Pius VII Research Articles

[The stopover of Pope Pius VII in the River Elsa Valley (Tuscany)]

[The stopover of Pope Pius VII in the River Elsa Valley (Tuscany)]

The Church and the Secular State

The history of the relationship between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon Bonaparte, from the political aspect, as well as their personal relationship, is an interesting topic for both historians and novelists, for psychologists, and sociologists; moreover, there is a hagiographic side to their relationship, namely the relationship between persecutor and persecuted. The ensuing text will focus mainly on the key event of the liaison between these two protagonists which was broken due to the signing (and implementation) of the Concordat of 1801. This event — a dry diplomatic act — is most certainly an introduction to a new page in the life of the Church in post–revolutionary Europe and the world. In this respect, tribute should be paid to Pope Pius VII.

Jesuit Art by Mia M. Mochizuki

Reviewed by: Jesuit Art by Mia M. Mochizuki Thomas Worcester S.J. Jesuit Art. By Mia M. Mochizuki. (Leiden: Brill. 2022. Pp. 219. $168.00. ISBN 9789004462519). A volume in the series Brill Research Perspectives in Jesuit Studies, edited by Robert Maryks, this book offers a review and overview of recent work on the history of Jesuit art and to some extent more broadly on Jesuit topics, especially Jesuit culture, from papal approval of the Society of Jesus in 1540 to its suppression in 1773. The author does a good job of showing how even if scholars continue to associate Jesuit art with the Baroque period, they also agree more and more that there is no single Jesuit style: in artistic production as in many other areas, Jesuits responded to varied circumstances and needs. There was no typical kind of Jesuit art. Jesuit art did appeal very frequently to the emotions and to the five senses. Jesuit-produced and/or Jesuit-commissioned works were intended to instruct viewers or hearers in the Catholic faith, and to move them to repent for sin and to embrace a life of virtue, a life nourished by the Church’s sacraments, and by heart-felt imitation of Jesus and the saints. Already in the first decades of the Society of Jesus, Jesuits were spreading out across the globe, and Mochizuki devotes much of her fine discussion and extensive [End Page 201] bibliographies to the global reach of Jesuit art, how it brought European art to the rest of the world, and how Jesuits engaged with and collaborated with the art of other continents though hybridization. If they returned to Europe, Jesuits often brought non-European art back with them, thus fertilizing and broadening the European artistic imagination. A book like this is enhanced by judicious use of images, reproduced clearly and when appropriate and possible in color. The author and the publisher merit praise for a large number of high-quality images. A stunning color photograph of the Church of the Gesù, in Rome (p. 41), is but one example. Another is a detailed photograph (p. 137) of a seventeenth-century Portuguese reliquary that includes a copy of the anonymous Salus Populi Romani, a painting of the Madonna and child, much appreciated by St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, a painting long housed in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore basilica. Though painting, and to a lesser extent architecture, dominate this book, prints and images in printed books do also share in the author’s attention. Many scholars have studied Jerónimo Nadal’s Evangeliae historiae imagines, published in 1593 in Antwerp, a work focused on the life Jesus, and intended as an aid for Jesuits and others in doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. With 153 folio images, the multi-volume work connected biblical texts with images in a way designed to help a kind of prayer in which imagination (“composition”) of place was central, indeed foundational (pp. 78–99). The one disappointment in this book is that it offers almost nothing beyond the late eighteenth century, except for a 2013 image of Pope Francis (p. 14) in prayer before the Salus Populi Romani. Pius VII had restored the Jesuits in 1814, and since the 2014 bicentennial of that seminal event, significant numbers of scholars of Jesuit history have been turning more and more to the period 1814 to the present. What about art history? Mochizuki states that in recent times art historians have moved beyond a singular focus on masterpieces of elite art to a more inclusive study of material and visual cultures (p. 29). Does not such an approach deal with the modern era of the Society of Jesus? If not, why not? Thomas Worcester S.J. Fordham University Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press ...

