Writing the history of the East from Francis of Assisi’s perspective
Origins, method and contents of Girolamo Golubovich’s Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa
p. 99-118
Résumés
In 1906 the Franciscan scholar Girolamo Golubovich published the first volume of his Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano. This historical enterprise was plainly consistent with the vast intellectual work on the history of the Franciscan order which started in the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as with Leo XIII’s cultural policy, particularly with respect to historical studies. Beside this, Golubovich’s interest for a careful historical reconstruction of the Franciscan presence in the East was part of the scholarly discussions caused by Paul Sabatier’s volume on Francis of Assisi. Within this complex and interconnected cultural coordinates the Franciscan scholar focused on the search for the historical foundation of the presence of the Friars Minor in the East and mainly in the Holy Land going back to St. Francis’s journey between 1219 and 1221. In doing so, Golubovich displayed a historical analysis deeply rooted in the critical study of the sources and able to collect a vast amount of documents concerning the religious, political and cultural history of East and Middle East since the early thirteenth century.
En 1906, le savant franciscain Girolamo Golubovich publie le premier volume de sa Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano. Cette entreprise historique est tout à fait cohérente avec le vaste travail intellectuel sur l’histoire de l’ordre franciscain qui a débuté dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, ainsi qu’avec la politique culturelle de Léon XIII, notamment en ce qui concerne les études historiques. À côté de cela, l’intérêt de Golubovich pour une reconstruction historique minutieuse de la présence franciscaine en Orient faisait partie des discussions savantes suscitées par le volume de Paul Sabatier sur François d’Assise. Au sein de ces coordonnées culturelles complexes et interconnectées, le savant franciscain s’est concentré sur la recherche du fondement historique de la présence des Frères mineurs en Orient et principalement en Terre sainte remontant au voyage de saint François entre 1219 et 1221. Ce faisant, Golubovich a présenté une analyse profondément enracinée dans l’étude critique des sources et capable de rassembler une grande quantité de documents concernant l’histoire religieuse, politique et culturelle de l’Est et du Moyen-Orient depuis le début du XIIIe siècle.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : Girolamo Golubovich, franciscains d’Orient et du Moyen-Orient, saint François en Orient, études franciscaines, quaestio franciscana
Keywords : Girolamo Golubovich, Franciscans in the East and Middle East, St. Francis’s journey to the East, Franciscan studies, quaestio franciscana
Note de l’auteur
The quotations from the epistolary between Paul Sabatier and Girolamo Golubovich are taken from the letters preserved in the Paul Sabatier archive, at the Centro Studi per la Storia del Modernismo in Urbino. I refer to this archive with the acronym APS. I would like to thank Dr Ilaria Biagioli for her crucial support in exploring the documents in Sabatier’s archive, and for providing precious digital copies of the letters between the French scholar and father Golubovich. On Sabatier’s archive see Zambarbieri 2013. Paolo Pieraccini, in his recent volume on father Golubovich, has announced the publication of the whole correspondence between Sabatier and the Franciscan scholar. See note 5 below.
Texte intégral
1On June 22, 1900 the Franciscan friar and scholar Girolamo Golubovich sent a letter to Paul Sabatier, a French protestant pastor who had become a leading figure in medieval studies in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries thanks to his studies on the figure of Francis of Assisi. In this letter, Golubovich offers his congratulations to Sabatier for the discovery of the manuscripts of the Tractatus de indulgentia S. Mariae de Portiuncula of Mariano da Firenze.2 In the same letter, the Franciscan scholar explains to his correspondent his own engagement in historical studies on the presence of the Franciscan Friars in the Holy Land and the East. In particular, he stresses the relevance of the crucial issue of St. Francis’s journey to the Holy Land as the event which legitimated the role of the Friars Minor as responsible for the Custody of the Holy Land. Golubovich notes that: “Set aside in our beloved Holy Land, in this Latin East that has its glorious part in history, my aim is to arrive as much as possible at a lifting of the dark veil that covers the first steps of the sons of Saint Francis in this country”.3
2Antonio Golubovich, whose parents were from Dalmatia, was born in Constantinople on February, 7 1865.4 In 1879, after the death of his father, he visited the Holy Land with his mother and decided to remain in Jerusalem, joining the Franciscan order with the name Girolamo. It was the beginning of a religious and intellectual career that was closely linked to a long-life engagement in studies and research on the presence of the Friars Minor in the Holy Land and the East. The Franciscan scholar acquired an outstanding erudition on the issue of the Franciscan missions, enriched by the constant search for unpublished sources and documents in the archives and libraries of the Middle East and Europe. Employing a rigorous research method, based on the critical analysis of the sources and on careful philological examination of the texts, Golubovich engaged in a vast range of scholarly activities, describing manuscripts and sources, reviewing documents and witnesses, reconstructing episodes of Franciscan history in the East, composing inventories and managing libraries. His experience led to the creation of a series of volumes in which he collected, according to a meticulous research method, all the available sources and documents concerning the Franciscans and the East: the Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano, the first volume of which dates back to 1906.5
3The figure of Girolamo Golubovich was not the subject of a specific study until Paolo Pieraccini published a detailed intellectual biography of the Franciscan friar in 2016.6 The volume offers a careful reconstruction of Golubovich’s scholarly profile, placing him within the troubled landscape of Catholic religious culture in the early twentieth century. Pieraccini attributes great importance to the relationship of the scholar with figures such as Paul Sabatier and Michele Faloci Pulignani, and stresses the involvement of the author of the Biblioteca in the anti-modernist campaign within the Italian Catholic milieu. In fact, the publication of the first volume of Golubovich’s masterpiece precedes by one year Pius X’s Pascendi dominici gregis with its condemnation of ‘Modernism’.
4Certainly Golubovich’s work on religious history was deeply influenced by the connection with this religious and cultural crisis, but his engagement in studying the roots of the Franciscan presence in the East can be considered in a larger perspective that includes the support of the Franciscan order for a broad and systematic program of research concerning its origins, the establishment of a specific Franciscan theological tradition and the development of a Franciscan missionary activity outside Latin Europe. Thus, the Biblioteca stands within this complex intellectual landscape, which emerges from Golubovich’s work as well as from the published and unpublished documents concerning his life.
5This study analyzes how Golubovich developed the project of the Biblioteca and what kind of “image” of the history of the Franciscans in the East he offered from the first volume of the series. To do so, it is necessary to reposition Golubovich’s intellectual enterprise within the wider cultural development of studies on the origins of the Franciscan order which arose in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It is in the project to improve historical studies supported by Leo XIII, and the ensuing crisis of Pius X’s anti-Modernist campaign, that Golubovich rooted his interest in the history of the Franciscan presence in the Middle East and East Asia. This requires us firstly to consider Golubovich’s acquaintance with his contemporary intellectual milieu, both within and outside the Franciscan order. Therefore, in the following pages, I summarize Golubovich’s relations with scholars such as Sabatier and with the program of Franciscan studies that the order itself supported in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On this basis, it will be possible to consider how the Franciscan scholar approached his research and what kind of relevance it had in the scholarly and religious landscape of the early twentieth century.
