Sources & Contemporary Reviews
Primary sources and contemporary reviews discussing the Enciclopedia Cattolica.
Selvaggi's Review (1954)
Filippo Selvaggi, S.I., "L'Enciclopedia Cattolica," Gregorianum, Vol. 35, No. 2 (1954), pp. 305-307.
Filippo Selvaggi was a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and later served as director of Gregorianum from 1954 to 1958. This review was published upon the completion of the encyclopedia's twelfth and final volume.
Translation
With the appearance of the XII volume, the Enciclopedia Cattolica has been completed with a speed truly commendable and superior to every rosiest expectation. There is no educated person who is not fully convinced of the opportunity and necessity of such a work, which makes available to a vast public the riches of Christian doctrine and the most modern results of religious sciences and also of profane sciences, in those points that are more or less directly connected with religion.
However, while Catholics of other nations — and also Protestants and Israelites — had already aligned themselves with new needs through universal Encyclopedias permeated by Catholic spirit, or through special Encyclopedias of ecclesiastical subject matter, common was the lament, and not only among Catholics, that today, in Italy, one could not have an Italian instrument so powerfully capable of penetrating Catholic spirit into our culture.
To respond to this need, two initiatives arose: on one hand the Enciclopedia ecclesiastica of the Publisher Francesco Vallardi under the direction of Msgr. Adriano Bernareggi, now deceased (the first volume appeared in 1942 and at present the work, arrived at the Vth, is not yet completed), and on the other the more resolute, integral initiative promising an Enciclopedia Cattolica Italiana, promoted at the Publisher Rizzoli by Abbot Giuseppe Ricciotti and Msgr. Pietro Barbieri. They, from 1939, began to start the work by preparing a catalog of "entries" to be developed, gathering around themselves a group of editors and collaborators and also collecting a first series of completed "entries." But the outbreak of the Second World War halted the planned project before the first volume was prepared.
The idea was not allowed to fall and was taken up by others in 1947, but conceived with broader views, with greater organicity and with more adequate financial means. The private and personal character of the preceding initiative was replaced by a dedicated Institute, which assumed the vast and complex responsibility of the new implementation: the Ente per l'Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, with headquarters in Vatican City. The high direction of the work was assumed by a Directive Committee, of which the Honorary President is His Eminence Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo and the effective President His Excellency Msgr. Pio Paschini.
The new direction assumed by the initiative also suggested a change of title, which became Enciclopedia Cattolica without other addition. Not the addition of ecclesiastica, because it did not want to circumscribe its field of vision to topics that directly touch doctrine, history, rites, the organization of the Church; but while conceding to such matters the better part, it intended to range over everything that in the scientific field shows some connection with religion. Not that of italiana, because it wanted to illustrate not only facts, monuments, persons, Italian institutions, but also those of all nations. "The Enciclopedia Cattolica — writes very appropriately Cardinal Pizzardo in the Preface — is written in Italian and Italian is the greater part of the collaborators; but both its significance and its reality transcend the borders of a nation. It wants to be and is Catholic, first of all for its sure orthodoxy; as also because it is published in the Rome of the Apostles and Martyrs and in the most immediate light of the Chair of Peter, in which resides the supreme and infallible magisterium."
From the organizational phase, one passed rapidly to implementation. The Publishing House Sansoni of Florence made available its rich equipment and editorial experience and tried to give the work the most dignified external appearance. The presentation of the volumes: paper, layout of illustrations and typefaces, binding, etc., echoes that of the great Enciclopedia Italiana, not servilely, but with good artistic taste and greater agility.
A glance at the list of collaborators, placed at the head of each volume, immediately attests to the care employed in their selection: the various hundreds of names belong, for the most part, to Italian and foreign personalities, all highly qualified for the task entrusted to them; this was facilitated by the fact that, having its headquarters in Rome, the Encyclopedia could benefit from the numerous Pontifical Atheneums and specialized Institutes, the Vatican Museums, Library and Archive, international Colleges and General Houses of the various Religious Orders and Congregations. Nor is the number of laypeople small, the majority professors in State Universities, scholars of great fame and among the most noted in Italy. They, with their specific contribution, have validly collaborated so that the Enciclopedia Cattolica would maintain its place of honor also in matters not directly sacred.
As for the topics covered in the 12 volumes, it will suffice to peruse the systematic Index, very opportunely placed at the end of the XIIth, which offers an orderly and organic vision of what refers to individual subjects and can also lend itself to a systematic study of those topics whose various aspects have been explained in distinct places. It is certainly not possible to mention, even only in passing, the entries contained in the large volumes: the entries are about 25,000. We cannot however fail to briefly indicate, following said index, the subjects covered in the main sections, which are 42 in all.
The strictly sacred matters constitute, as is natural, the principal framework of the entire work. Beginning with Sacred Scripture, we see amply treated not only general questions (canon, biblical criticism, biblical chronology, exegesis, inspirations, textual questions, etc.), but also individual canonical books, the apocrypha and the versions. Ample coverage is given to biblical geography, peoples and characters, post-biblical Judaism, exegetes and other particular questions. Dogmatic Theology is treated both in general and in individual treatises, together with a broad list of ecclesiastical writers, beginning with the Fathers, to whom a special section is dedicated, and from the Doctors of the Church to contemporary theologians. Particular development is given to Apologetics, with concepts of religion and revelation, the History of religions and their comparative study, non-Christian religions, heresies, schisms, Protestantism. Moral Theology, Canon Law, Pastoral Medicine constitute equally many sections, in which both the most general and classic questions and the most recent and particular ones are treated.
These sections, together with those of Ascetics and Mysticism and Liturgy, complete the field of doctrinal disciplines and together constitute the passage to the more properly ecclesiastical disciplines, amply developed both for the historical part and for what refers to the current state of the Church. At this point the Enciclopedia Cattolica offers most precious material, which surpasses in breadth, precision and updating any other publication of the kind. In the section on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, all the Patriarchates, Archdioceses, Dioceses, Abbeys and Prelatures nullius, Administrations, Prefectures and Apostolic Vicariates, Missions sui iuris are treated, following the list of the Annuario Pontificio and introducing also the most recent variations noted in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. Most special attention is given to the entries: Vatican City and those referring to the Roman Curia, to the Institutes of culture dependent on the Holy See, to the Sacred Roman Congregations, to the Christian East, to Ecumenism, etc.
We note finally the significant part occupied by entries referring beyond Philosophy, also to the exact, physical, natural, anthropological sciences, for the points of contact and sometimes apparent contrast that these have with Catholic doctrines.
A work so vast and complex and, moreover, completed in such a short time certainly could not aspire to succeed perfectly in every aspect. It would be easy to note some inequalities of space granted to certain entries, bibliographical gaps, omissions of important biographies, some lack of updating regarding new discoveries, the insufficiency of some articles and the less vigilant selection of illustrative material, which — note well — counts over 10,000 reproductions of very varied and predominantly documentary nature, scattered both in the text and in pages outside the text, in rotogravure or in color. However, it seems to us that such defects have episodic value and do not compromise the work as a whole. The Enciclopedia Cattolica now completed has a real intrinsic value and will be for all a most valid instrument of information and scientific work.
— F. Selvaggi, S.I.
Additional Sources
- Luca Sandoni, "Dare la scalata alla cultura italiana: I gesuiti, il Vaticano e il cantiere dell'Enciclopedia cattolica (1939-1963)," academic paper examining the editorial history of the encyclopedia and the dynamics between the Jesuits, the Vatican, and other actors involved in its creation.