… nicht so, wie ich es mir erwartete: Der Rom-Aufenthalt Kaiser Franz’ I. von Österreich im Jahre 1819

In February 1819 the Austrian Emperor Francis I left his residence, Vienna, accompanied by his fourth wife Empress Carolina Augusta and a large entourage, for a six-month tour through Italy with stops in Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. This special journey is well documented in Francis I’s personal diaries, written during the trip. It was Rome that dominated the whole journey. Soon after starting the first preparations for travel, it became quite clear that the visit to the Eternal City would be a delicate matter because of long-lasting disputes between the Papal states and the Habsburg monarchy. Originally Emperor Francis I wanted to celebrate the Easter holidays (Settimana Santa) privately, but ultimately it turned into an official state visit with all the concomitant pomp and circumstance. The monarch completed an intense but diverse program, beginning with the Easter liturgy. Typically for his solid character, the religious solemnity did not impress him at all. More precisely, he found these festivities quite odd and disappointing. Following the traditional Grand Tour pattern, the Emperor enjoyed himself by visiting well-known Roman sights. He entertained himself by studying lesser-known places in Rome’s surroundings and liked to discover the local flora and fauna there. In particular, the Roman ancient buildings impressed him deeply. Meeting the Roman elite and aristocracy, Francis I became the centre of attention on many occasions. Furthermore, he also came into contact with exiled monarchs and met other aristocrats who were visiting Rome, e. g. the Duchess of Württemberg, with whom Francis finalized the marriage contract for his younger brother Archduke Joseph. Finally, numerous personal meetings between Pope Pius VII and Emperor Francis I solved religious and political disagreements, which finally lead to a friendlier relationship between Rome and Vienna.

Chemical Characterization of Pope Pius VII Ancient Ecclesiastical Vestment by a Multi-Analytical Approach

This paper presents a multi-analytical investigation performed for the study of the ecclesiastical vestment, with insignia, of Pope Pius VII, painted from the end of the 18th up to the beginning of the 19th century, made of five clothing elements: chasuble, stole, maniple, chalice veil and purse. The aim of this research was to assess the conservation state of the silk and painted backgrounds; to define the manufacturing technique of the work; to localize, if present, the underdrawing and any retouching; to identify the pigments and, where possible, the binders used. A diagnostic protocol was developed based on preliminary investigations through multiband imaging techniques known as MBI (visible, ultraviolet-induced visible luminescence (UVL), near-infrared reflected (NIR) and infrared reflected false color (IRRFC) photography). The images acquired with MBI techniques ensured a more specific choice of spots to be analyzed directly in situ by non-invasive techniques. In particular, portable digital optical microscopy and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were performed. Two fragments detached from the chasuble were also analyzed by microFT-IR, microRaman, scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Application of the multi-analytical protocol enabled the materials used to be characterized and helped to define the peculiar execution technique used. The presence of an underdrawing made with a carbon pencil was highlighted by MBI. Red lakes, iron-based pigments and copper-based pigments have been identified on the painting palette, applied with arabic gum as a binder.

Antonio Rosmini: His Life and Works

Rosmini’s two works, Delle Cinque Piaghe Della Santa Chiesa and La Costituzione La Guistizia Sociale aroused great opposition especially among the Jesuits, and in 1849 these works were placed upon the Index. Rosmini’s philosophical writings embroiled him in theological controversies throughout his lifetime. The controversy around his philosophical works required more than one Papal injunction. But, seeing through neutral and an objective prism, Rosmini’s philosophy attempted to reconcile Catholic theology with modern political and social thought. In an audience with Pope Pius VII, Rosmini was encouraged by the latter to undertake the reform of philosophy. But Rosmini found himself wedged between the obligation to renew Catholic philosophy and finding his work on the Index. Before his death, Rosmini learned that the works in question were proclaimed free from censure by the Congregation of the Index.