The intellectual framework of the Biblioteca: the quaestio franciscana
6Pieraccini has carefully noted the relevance of Father Golubovich’s involvement within the debates and polemics that followed the publication of Sabatier’s Vie de Saint François d’Assise in 1893.7 Since 1898 the Franciscan scholar and the French historian corresponded regularly, exchanging ideas, information on their respective research activities, documents and publications, as well as opinions on the contemporary intellectual and religious landscape and its relation to their scholarly interests.
7Sabatier firstly approached the documents and sources on Francis of Assisi from a critical perspective, considering them as historical documents that needed to be analyzed within the cultural and religious context to which they belonged. As several scholars have suggested, the relevance of Sabatier’s work is deeply connected with his engagement as an editor of Franciscan sources. The publication of writings such as the Speculum perfectionis (1898) was part of a whole research program, through which Sabatier aimed to identify ancient witnesses to St. Francis’s life, previous to Bonaventure of Bagnoregio’s Legenda maior (1263).8 According to Sabatier’s analysis, the 1266 decision to impose Bonaventure’s Life of Saint Francis as the official and sole permitted biography of the founder of the order represented the victory of a specific party within the Franciscans, that succeeded in minimizing the ground-breaking reform ideals of St. Francis. Thus, in order to draw a portrait of Francis of Assisi historically closer to the original, Sabatier went back to what remained of the ancient sources and started to look at the surviving documents of the memory of St. Francis from prior to 1266.
8Sabatier’s reconstruction of the life of Francis of Assisi was at the center of an increasing discussion among Catholic intellectuals and particularly within the Franciscan order.9 Some relevant critiques, for instance from La Civiltà Cattolica, focused on the unfitting circumstance of a ‘protestant’ scholar writing the biography of one of the major Catholic saints. Angelo De Santi, in his review of Sabatier’s volume, strongly denounced the attempt to portray the figure of Francis as a forerunner of the sixteenth-century Reformation, whose memory the Church had intentionally re-shaped. According to De Santi, Sabatier’s very aim was to prove that “the 1223 rule, approved by the Church, was not truly Franciscan, and that on the contrary it was an indirect work of the Church that tried to assimilate the new movement, rapidly transforming it and completely diverting its direction”.10
9Beside these kinds of ideological critiques, Sabatier’s works have the merit of encouraging a radical change in approaches to the figure of St. Francis, particularly inside the Franciscan order. Sabatier constantly corresponded with relevant members of the order among whom Golubovich was certainly crucial. Pieraccini notes that the Franciscan scholar and the French pastor started their correspondence in 1898 and remained in contact until Sabatier’s death in 1928.11 The letters show Golubovich’s significant interest in Sabatier’s studies, mostly in his engagement as an editor of new sources and documents concerning the life of Francis of Assisi. Golubovich shares with Sabatier the idea that a careful and methodologically rigorous analysis of the ancient sources is the proper basis for an accurate historical reconstruction. In addition, he remarked the need for a chronological placement of texts and authors, as well as of the manuscripts and documents, in order to prevent any kind of forced interpretation.
10Golubovich received from Sabatier the edition of the Speculum perfectionis and acquired a copy of the whole set of Sabatier’s studies concerning Francis of Assisi.12 Sabatier pleased his Franciscan correspondent with several copies of his publications in the series Collection d’études et de documents sur l’histoire religieuse et littéraire du Moyen Âge and the Opuscules de critique historique.13 Moreover, the exchange of letters shows an increasingly close intimacy between the two scholars, who shared the major themes in their own biographies, including Golubovich’s troubles in the context of the anti-modernism campaign in Italy. In fact, in 1908 the Franciscan father, who had been the first director of the prestigious Archivum franciscanum historicum, was accused of ‘modernism’ by Paolo de Töth, director of the Unità Cattolica. Golubovich expressed all his regrets over the accusations in a letter to Sabatier, where he notes their inconsistency from a scholarly perspective.14
The historiographical enterprise of the order
11The close relationship with Sabatier also emerges in the subject matter of Golubovich’s work for the publication of the first volume of the Biblioteca. The Franciscan friar sent to his French correspondent the proof copy of the volume in late 1905 or early 1906 and received a fairly positive judgment of the work.15 Sabatier noted that:
Each of these pages will render perpetual services to Franciscan erudition, and I can certainly add that the College of St. Bonaventure, to which we already owe so much, is rendering us a new service which is still beyond that of others.16
12Sabatier certainly connects the publication of the first volume of the Biblioteca with the intellectual enterprise of the College of St. Bonaventure, the so-called ‘Fathers of Quaracchi,’ because Golubovich worked on the publication after he was appointed as member of this group of Franciscan scholars in 1904. However, the French scholar’s words also evidence a decisive aspect which concerns the intellectual profile of Golubovich and his relations with the Franciscan milieu of the time. The college was founded in 1877 by Bernardino da Portogruaro (1822-1895), general of the Friars Minor, in an old noble villa outside Florence, as the see of a group of learned Franciscans whose aim was to publish critical editions of the writings of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Alexander of Hales, John Peckham and the other great medieval masters of the order.17
13Facing a major religious crisis of the Franciscans, whose cause lay partly in the insufficient cultural and theological education of the friars, Da Portogruaro strongly supported a rediscovery of the ancient roots of the order. Already in 1871, during his service as provincial minister in the Veneto, he asked figures such as Fedele da Fanna (1838-1881) to prepare an edition of Bonaventure’s writings to the highest scholarly standards in terms of historical and philological rigour.18 With his election as general of the order, Da Portogruaro made this cultural enterprise a priority for a renewal of Franciscan life, particularly within a context of Catholic theological and philosophical culture which was increasingly taking Thomas Aquinas’s writings as paradigmatic. Leo XIII, in a letter addressed to Luigi Lauer, the new general of the order, on November 25, 1898, recommended an organisation of the cultural life of the Franciscans according to the Thomist orientation of the Aeterni Patris so that “the name of Thomas would be ‘saint’ among all the disciples of the blessed Francis”.19
14With the creation of the college at Quaracchi, Da Portogruaro established a long-term project of research and studies on the cultural and religious history of the order which stressed the specific features of Franciscan history and emphasised the outstanding intellectual dignity of the Franciscan doctrinal and religious tradition.20 The activities of the Quaracchi group of friars was to be a valuable means of renewing the intellectual life of the order and increasing its scholarly prestige.
