Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
VESPRI (Vesperae, Agenda vespertina, Synaxis vespertina, Solennitas vespertina, Gratia vespertina, Duodecima). - The canonical hour at sunset; perhaps the oldest of the hours of prayer. In the Old Testament it was the hour of the evening sacrifice.
For Christians of the first three centuries it was an hour of private prayer; it became public in monasteries and churches. It lucernare (v.). According to Callewaert (unlike Batiffol and others), V. were already recited privately in Rome in the 3rd century, and then in the 4th and 5th centuries as a canonical hour. Under s. Benedetto (Regola, chap. 41) the hour is fixed so as not to require a lamp, that is, as a daytime hour in the afternoon. According to Fr J.-M. Hanssens, the psalms proper to the lucernare were replaced in the Roman rite by the current psalms of the psalter (the psalmi vespertini, 109-47), this practice
(fot. Alinari) SICILIAN VESPERS — Interior of the Church of the Vespers (12th cent.) — Palermo (surroundings).monastic usage. The parts subsequently added to the primitive nucleus of the five psalms with their respective psalm antiphons have reduced the present Roman V. to a scheme similar to that of Lauds.
BIBL.: C. Callewaert, De Breviarii Romani Liturgia, Bruges 1939, nos. 223-26; id., Vesperse antiquae in officio praesertim Romano, in Sacris Erudiri, Steenbrugge 1940, pp. 91-117; M. Righetti, Man. di stor. litur., II, Milano 1946, pp. 587-603; J.-M. Hanssens, Aux origines de la prière liturg. Nature et genèse de l'Office des Matines (Anal. Gregor., 57), Roma 1952, pp. 24-41, 42-43, 87-89. Pietro Siffrin
Cite this article
“VESPRI (VESPERAE, AGENDA VESPERTINA, SYNAXIS VESPERTINA, SOLENNITAS VESPERTINA, GRATIA VESPERTINA, DUODECIMA).” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XII (1954), p. 843. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/vespri-vesperae-agenda-vespertina-synaxis-vespertina-solennitas-vespertina-gratia-vespertina-duo.