The Urge to Exhibit. The Egyptian and Etruscan Museums in the Vatican at the Dawn of a Nationalist Era in Europe (1815-1840)

The Musei Gregoriano Etrusco and Egizio in the Vatican were opened in the 1830s. The auctor intellectualis of these museums was Pius VII and the conceptualisation can be attributed to Antonio Canova who foresaw the Vatican collections as a future ‘Museum of the World’. The author compares these and the museums of Gregory XVI to the Egyptian and Etrurian collections in the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the Cabinet of Antiquities in Leiden. The underlying motives of the founding of these different collections can be explained in terms of these countries’ need for restoration and nationalism. Not surprisingly, the Etruscan finds from the Vatican were believed to form a introduction to the later Greek civilization that showed superiority over that same Greek civilization. Unexpectedly, the Egyptian collections, connected as they were with Roman history, precluded all attempts of appropriation of this culture elsewhere in Europe, most notably in France.

Napoleon, David: The Image Enthroned (review)

Napoleon, David:The Image Enthroned Tony Osborne Napoleon, David: The Image Enthroned (2005) Written and directed by Patric Jean. Distributed by First Run / Icarus Films, www.frif.com 51 minutes. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte endeavored to legitimate his claim to absolute power by stage-managing a magnificent pageant in Notre Dame Cathedral that transmogrified ancient myths, church rituals, and symbols of empire and monarchy. The five-hour ceremony, a disjointed pairing of a secular coronation with a pre-Revolutionary papal anointment, culminated in an act of audacious ritual usurpation: at the moment of consecration, Napoleon trampled papal sanctity and crowned himself Emperor, publicly humiliating Pope Pius VII, whose authority—toppled by the Revolution—Bonaparte had restored specifically for this unprecedented royal anointment. However, as Patric Jean reveals in Napoleon, David: the Image Enthroned (2005), this "surprise" denouement had been prearranged, capping four months of bitter papal negotiations. In return for an opportunity to proselytize in France, the Pope agreed to journey to Paris to play a supplicant role in a public spectacle that placed the Vatican beneath the Emperor of the French People. Looking down from a lavishly draped spectator's box, Jacques-Louis David, the premiere neo-classical painter of the age, sketched this epochal moment and filled his notebooks with impressions of the royal entourage. David set up his studio in the chapel, and guided by mock-ups and clay figurines, completed Napoleon's Coronation in two years. Upon inspecting the finished work—one of four that Napoleon had commissioned to commemorate his ascendancy—the Emperor exclaimed, "It is not a painting. There are people walking in this picture. Life is everywhere. David, I salute you. You have made me a French knight." Resplendent with 150 life-sized figures, this enormous canvas (some 660 square feet), which now hangs in the Louvre, is the organizing motif of Napoleon, David. The Coronation painting is on screen for nearly 15 minutes of Jean's 51-minute film about the ritual machinations of power and image. Jean explores the painting's terrain inch by inch—close enough to reveal canvas dimples beneath the paint. As the camera drinks in characters, colors, and gestures from multiple angles, Jean exposes the Coronation's distortions of fact, both delicate and gross. Originally, David had painted Napoleon crowning himself with a golden laurel wreath. However, to render the Emperor more chivalrous, David recast him crowning a kneeling Josephine. A close-up reveals the after-image of the original composition, a ghostly crown floating above an unsuspecting churchman. David gave 41-year-old Josephine a maiden's rosy, unlined face. Napoleon's mother, who loathed Josephine, snubbed the event, remaining in Rome. On Napoleon's orders, David conspicuously placed her in the main tribune. David had painted a passive Pope, hands in his lap. This displeased Napoleon: "I didn't have him travel this far to sit idly." Hence, for posterity, the pontiff is blessing the moment. Napoleon, David portrays the Emperor as a consummate propagandist who understood the primacy of image in sustaining power. In the 1799 Syrian campaign, Napoleon deserted the sick and wounded and ultimately lost half his army. To squelch rumors, Josephine commissioned Antoine-Jean Gros to reframe history. Thus, in Napoleon at the Penthouse at Jaffa (1804), impervious to infection, like some god, the benevolent leader comforts bubonic plague victims. In David, Napoleon found the perfect image maker, a republican whose allegorical paintings—such as The Oath of the Horatii (1784), commissioned [End Page 80] by Louis XVI—inculcated Roman virtue. In Napoleon, David found the ideal subject, a conqueror with the perfect visage and an imperious flair for grandiosity. "What a fine face he has," David said during a sitting in 1798. "It is pure. It is grand. Like antiquity." Napoleon sought to dissemble naked power in reverence for the past. Thus, his Coronation featured a pastiche of ritual objects and costumes, some invented—such as the ersatz crown of Charlemagne. Napoleon's white silk tunic, embroidered with bees, a symbol of empire, a hive with one leader, was genuinely emblematic of Charlemagne. The red velvet robes, the yards and yards of ermine and gold trim, recalled the...