15Beside the publication of several works, beginning with the critical edition of Bonaventure’s Opera omnia, the friars of Quaracchi established and developed a method of historical and philological research whose main guidelines were already explained in Fedele da Fanna’s Ratio novae collectionis operum omnium sive editorum sive anecdotorum Seraphici Ecclesiae Doctoris S. Bonaventurae, published in 1874 to outline the forthcoming edition of Bonaventure’s writings.21 Da Fanna showed the very basis of the critical work, offering a detailed description of both unpublished and published texts by Bonaventure, collated from newly discovered manuscripts, as well as a list of all the known manuscripts of the writings attributed to the Doctor Seraphicus. This vast activity of careful scrutiny of archives and libraries, searching for ancient sources, combined with a work of detailed historical analysis of each manuscript, represents the methodological basis not only for the realisation of the great critical editions of the medieval Franciscan masters, but more widely to the whole research activity on the history of the order developed at the College of St. Bonaventure.
16Da Portogruaro did not limit his interest to the study of the Franciscan medieval theology as he oversaw the improvement of other fields of Franciscan studies. At the end of the 1880s, he approved and encouraged the commitment of Marcellino Ranise da Civezza (1822-1906) and Teofilo Domenichelli (1855-1936) to starting detailed research on the Franciscan missions in the East.22 Such a scholarly project was closely linked to the debate over the legitimate ownership of the Custody of the Holy Land, which at that time placed the Observant and the Reformed Franciscans in opposition to one another. Golubovich, with his first historiographical writings, joined this research project, redefining it on the basis of a more rigorous methodology.23
The place of the East in Franciscan history
17Girolamo Golubovich had developed his own historical research within this framework of religious and intellectual history. On the one hand, he was directly involved in the “Franciscan question” not only because of his publications on Franciscan history, but also as the first director of the Archivum franciscanum historicum. On the other hand, Golubovich was deeply engaged in reorganizing the cultural presence of the Franciscans in the Levant, improving the libraries of the convents with new high scholarly publications and searching for traces of the Franciscan presence.
18Golubovich spent the first decades of his religious life among the Franciscan houses in the Holy Land: on January 1, 1879, he joined the Franciscan College of Ein Karem, and on September 24, 1881, he made his profession as a Franciscan at Nazareth. He carried out philosophical studies in Bethlehem between 1882 and 1885, and theological studies in Jerusalem between 1885 and 1888, and was finally ordained as a priest in Cairo on June 18, 1888, spending the following years between Aleppo, Jerusalem and Cyprus. During this time, Golubovich started his studies on the Franciscan presence in the East, searching for new documents in the libraries and archives of the region and publishing several relevant articles thanks to the support of the Franciscan historian Marcellino Ranise da Civezza, author of the Storia universale delle Missioni francescane, which, in 11 volumes, was the first attempt to write a history of the missionary activities of the order.24
19In his studies between the 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century, Golubovich enlarged his knowledge and refined his research method, basing it on two pillars: a vast erudition concerning the studies, research and published sources on the history of the Far East and Middle East and a patient and careful search for unpublished sources in the archives and libraries combined with rigorous critical examination.
20Because of his research interests and his increasing acknowledgement as an expert of the history of Palestine, Golubovich had a relevant role in arranging the exhibition of holy art on the occasion of the National Exposition of Turin in 1898, where the Franciscan missions had a prominent place. On the same occasion, Golubovich published his first volume, which gave a sample of the new possibilities, in terms of knowledge of the history of the Holy Land, that could emerge from a careful analysis of archives and libraries, both in the Middle East and Europe. The Serie cronologica dei Reverendissimi Superiori di Terra Santa (1219-1898) already presented a crucial element to Golubovich’s later historiographical works on the presence of the Franciscans in the East: the importance of Francis of Assisi’s journey to the Holy Land, Egypt and Syria in 1219.25 According to the Franciscan scholar, this event had multiple values. On the one hand, it marked the beginning of an uninterrupted presence of the Friars Minor in the East; on the other, it offers a solid historical basis on which to evaluate the role and activity of the Franciscans in the East through the centuries. Golubovich opens his Serie cronologica with a long and detailed introduction in which he offers a general overview of the Franciscan presence in the East.26 Then he places the work within the scholarly landscape of the end of the nineteenth century, particularly with respect to research concerning the Far East and the Middle East, offering a description of the situation of the Franciscan archives of the region.27 Golubovich stresses the dispersion of documents that the Oriental archives of the order have suffered. At the same time, he notes the relevance of the collection of documents at the convent of St. Salvatore in Jerusalem, that unites the archives of the Custodian of the Holy Land and of the Franciscan convent in Constantinople.28 Golubovich uses these materials to compose the Serie cronologica and explains:
We regret not being able, as we have desired, to give our readers an accurate description of the documents of this archive: such a work would require much more time than the month we spent to complete the present Serie Cronologica de’ Superiori di Terra Santa, leaving to others, much more skilful than us, such a delicate and difficult work. Since we were deeply engaged in rummaging through this archive, with the aim only of completing and correcting the series of our superiors, we did not think of anything else. But the Reverend Father Aurelio, not settling for completing, approving and blessing our little chronological work, ordered us to choose some Arabic documents and to publish them in the Appendix, not to validate those already quoted in the text of the Serie, but to give to the European Orientalists a little sample of the value of the documents which we possess, and to present them to the public for the first time, as a happy anticipation of a not far-off, we hope, complete publication of the documents collected in our archive.29
21Golubovich’s close acquaintance with a vast range of documents, in different languages (Latin, Greek, Arab, etc.), is combined with critical and philological analysis. He gives an example of such a rigorous approach in his second volume, published in 1900, which contains a scholarly edition of the Trattato di Terra Santa e dell’Oriente, a fifteenth-century description of the Holy Land composed by the Franciscan Francesco Suriani, Custodian of the Holy Land from 1493 to 1495 and from 1512 to 1514.30 This publication is the result of Golubovich’s discovery of two unknown manuscripts of Suriani’s text in the municipal library of Perugia. The Franciscan scholar opens the volume with a long introduction of 62 pages, in which he carefully describes the manuscripts available, the different versions of Suriani’s Trattato and the criteria he followed in preparing the edition of the text.31 Golubovich explains that he has chosen to publish one specific version of the text, which comes from the only surviving autograph, that is a manuscript that Suriani directly wrote, but that he has carefully noted all the major and relevant differences and variants with the other manuscripts.
