RELIGIOUS STUDIES. – Bimonthly journal “critical and historical, promoting religious culture in Italy.” Founded in 1901 in Florence by the then priest Salvatore Minocchi and ceased publication in 1907.
The journal aimed to publish archaeological, philological, historical, social, and artistic studies that would describe a general, as accurate and complete as possible, idea of modern religious thought, with special care for the traditions and history of Christianity and the Roman Church. In addition to scholarly articles, it contained a variety of brief documents and studies, reviews of recent publications, and news. Its contributors, besides the director G. Bonaccorsi, included E. Buonaiuti, C. De Sarlo, U. Fracassini, F. Mari, C. A. Nallino, P. G. Semeria, and N. Terzaghi. From its very first issue, however, it aroused strong controversy among many Catholic writers, who saw in various articles undeniable tendencies toward rationalism and modernism (cf. A. De Santi, Il nuovo periodico fiorentino «S. R.», in Civ. Catt., 1901, 1, pp. 450-64; and Il giudizio della Civ. Catt. intorno il nuovo periodico fiorentino «S. R.», ibid., 1901, 11, pp. 195-205), a tendency that became ever more evident in subsequent issues. Nor, as was stated, did it ever receive, even when requested, the approval of ecclesiastical authority (cf. Dichiarazioni, ibid., 1902, 1, p. 77).