Souverain et Pontife: Recherches prosopographiques sur la Curie Romaine à l'Âge de la Restauration (1814-1846) (review)

Reviewed by: Souverain et Pontife: Recherches prosopographiques sur la Curie Romaine à l'Âge de la Restauration (1814-1846) Leopold Glueckert O.Carm. Souverain et Pontife: Recherches prosopographiques sur la Curie Romaine à l'Âge de la Restauration (1814-1846). By Philippe Boutry. [Collection de l'École Française de Rome, 300.] (Rome: École Française de Rome. 2002. Pp. xviii, 785.) This hefty volume is not for the casual reader. But it provides a wealth of information for researchers on nearly any subject dealing with the Papacy and the Roman Curia during the Restoration period of the nineteenth century. As the title indicates, the Popes of that period were not only pontiffs, but sovereigns as well, princes of the second largest of the pre-unification Italian states. Boutry's work provides the reader with a highly detailed study of the Papal Government of that age, from the restoration of Pius VII in 1814 until the election of Pius IX in 1846. Because of the idiosyncratic nature of the Papal administration, the regime had both spiritual and political aspects, not always clearly distinguished from one another. One of the most troublesome issues that Pius IX faced was how to acquit his duties to his secular subjects in the Papal States, while still maintaining his position as head of the Universal Church. Boutry sets out to present the details of this intricate organization in two phases. He portrays the Roman Curia in all its labyrinthine complexity, then gives a thumbnail biography of each cleric or layman who held one or more positions in those offices. Although the book appears at first to be just a complicated profile of an outdated bureaucracy, it also provides a fascinating glimpse of a unique ecclesiastical state which has vanished forever. Although [End Page 186] this society disappeared less than two centuries ago, the close blending of Church and State gives it an "other worldly" look to the modern reader. It is also a pleasant surprise that the author maintains a great deal of clarity in such a multifaceted study. In the first section, the author describes the structure of the Papal government, with a capsule explanation of the history and function of each office, as well as a precise, dated list of all those prelates who served in those offices during the Restoration period. This section fills about 300 pages. In addition to the Sacred College of Cardinals, the list includes a large number of Congregations (permanent and temporary), Tribunals, Curial Secretariats, and such institutions as the Pontifical Chapel and Pontifical Family. The catalogue concludes with a detailing of the Legates and Delegates (who were the clerical governors of the civil provinces), and of the thirteen foreign Nunciatures. It is in this first section that the careful reader will reap the most interesting reward. Some of the Congregations (State, Holy Office, Index, and Propaganda Fide) are familiar, but others reflect the secular side of the Papal States. There is a Congregazione di Buon Governo, resulting from a 1588 reform of Sixtus V to provide the communes near Rome with officials who were more interested in efficient government than political careerism. There are departments to oversee water supply and road maintenance, as well as the military administration for the Papal army. There were presidencies to supervise the grain supply and the oil and cooking fats for the city of Rome, which had more hungry mouths than the local farmers could easily feed. The administrative governors of the State's twenty-one provinces were all clerics. The five most important provinces were called Legations, each governed by a Cardinal Legate. The others were Delegations, governed by a Delegate, who had to be a bishop. The Pontifical Chapel included the Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. But there were also the Prince Assistants to the Pontifical Throne, including hereditary members of the Orsini and Colonna families, as well as the ceremonial Senator of Rome. Finally, there were the appointments of Apostolic Preacher, always a Capuchin, the Confessor to the Pontifical Family, always a Servite, and the Sacristan of His Holiness, always an Augustinian Canon. In the second section, the author provides a more detailed biographical portrait of each...