22Both the Serie cronologica and the Trattato di Terra Santa e dell’Oriente offer significant examples of Golubovich’s research method and approach to the issue of the history of the Franciscan presence in the East. Moreover, the two works can be considered as part of a larger project of editing a great and comprehensive collection of documents on this subject, according to the most rigorous scholarly criteria. In the Serie cronologica, as we have mentioned, Golubovich suggests the hope of a complete publication of the documents preserved in the Archive of St. Salvatore in Jerusalem.32 In the same period, in 1897, Golubovich elaborated the idea of a Bibliotheca Franciscana Palestinae ordine chronologico digesta, whose aim was to offer the Orientalists a sort of “index or repertory to deal with the complex, vast and intricate labyrinth of the seven-century history [of the Custody]”.33 With the development of his research, this original idea evolved into the broader and more comprehensive project of the Biblioteca Bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano that Golubovich effectively undertook after he joined the College of St. Bonaventure on the March 13, 1904.34
23Since that date, Golubovich’s activity was integrated into the wide-ranging and well-established program of research on the religious and intellectual history of the Franciscan order which was based at the college. He worked on the codex of Alexander of Hales’s Summa and prepared the edition of Bartolomeo da Pisa’s De conformitate vitae beati Francisci ad vitam Domini Iesu.35 Within the College of St. Bonaventure, Golubovich founded the appropriate framework to develop his idea, projecting the publication not just of an inventory of documents or of a series of unpublished texts. He decided to publish a series of studies on the Franciscans and the East, from the foundation of the order up to the nineteenth century, giving special attention to the reports of journeys, chronicles, and the documents of the Holy See and of the Islamic authorities, combining the newly discovered sources with the results of previous research. Thus, he combined unpublished materials with the documents already published in different volumes.
24On October 23, 1904, the general of the order, Father Schüler gave his consent to the publication of the volume and on May 29, 1905, Golubovich was ready to send the manuscript to the printing house.36 The volume was finally published on September 30, 1906, and it contained eight pages of introduction and 479 pages of documents and texts. It focused on the first eighty-five years of Franciscan history, that is on the whole of the thirteenth century. Following a strictly chronological approach in this volume, Golubovich collects and analyzes documents and sources, starting with a detailed collection of 27 documents concerning Francis of Assisi’s journey to the Middle East, followed by an accurate chronology of the life of the saint and of his visit to Cyprus, Syria, Egypt and the Holy Land. The second part of the volume presents chronologically organized documents on the presence of the Franciscans in the East throughout the thirteenth century, giving a careful historical and philological analysis of each document together with the appropriate bibliographical references.
25In the introduction to the first section of the volume, Golubovich offers a presentation of the methods he used to compose his collection, explaining the structure and logic of the book.37 The collection presents each document or source according to a chronological order. A detailed note offers a discussion of the age of the document and the biographical information on its author. Then the text is published according to philological criteria, with a series of notes that focus on the most important details. As Golubovich explains, this method is intended to clarify the content of the primary thirteenth-century texts, the origin of the information given by each document, and the chain that links the ancient to the most recent sources.
26The scholarly relevance of Golubovich’s Biblioteca is largely recognized by the long list of positive reviews, published in journals such as Les Échos d’Orient, Miscellanea franciscana or the Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique.38 The ability to have access to a well-organized collection of documents, critically introduced and accessible through a detailed index, offered the Orientalists a new instrument to focus not only on the history of the Franciscans in the East, but on the more general development of the religious history of the region. However, in Golubovich’s intention, the publication of the series had a specific objective which was clear from the very first section of the first volume, devoted to St. Francis’s journey to the Middle EaSt.
27Golubovich, with the editing of the 27 documents and the regestum chronologicum, offers his own contribution to the studies of the saint’s life. However, as Pieraccini has stressed, the scholar attaches particular relevance to the matter of the authenticity of St. Francis’s visit to the holy places in Jerusalem, working to detail the chronology of the journey.39 In his chronology, Golubovich places the beginning of Francis’s journey in May 1219 and suggests that the saint would probably had visited Jerusalem between March 1220 and March 1221.40 He refers to the analysis of some witnesses, particularly Bartolomeo da Pisa and mainly Angelo Clareno. More specifically, he mentions Clareno’s Chronica seu Historia septem Ttribulationum Ordinis Minorum, which he reads from the manuscript Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Pl. 20, cod. 7. He stresses the value of this testimony on the life of Francis, recalling Angelo Clareno’s acquaintance with the first generation of Franciscan friars, that is the actual companions of Francis, and in particular with Brother Leone. Recalling the judgment of Franz Ehrle and Paul Sabatier on Clareno, Golubovich gives credit to the text of the Historia septem tribulationum and to the Expositio super Regulam, noting:
Given Clareno’s testimony, an author close, rather contemporary to the events (born c. 1240, became Franciscan c. 1260, and death more than nonagenarian, on June 15, 1337), nothing – according to us – can question his so explicit authority on this issue. The rule of the appropriate critique must have value also for this specific event that Clareno describes, even if he in good faith sees everywhere revelations and wonders in support of his too lively zeal.41
28According to Golubovich’s analysis, the visit of the saint to Jerusalem and the holy places assumes a crucial role. Certainly, the meeting with the sultan in Egypt represents a relevant episode in this portion of St. Francis’s life, but the possibility that he had been a pilgrim to the Holy Sepulchre radically changes the value of the journey, particularly with respect to the whole history of the Franciscan presence in the Middle East and Far East. If the 1219-1221 journey of Francis of Assisi is the starting point of the history of the Franciscan missions in the East, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem offers a religious and spiritual foundation to the Custody of the Holy Land and to its role through the centuries. From Golubovich’s point of view, it is not just a matter of legitimating the role of the Franciscans in the Holy Land, but more importantly of illuminating a key episode in the building of the historical identity of the order. Explicitly claiming the usefulness of historical analysis as a research instrument, he shows how the sources are able to provide all the elements needed to identify the existence of a long-standing Franciscan identity, both spiritual and theological, based on St. Francis’s life and on the crucial passage of the biography of the saint of Assisi. The image of the saint as a pilgrim to Jerusalem strengthens the idea of an order deeply rooted in the Gospel, since its founder put himself in the footsteps of Christ. Therefore, Golubovich’s historiographical enterprise seems to assume also a deeper theological and spiritual value.
Conclusions
29The reviews and judgments of its contemporaries clearly acknowledged the relevance of the Biblioteca bio-bibliografica in terms of scholarly value. In his review of the first volume, Alphonse Fierens notes:
One must have handled these long pages with such tight characters to appreciate the immense amount of research and thought required by these many critical quotes and dissertations about the most diverse literary products of a century.42
30Golubovich made use of the most advanced and rigorous criteria of the historical research of the time to create a vast collection of documents and to reconstruct the history of the Franciscan presence across the wider East through a critical analysis of the sources. In doing so, he assumed as a cornerstone the historical and philological analysis of each document, an approach which the Franciscan friars of the College of St. Bonaventure at Quaracchi had developed for decades.
