Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Looking after catechumens 

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[VENICE - CATHOLIC CONVERTS]. CAPITOLI, ED ORDINI Per il buon Governo delle Pie Case de’ Cattecumeni di Venezia, A Cognizione de’ Signori Governatori delle medeme, ristampati, e raccolti dalli notatori della pia Congregazione consecrati alla protezzione di S. Gio. Battista, prottetore del pio luogo. In Venezia Per Giovanni Radici, MDCCXXXVII [1737].

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[Bound with]: [CENTONI, Giovanni, Pietro CORRER, Giovanni Carlo SAVORGNAN, Giovanni Domenico BOSCHI, Federico MARIA, et al.]. 1763. 24. Giugno [...]; Coppia tratta da altra simile esistente [...] Addi 15. Gennaio 1781. M.V. [Venice, n.p.], 1763-1781.

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[Bound with]: [COMPARATO, Francesco, Filippo MOLIN, and Antonio LORENZONI]. Addi primo Ottobre 1788. [Venice]:, 1788. £750

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4to, pp. 64, [XXVI], [III], [1 (blank)]. Engraved vignette of the baptism of Christ to title-page, woodcut and typographic head- and tailpieces, woodcut initials; upper margins tightly cropped with occasional loss of page numbers and headers but none to body, joints somewhat worn, first gathering quite loose, occasional very light marginal damp-stains, browning and minor tears, otherwise a clean copy; in contemporary carta rustica covered with near-contemporary patterned wrappers, manuscript title to spine; minor marks and creases to papers, endpapers lightly browned and damp-stained; old label at foot of spine.

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Fourth edition of the Capitoli (Statutes) of the Venice House for Catechumens, first drawn up in 1558, one year after its foundation.

 

Modelled on the institution founded in Rome by Ignatius Loyola in 1543, the Pia Casa dei Catecumeni was designed to house neophytes and individuals preparing for conversion from Judaism and Islam. It was established with the support of the Venetian patriarch, who served as its perpetual president, and administered by a Congregation of Governors (Congregazione di governatori) composed of elected members of the clergy, patriciate, and citizenry or ‘Mercante’. In the 1737 Capitoli, it is ruled that at least seven governors and one of the presidents must be present at meetings of the Congregation, which take place at least once a month to assess recent developments at the Casa dei Catechumeni reported by the ‘visitatori’. Two of these (required to be over the age of fifty) are selected to visit the house of the women, and another two to visit the men, where they are to observe their living conditions and inquire of the prioress and prior as to the progress of the catechumens. The statutes crucially outline the procedure surrounding their baptism: upon arrival at the house, and throughout the instruction of the catechumen, it is necessary to establish that their intention is true; once admitted, they are lodged separately from those already baptised while they receive instruction in the faith from the prior or prioress, after which they are examined by the Congregation; the prior hears their confession and baptises them; the neophyte then learns about the sacraments and is confirmed, remaining in the house for as long as the Congregations deems fit, and until the visitors have found them some form of employment or, if still a child, education. The statutes also address rations of supplies (bread, wine, oil, firewood, soup, meat and fish), the daily routines of the catechumens, and how alms are to be distributed to the neophytes. 

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OCLC: 1051064312 not citing any locations; SBN (IT\ICCU\VEAE\125058) records copies of this edition at the Seminary in Padua, the Marciana, and the Archivio Storico del Patriarcato di Venezia, with the Marciana also holding the (much shorter) 1702 edition.

 

[ref: 2669 ]