Das Ende der doppelten Schutzherrschaft: Der Heilige Stuhl und die Juden am Ubergang zur Moderne (1775-1870) (review)

Reviewed by: Das Ende der doppelten Schutzherrschaft: Der Heilige Stuhl und die Juden am Übergang zur Moderne (1775–1870) Owen Chadwick Das Ende der doppelten Schutzherrschaft: Der Heilige Stuhl und die Juden am Übergang zur Moderne (1775–1870). By Thomas Brechenmacher. [“Päpste und Papsttum”, Band 32.] (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann. 2004. Pp. viii, 513; 5 plates.) This is a learned book, especially in the Vatican Archives, but also from the Holy Office, which was the principal authority concerned, and the ministry of the interior from the archives of the city of Rome. Its subject is the situation within the Papal States of the Jewish population, which had lived there since the Middle Ages and from Pope Gregory XIII in the Counter-Reformation was ordered into ghettos. Here are a mass of illuminating legal cases. Someone bought property outside the ghetto; could he keep it or rent it out? To travel within Italy one needed a visa; was that really necessary over a short distance? A well-to-do Jewish family employed in the market a nurse or a midwife who in the circumstances was very likely to be a Christian and quite likely to become a beloved member of the Jewish family. Was it permissible for a Christian to work in a Jewish family? Could a Jewish child attend a Christian school? Was it possible for a Jew traveling outside the ghetto to take lodging with a Christian? The strength of this book, apart from its information, is its ability to portray the sense of responsibility in the organs of papal government. They did not realize it, but they were in an impossible situation. It was not that a minority in the State lay under legal disadvantages, for minorities were under disadvantage all over Europe. Protestants, who were a substantial minority in France, were not legally tolerated there till 1787. Roman Catholics suffered various forms of disadvantage over Protestant Europe. But the papal government had accepted that it had a duty toward its Jews, the duty of protection. It simultaneously believed that the State which it ruled was specially a religious State, with an element of sacredness about its being. The more sacred it felt to be, the more likely to misgovern those not of its own religion. The force of this feeling depended both on circumstances and on personages. On circumstances: the revolution in France produced French conquest in Italy and applied doctrines like liberty and equality in the various Italian States. In the northern Papal States, the Legations, there were soon no ghettos and in theory no disabilities for Jewish citizens. The Jewish authorities tried to live with this new atmosphere, and in 1807 a great Sanhedrin in Paris praised the new Pope's policy. During the five years 1809-1814, with more French occupation in Italy, there was nominally more emancipation, but the problem was not solved because these years were too few to persuade the general public to accept Jews as equal members of society. Then Cardinal Consalvi returned to Rome from the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and Pope Pius VII returned from exile in 1815 and over Europe there was return and reaction. This Pope was no rigid reactionary, but popes and their servants [End Page 173] were wrapt in tradition. It was more the circumstances than the persons which brought back ghetto and Jewish disadvantage. Two popes of the nineteenth century helped to sully the reputation of the Papacy in liberal Europe. Neither was Gregory XVI (1831-1846), who won the name of a political reactionary because he needed to cope with liberal revolutions in his northern States. He treated the Jews with moderation and sense and had regular meetings with representatives of the Roman Jews, who thought about him as "tolerant enough." The northern revolution abolished the ghettos and though the revolutions failed those ghettos were never revived with locked and guarded gates. The Bishop of Imola, the future Pope Pius IX, tried to revive the locked ghetto at Lugo, and failed, both through the protests of the Jews who lived there, and from the disagreement of his own vicar and from the refusal of the local lay authority. In Ancona the...