31Golubovich grew up in this religious and intellectual landscape, which made him sensitive to novelties such as Paul Sabatier’s approach to the historical figure of Francis of Assisi. The attempt of the protestant scholar to critically reconsider the whole set of sources concerning the life of the saint was quite close to the “method” of Quaracchi as well as to Golubovich’s scholarly perspective. Thus, the publication of the Biblioteca, together with Golubovich’s whole research engagement, is part of the history of Franciscan studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project of a great collection of documents is wholly consistent with the program of historical studies on the origin of the Franciscan order, aiming to show the existence of strong continuity between the founder, with his religious ideal, and the following generations of minor friars. Scholars such as Fedele da Fanna and others applied this perspective to the ‘discovery’ of the theological tradition of the order, whose champion was Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. Golubovich did the same with the history of the missionary activities of the order, particularly in the wider East and in the Holy Land. The Biblioteca bio-bibliografica is thus an attempt to build the history of the order in these regions in terms of continuity with the figure, message and life of Francis of Assisi. The ‘legitimacy’ of the Franciscan presence in the Holy Land, as well as the authority of the ownership of the Custody of the Holy Land by the Observant Friars Minor, rest upon a vast documentary basis that goes back to the ‘founding event’ of saint Francis’s journey between 1219 and 1221 and more specifically to his pilgrimage to the holy places.
Bibliographie
Archives
APS = Archivio Paul Sabatier.
envelop 15, fasc. 1.
envelop 23, fasc. 5.
envelop 32, fasc. 1.
envelop 32, fasc. 2.
envelop 43, fasc. 2.
Primary sources
De Santi 1894 = A. De Santi, review to P. Sabatier, Vie de S. François d’Assise, in La Civiltà Cattolica, 45, 1894, vol. 1, p. 189-206.
Fedelis a Fanna 1874 = Ratio novae collectionis operum omnium sive editorum sive anecdotorum Seraphici Eccl. Doctoris S. Bonaventurae proxime in lucem edendae manuscriptorum bibliothecis totius Europae perlustratis, studio ac labore P. Fidelis da Fanna, Turin, 1874.
Fierens 1907 = A. Fierens, review to Golubovich 1906, in Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique, 8, 1907, p. 576-577.
Golubovich 1897 = G. Golubovich, Fr. Antonii de Reboldis de Cremona, Ord. Min., Itinerarium ad Sepulcrum Domini (1327) et ad Montem Sinai (1330), in Le Missioni Francescane in Palestina e in altre regioni della Terra, 7, 1897, p. 137-140, 208-214, 278-283, 340-346.
Golubovich 1898 = G. Golubovich, Serie cronologica dei Reverendissimi Superiori di Terra Santa (1219-1898), già Commissari Apostolici dell’Oriente, e sino al 1847 in officio di Gran Maestro del S. Militare Ordine del SS. Sepolcro, ecc. Con due Appendici di Documenti e Firmani Arabi inediti e d’un sunto storico de’ Conventi, Santuari ed Istituti di Beneficenza dipendenti da Terra Santa, Jerusalem, 1898.
Golubovich 1900 = G. Golubovich, Trattato di Terra Santa e dell’Oriente di frate Francesco Suriano, missionario e viaggiatore del secolo XV (Siria, Palestina, Arabia, Egitto, Abissinia ecc.). Edito per la prima volta nella sua integrità su due codici della Comunale di Perugia e sul testo Bindoni, Milan, 1900.
Golubovich 1906 = G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano, t. I, (1215-1300), Quaracchi, presso Firenze, 1906.
Golubovich 1913 = G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’oriente Francescano, Tomo II (addenda al Sec. XIII, e Fonti pel Sec. XIV) con tre carte geografiche dell’oriente francescano de’ secoli XIII-XIV, Quaracchi, Florence (near), 1913.
La Civiltà Cattolica 1907 = Review to Golubovich 1906 in La Civiltà Cattolica, 58, 1907, vol. 4, p. 325-328.
Leo XIII 1905 = Leonis XIII Pontificis Maximi Acta, vol. XVIII, Rome, 1905 (reprint Graz, 1971).
Pulignani 1907 = F. Pulignani, review of Golubovich 1906 in Miscellanea Franciscana, 10, 1907, p. 95.
Ranise da Civezza 1857-1895 = M. Ranise da Civezza, Storia universale delle Missioni francescane, 11 vol., Rome-Prato-Florence, 1857-1895.
Sabatier 1894 = P. Sabatier, Vie de S. François d’Assise, Paris, 1894.
Speculum perfectionis 1898 = Speculum perfectionis seu S. Francisci Assisiensis legenda antiquissima, Paris, P. Sabatier, 1898.
Tocco 1907 = F. Tocco, review to Golubovich 1906, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 39, 1907, p. 161.
Secondary sources
Beschin 1927 = I. Beschin, Vita del Servo di Dio P. Bernardino dal Vago da Portogruaro, 2 vol., Treviso, 1927.
Buffon 1997 = G. Buffon, Il tempo di Bernardino da Portogruaro, S. Maria degli Angeli-Assisi, 1997.
Bughetti – Bihl 1956 = B. Bughetti, M. Bihl, P. Girolamo Golubovich O.F.M. (1865-1941). Biografia e Bibliografia, in Studia Orientalia. Miscellanea edited by the Center of Oriental Studies of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Jerusalem, 1956, p. 7-62 (Bughetti is the author of the biographical note at p. 7-22, while Bihl collected Golubovich’s bibliography at p. 23-62).
Cacciotti – Faes de Mottoni 1997 = A. Cacciotti, B. Faes de Mottoni (ed.), Editori di Quracchi 100 anni dopo. Bilancio e prospettive. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale, Roma 29-30 maggio 1995, Rome, 1997.
Dalarun 1996 = J. Dalarun, La Malavventura di Francesco d’Assisi. Per un uso storico delle leggende francescane, Milan, 1996 (French edition: La malaventure de François d’Assise. Pour un usage historique des légendes franciscaines, Paris, 2002).
Dalarun 2007 = J. Dalarun, Vers une résolution de la question franciscaine. La légende ombrienne de Thomas de Celano, Paris, 2007.
De Florentia 1900 = Marianus de Florentia, Tractatus de indulgentia S. Mariae de Portiuncula: accedunt varia documenta inter quae duo sancti Francisci assisiensis opuscola hucusque inedita, et dissertatio de operibus fr. Mariani de Florentia quae a pluribus saeculis delituerant nunc autem feliciter inventa, Paris, 1900.
Faes de Mottoni 2009 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Fedele da Fanna, Antonio Maria da Vicenza e il Breviloquium di Bonaventura: baruffe venete, in A. Horowski (ed.) Religioni et doctrinae. Miscellanea di studi offerti a Bernardino de Armellada in occasione del suo 80° compleanno, Rome, 2009, p. 621-680 (reprinted in Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 59-113).
Faes de Mottoni 2010 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Bernardino da Portogruaro e la sua ristampa dell’Itinerarium mentis in Deum nel 1856, in Studi Francescani, 107, 2010, p. 349-364 (reprinted in Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 47-57).
Faes de Mottoni 2012 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Presa di Roma e cattolici liberali nell’inedito carteggio di tre Minori Riformati veneti: Ambrogio da Castelfranco, Bonifacio da Verona, Fedele da Fanna, in Studi Francescani, 109, 2012, p. 325-362.
