The Scots College Rome under Italian Rectors: three student letters

Abstract

Historians of the Scots College in Rome have pictured the period 1773–1798, when the Rectors were Italian secular priests, as a time of student unrest which provided very few priests for work in Scotland. This article, by examining some letters from students of the period to former companions, and evidence in the College Register, suggests a considerably revised picture. The students, although often hostile to their superiors and nostalgic for their ‘ancient happiness’ under Jesuit rule, and convinced that the appointment of a Scottish Rector would solve their problems, are seen to have included some committed young men with a ‘gude conceit of themselves’, concerned for others and for the welfare of their college, and destined to play a larger part than has been previously thought in the work of the Catholic Church in Scotland.