. intorno il nuovo periodico fiorentino « S. R. », ibid., 1901, II, pp. 195-205), which became ever more evident with the successive issues. Nor, as was said, did it ever have, even when requested, the approval of the ecclesiastical authority (cf. Dichiarazioni, ibid., 1902, IV, p. 77).
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