Faes de Mottoni 2013 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Fedele da Fanna, una vita di sacrificio e di lavoro per l’edizione dell’Opera omnia di Bonaventura, in Frate Francesco, 79, 2013, p. 139-149 (reprinted in Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 17-27).
Faes de Mottoni 2015 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Fedele da Fanna e il Doctor Seraphicus in Carthaginensia, 31, 2015, p. 1239-1250 (reprinted in Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 151-161).
Faes de Mottoni 2017 = B. Faes de Mottoni, Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Un itinerario tra edizioni, ristampe e traduzioni, Milan, 2017.
Il Collegio San Bonaventura di Quaracchi = Il Collegio San Bonaventura di Quaracchi. Volume commemorativo del Centenario della fondazione (1877-1977), Grottaferrata, 1977.
La “Questione Francescana” = La “Questione Francescana” dal Sabatier ad oggi. Atti del I Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 18-20 ottobre 1973, Società Internazionale di studi francescani, Assisi, 1974.
Meneghin 1940 = V. Meneghin, Il padre Fedele da Fanna dei frati minori 1838-1881, Vicenza, 1940. (Reprinted by B. Faes de Mottoni, Porziuncola, S. Maria degli Angeli-Assisi 2009).
Menestò 2003 = E. Menstò, Le edizioni delle fonti francescane di Paul Sabatier, in Paul Sabatier e gli studi francescani. Atti del XXX Convegno internazionale in occasione del centenario della fondazione della Società internazionale di studi francescani (1902-2002). Assisi, 10-12 ottobre 2002, Spoleto, 2003, p. 251-283.
Miccoli 2003 = G. Miccoli, La « Vie de S. François d’Assise » de Paul Sabatier, in Paul Sabatier e gli studi francescani. Atti del XXX Convegno internazionale in occasione del centenario della fondazione della Società internazionale di studi francescani (1902-2002). Assisi, 10-12 ottobre 2002, Spoleto, 2003, p. 3-30.
Miccoli 2010 = G. Miccoli, Francesco d’Assisi. Memoria, storia e storiografia, Biblioteca Francescana, Milan, 2010.
Pieraccini 2106 = P. Pieraccini, Padre Girolamo Golubovich (1865-1941). L’attività scientifica, il ‘Diario’ e altri documenti inediti tratti dal carteggio personale (1898-1941), Milan, 2016.
Pivato 1981 = S. Pivato, Un pubblicista piagnone e il riformismo religioso, in Fonti e documenti, 10, 1981, p. 417-472.
Poulenc 1977 = J. Poulenc, La « Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’oriente Francescano » (1906-1954), in Il Collegio San Bonaventura di Quaracchi. Volume commemorativo del centenario della fondazione (1877-1977), in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 70, 1977, p. 241-680. (Poulenc’s article is at p. 400-419.)
Sánchez 2001 = V. Sánchez, v. Golubovich Giloramo (al secolo Antonio), in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 57, Rome, 2001, www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/girolamo-golubovich(Dizionario-Biografico)/.
Sella 2008 = P. Sella, Genesi di un periodico scientifico: l’Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 101, 2008, p. 343-362.
Zambarbieri 2013 = A. Zambarbieri, Modernismo cattolico, messaggio francescano, cristianesimo. Note sull’archivio di Paul Sabatier presso l’Università di Urbino, in Paul Sabatier e gli studi francescani. Atti del XXX Convegno internazionale tenuto ad Assisi il 10-12 ottobre 2002, Spoleto, 2003, p. 285-356 (reprinted in Id., Modernismo e modernisti. I. Il movimento, Rome, 2013, p. 39-191).
Notes de bas de page
2 See APS, envelop 15, fasc. 1, Golubovich to Sabatier, Jerusalem, June 22, 1900. Golubovich wrote: « La découverte que vous m’annoncez des manuscrits de frère Mariano est de ces heureuses fortunes après [...] des recherches infructueuses et encourage bien des ferveurs arides. Aussi je comprends la joie intime et profonde que vous avez dû éprouver à cette découverte : je vous en félicite bien sincèrement. » See Marianus de Florentia 1900.
3 « Retourné dans notre chère Terre Sainte, dans cet Orient latin qui a bien sa part glorieuse dans l’histoire, mon but est d’arriver autant que possible à soulever le voile ténébreux qui couvre les premiers pas de fils de Saint François dans cette contrée. » See APS, folder 15, fasc. 1, Golubovich to Sabatier, Jerusalem, June 22, 1900.
4 On the figure of Golubovich see Bughetti – Bihl 1956; Sánchez 2001.
5 Golubovich 1906. Golubovich published the first five volumes of the Biblioteca between 1906 and 1927. On this monumental work see Poulenc 1977.
6 Pieraccini 2016.
7 Sabatier 1894 ; Pieraccini 2016, p. 170-177. Among the vast litterature concerning the “Franciscan question” see La “Questione francescana” 1974; Dalarun 1996; Dalarun 2007.
8 Speculum perfectionis 1898. On Sabatier’s editions of Franciscan sources see Menstò 2003.
9 Miccoli 2002; Miccoli 2010; Pieraccini 2016, p. 61-65.
10 De Santi 1894: « Possibile che [il Sabatier] abbia potuto scrivere un intero libro per dimostrare in sostanza [...] che la regola del 1223, approvata dalla Chiesa, non fu veramente francescana, che anzi fu opera indiretta della Chiesa, la quale tentò così di assimilare a sé il nuovo moto, trasformandolo di un colpo e facendolo deviare compiutamente? »
11 Pieraccini 2016, p. 61.
12 Ibid., p. 72-73.
13 ASP, envelop 23, fasc. 5, Golubovich to Sabatier, Constantinople Pera, S. Maria Draperis, 16 May 1903: « Gli Opuscula che Ella mi promette con tanta bontà, avrà la gentilezza di inviarli al P. Lemmens, il quale poi saprà dove trovarmi dato che mi leveranno da qui. » Leonardo Lemmens was the president of the College S. Bonaventure since 1903. Golubovich and Lemmens were good friends before a series of disagreements in 1906. See Pieraccini, Padre Girolamo Golubovich, p. 96-99. ASP, envelop 27, fasc. 1, Golubovich to Sabatier, Quaracchi, October 18, 1904: « Egregio Sig. Sabatier, Ricevo qui il fascicolo della Biblioth. d. l’école des Chartes inviatomi da Lei con un nobile pensiero. Grazie di tutto cuore! Copiato l’articolo che mi riguarda, conserverò a sua disposizione il fascicolo che forse fa parte della sua collezione ». ASP, envelop 32, fasc. 2, Golubovich to Sabatier, Quaracchi, January 28, 1906: « Stimato Sig. Sabatier, Io ben volentieri gradirei il suo opuscolo sulla questione francescana, per farmi un’idea del pro e contro. In ogni caso, ogni suo scritto, ma specialmente francescano, io lo desidero assai perché ne approfitto. Con sensi di stima, Suo Devoto, P. G. Golubovich. »
14 APS, envelop 43, fasc. 2, Golubovich to Sabatier, Zara, S. Francesco, July 15, 1908: « Il giorno prima di lasciar Firenze lessi anch’io l’articolo dell’Unità contro l’Archivum, anzi contro me. Creda, mio stimato Sabatier, che ne restai profondamente nauseato leggendo quelle bassezze e villanie che ognor più depravano quel misero giornale prossimo a spirare e sparire nel tempo! Eppure quella misera voce avrà forse qualch eco a Roma a danno del povero Archivum minacciato nelle sue fasce ». On the struggle with the Unità Cattolica see Pieraccini 2016, p. 167-177. See also Pivato 1981. On the foundation of the Archivum franciscanum historicum see Sella 2008.
15 ASP, envelop 32, fasc. 1, Golubovich to Sabatier, Quaracchi, January15, 1906: « Stimato Sig. Sabatier, È questa la terza spedizione colla quale Le invio fogli 11-14 della mia Biblioteca, e voglio sperare che tutti i fogli Le siano pervenuti sani e salvi. Completato il volume avrà un esemplare in carta buona. Tanti ossequi a Mr. Chevalier, e mi creda Suo Devoto amico, P. G. Golubovich O.F.M. »
16 « Chacune de ces pages va rendre des services incessants à l’érudition franciscaine, et je puis bien ajouter que le Collège St. Bonaventure, auquel nous devons déjà tant, nous rend un nouveau service qui dépasse encore les autres. » Golubovich 1913, p. 3.
17 On the College St. Bonaventure see Il Collegio San Bonaventura di Quaracchi 1977; Cacciotti – Faes de Mottoni 1997. On the figure and role of Bernardino da Portogruaro see Beschin 1927; Buffon 1997; Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 47-57.
18 Su Fedele da Fanna si veda Meneghin 1940. See also Faes de Mottoni 2010; Faes de Mottoni 2013; Faes de Mottoni 2009; Faes de Mottoni 2012; Faes de Mottoni 2015. All these essays have been reviewed and reprinted in Faes de Mottoni 2017.
19 Leo XIII 1905, p. 188: De studio maiorum disciplinarum satis commonstrant Litterae Nostrae Encyclicae Aeterni Patris, qua sit ingrediendum via. Discedere inconsulte ac temere a sapientia Doctoris angelici, res aliena est a voluntate Nostra eademque plena periculi. Perpetua quidem sunt humanae cogitationis itinera, augeturque accessionibus fere quotidianis scientia rerum ac doctrina: quis autem nolit his rebus sapienter uti, quas recentiorum pariat eruditio et labor? Quin imo adsciscantur hinc libenter quae recta sunt, quae utilia, quae veritati divinitus traditae non repugnantia: sed qui vere philosophari volunt, velle autem potissimum debent religiosi viri, primordia ac fundamenta doctrinae in Thoma Aquinate ponant. Eo neglecto, in tanta ingeniorum licentia, pronum esse in opinionum portenta delabi atque ipsa rationalismi peste sensim afflari, nimium iam res et facta testantur. Quid si eiusmodi aliquid in eos obrepat, quibus officium sit instituere cupidam religiosae professionis iuventutem? Sanctum itaque sit apud omnes beati Francisci alumnos Thomae nomen: vereanturque non sequi ducem, quem bene scripsisse de se Iesu Christus testabatur.
20 Buffon 1997; Faes de Mottoni 2017, p. 18-19.
21 Fedelis da Fana 1874. See Faes de Mottoni 2015.
22 See Pieraccini 2016, p. 60-61. In 1890 Ranise da Civezza and Domenichelli founded the review La Palestina e le rimanenti missioni francescane, which changed its name in 1891 to Le Missioni francescane in Palestina e in altre regioni della terra.
23 Golubovich published several articles and essays on the review founded by Ranise da Civezza and Domenichelli. See Bighetti – Bihl 1956, p. 37-40.
24 Ranise da Civezza 1857-1895.
25 Golubovich 1898.
26 Ibid., p. 1-32.
27 Ibid., p. 28: «Il cadente secolo XIX va meritamente vantato per aver dato alla luce una moltitudine di Opere orientali che, fino alla metà di questo secolo, erano o sepolte nell’oblio degli Archivi, o ignorate da quei che non ne conoscevano il pregio e la non facile lingua. Quindi le edizioni originali, con più o meno esatte traduzioni nelle varie lingue europee, empiono oggi gli scaffali di quasi tutte le biblioteche d’Occidente; e poco ormai ci resta a desiderare dopo tanta mole di Documenti pubblicati dalle varie Accademie d’Europa, specialmente su ciò che riguarda la storia dell’Oriente Cristiano-Latino.»
28 Ibid., p. 29-30: «Possiamo quindi assicurare i dotti d’Europa, e ne dia prove, che la S. Custodia mirava da tempo e mira tuttavia alla pubblicazione non soltanto di alcuni de’ più antichi Documenti arabi, quanto desiderava l’egregio Conte Riant, ma bensì di dare alla luce una completa raccolta di tutti i Documenti che ci restano, come Firmani, Titoli di proprietà, sentenze di tribunali (sia in arabo che in turco, colle rispettive traduzioni), e di quanti altri Documenti orientali, tanto in favor nostro quanto contro i nostri diritti, troviamo emanati da innumerevoli sentenze de’ vari tribunali Musulmani. [...] A facilitare dunque questo nobile intento, i Superiori di Terra Santa disposero, che il ricco archivio Costantinopolitano venisse trasportato ed unito a quest’altro della Procura Generale di Terra Santa nel Convento di S. Salvatore, ove oggi trovasi unito e disposto in trentasei grandi scaffali o cassetti, rinserrati in tre spaziosi armadi tutto foderati di spessa lamina di ferro. – Questi 36 Scaffali, quasi tutti pieni e zeppi, contengono, a nostra estimazione, circa due mila Documenti bellamente distesi l’un sull’altro e collegati in vari gruppi o filze numerate alfabeticamente secondo la materia, il luogo o la questione cui appartiene ciascuno de’ Documenti.»
29 Ibid., p. 30-31: «Ci duole di non esser noi in grado, come avremmo desiderato, di dare ai nostri lettori una minuta descrizione de’ Documenti in esso Archivio contenuti: lavoro questo che richiederebbe assai più tempo di un mese da noi speso unicamente a compilare la presente nostra Serie Cronologica de’ Superiori di Terra Santa, lasciando ad altri, assai più atti di noi, un lavoro si delicato e difficile. Occupati a rovistare il detto Archivio, col solo intento di dare una più completa e corretta Serie de’ nostri Superiori, non pensavamo più ad altro. Ma il Reverendissimo P. Aurelio, non contento di approvare pienamente e di benedire il nostro piccolo lavoro cronologico, c’ingiunse sovrappiù di scegliere alcuni Documenti arabi e pubblicarli in Appendice, non tanto per convalidare que’ da noi citati nel corpo della Serie, quanto per dare agli Orientalisti d’Europa un piccolo saggio del valore de’ Documenti che possediamo, e presentarli per la prima volta al pubblico, qual felice presagio d’una non lontana, crediamo noi, pubblicazione completa di quanti ne racchiude il nostro Archivio.»
30 Golubovich 1900.
31 Golubovich 1900, p. 20-21: « Il testo ... che noi pubblichiamo è l’autografo perugino del Suriano, come si è detto, ed è il secondo testo in ordine all’epoca in cui venne compilato, cioè nel 1514. Il perché demmo la preferenza a questo testo, facilmente se ne avvedrà lo studioso. Il nostro testo è il solo autografo che si conosce del Suriano, e come tale è il più fedele interprete di quanto ei scrisse in quel tempo. Inoltre; dal confronto che ne facemmo cogli altri due testi, questo ci risultò assai più completo e diffuso di quelli, salvo alcuni capitoli del testo Biudoni, ritoccati ed ampliati dal Suriano, i quali noi credemmo bene di inserire in calce al nostro testo, come anche tutte quelle varianti di maggiore e seria importanza o storica o archeologica, che lo stesso autore per brevità omise or nell’uno or nell’altro dei suoi testi. Quindi, colla presente pubblicazione, lo studioso può far conto di possedere tutti e tre i testi del Suriano, se non in integro, certo nelle più importanti varianti, per ciò che riguarda gli altri due testi, cioè il Cod. N. 58, e il testo Bindoni, dando così un’edizione più completa di quanto il Suriano scrisse, aggiunse e corresse nel suo trattato in tre epoche differenti ».
32 See note 27 above.
33 Golubovich 1897, p. 138-140.
34 Pieraccini 2016, p. 96-97.
35 Ibid., p. 97.
36 Ibid.
37 Golubovich 1906, p. 1: «Alle singole fonti storiche, cronologicamente disposte, premetteremo alcuni dati critici sull’epoca e valore de’ rispettivi scrittori che ci parlano del viaggio del Santo in Oriente. Daremo quindi il testo genuino del racconto, che noi cercheremo di illustrare con delle note ed osservazioni opportune, per viepiù far risaltare e coordinare certe particolarità dai più degli storici antichi e moderni trascurate, e da molti ignorate. E dallo studio serio, e dalla disposizione cronologica e critica de’ singoli documenti, risulterà più chiaro il racconto delle primarie fonti contemporanee e del sec. XIII; risulterà quanto l’uno o l’altro degli storici volle o seppe raccontare de visu o per relazione avuta; e risulterà pur chiara per le fonti del sec. XIV la successione, la dipendenza e le relazioni di una fonte coll’altra, sì che la storica verità spunterà nella vera sua luce, spoglia della leggenda che un popolo e un secolo meravigliosi rivestì la fama del più grande eroe del secolo XIII.»
38 The major reviews of the Biblioteca were those of Fierens 1907; La Civiltà Cattolica 1907; Tocco 1907; Pulignani 1907. See also Pieraccini 2016, p. 104-106.
39 Ibid., p. 99-104.
40 Golubovich 2016, p. 91-98.
41 Golubovich 1906, p. 52-53: «In ambedue queste opere, nell’Historia e nella Expositio, il Clareno parla del viaggio del Santo in Oriente. Da lui pel primo abbiamo la testimonianza esplicita che il Santo si recò realmente nella Terra Santa propriamente detta, cioè in Gerusalemme e nei Luoghi Santi. Dopo l’accoglienza avuta dal Soldano ecc., il Clareno dice: 'Soldanus… ipsum et omnes fratres suos libere ad Sepulchrum et absque tributi solutione, accedere posse mandavit'. Poi ricorda come nacquero i turbamenti de’ frati in Italia 'post Sancti Francisci peregrinacionem ad ultra marinas partes ad visitandum loca sancta, et Christi fidem infidelibus praedicandam'; e in ultimo, dopo aver predicato al Soldano, e dopo avergli il Signore manifestati i disordini d’Italia, il Santo 'Sepulchro Domini visitato, festinus ad Christianorum terram reversus est'. Così il Clareno, in un breve racconto, per ben tre volte tocca il viaggio del Santo in Gerusalemme. Lo stesso asserì più tardi il Pisano, ma la sua testimonianza su questo punto si disse tenue, sola, e troppo lontana di tempo, come quegli che scriveva nel 1385, cioè 165 anni dopo; ora invece, data la testimonianza del Clareno, autore suppare, anzi coevo ai fatti (nato c. 1240, vestito c. 1260, e morto più che nonagenario, il 15 giugno 1337), nulla havvi, crediamo, che possa menorare la sua autorità in proposito, e così esplicita. Le regole della sana critica, debbono valere anche per questo fatto particolare tramandatoci dal Clareno, checchè ne sia della sua troppa buona fede che gli fa scorgere dappertutto rivelazioni e prodigi in sostegno del suo troppo fervido zelo per la regolare osservanza.»
42 Fierens 1907, p. 576: « Il faut avoir manié ces longues pages aux caractères si serrés pour apprécier l’immense somme de recherches et de réflexions, que doivent avoir exigée ces nombreuses citations et dissertations critiques au sujet des produits littéraires les plus divers de tout un siècle. »
Auteur
Università degli Studi di Bergamo – riccardo.saccenti@unibg.it
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Le Thermalisme en Toscane à la fin du Moyen Âge
Les bains siennois de la fin du XIIIe siècle au début du XVIe siècle
Didier Boisseuil
2002
Rome et la Révolution française
La théologie politique et la politique du Saint-Siège devant la Révolution française (1789-1799)
Gérard Pelletier
2004
Sainte-Marie-Majeure
Une basilique de Rome dans l’histoire de la ville et de son église (Ve-XIIIe siècle)
Victor Saxer
2001
Offices et papauté (XIVe-XVIIe siècle)
Charges, hommes, destins
Armand Jamme et Olivier Poncet (dir.)
2005
La politique au naturel
Comportement des hommes politiques et représentations publiques en France et en Italie du XIXe au XXIe siècle
Fabrice D’Almeida
2007
La Réforme en France et en Italie
Contacts, comparaisons et contrastes
Philip Benedict, Silvana Seidel Menchi et Alain Tallon (dir.)
2007
Pratiques sociales et politiques judiciaires dans les villes de l’Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge
Jacques Chiffoleau, Claude Gauvard et Andrea Zorzi (dir.)
2007
Souverain et pontife
Recherches prosopographiques sur la Curie Romaine à l’âge de la Restauration (1814-1846)
Philippe Bountry
2002