'By Whose Authority?' Newman, Manning and the Magisterium ed. by V. Alan McClelland

book reviews357 Louis University, contrary to then-standard Jesuit practice. Other issues were Jesuit slave holding and the growing controversy between proponents of an urban apostolate and those who wished to retain the emphasis on rural ministry characteristic of the Maryland mission since its foundation. Kenney was party to the overaU startup of the restored Jesuit order as one of the first novices in England, as a scholastic Ln SicUy and as a delegate of the Irish Jesuits to meetings in Rome, where he died. On one occasion during his SiciUan sojourn he accompanied a British naval cruiser on an abortive mission to rescue Pope Pius VII from Napoleon. AU these tales Morrissey has told weU in a readable and valuable book. James Hennesey, SJ. Christ the King Seminary EastAurora, New York 'By WhoseAuthority?'Newman, Manning and the Magisterium. Edited by V Alan McCleUand. (Bath: Downside Abbey Press. 1996. Pp. x, 290. $44.00.) This collection consists of fourteen essays by eight weU-known scholars of nineteenth-century religious history in Great Britain. A couple of the essays are very similar to work previously published, and two of the essays are about lesser-known Tractarians, Robert Wilberforce and T W. AUles. Thus, the title of this volume is a bit misleading, especiaUy since the theme of magisterium is scarcely evident in several of the essays. Manning,WUberforce, andAUies came into the Church partly as a result ofthe Gorham Trial and its verdict that Baptismal Regeneration was an "open" question in the Church of England. The verdict, to my mind, was a fatal blow to the high-church party in the EngUsh Church, and the scandal it generated might help explain the vigorous Ultramontanism of converts like William George Ward and Manning. It is, therefore, a pity that the essay on Wilberforce has no mention of his exceUent book on Erastianism. The Allies essay, as well, would have been so much better if it had included some discussion of Allies' many writings on behalf of the CathoUc cause in England. As noted above, several of the other essays are removed from the professed theme of the volume. The study on Tractarian conversions reflects a wide range ofreading in the conversion narratives, but given the personal nature of such an act as conversion, it might be difficult to suggest a formula. The most famous of these narratives is, of course, Newman's Apologia, and when Father Vincent Blehl suggests (p. 44) that Manning may have attempted to have the book placed on the Index, some documentation ought to have been provided. There was indeed serious friction between Manning and Newman, and some might question the wisdom ofputting both in the same volume. But Manning also said that he would put his name on anything Newman wrote, sight unseen, and did 358book reviews work toward a reconciUation with Newman. Others wiU puzzle at the assertion (p. 29) that the No-Popery agitation tended to diminish after 1850. Some have argued just the opposite, and it would be hard to surpass Pusey's Eirenicon (1865) or Gladstone's Vaticanism (1874) for sheer bUe. The Magisterium adds to the more than 800 books, articles, dissertations, and coUections of essays on Newman written since the centennial of his death in 1990. The various collections have been the result of various Newman "friends"—though several of these coUections are overtly hostUe—inviting friends, pubUshing their work, and sometimes reviewing the results of these convocations. Since most of these meetings are by invitation only, dissent and contrary opinions are excluded, save for a hostile reference or footnote. Since Dr. Peter Benedict Nockles and some ofthe others have made a Uvely career for themselves in chaUenging my own work, I can only invite readers to choose for themselves. On the positive side, graduate students ought to read this volume. The essays are jargon-free, without any innuendo about Newman's modernism or ecumenism , and without any of the shabby attacks that characterize several of the most recent coUections. John R. Griffin University ofSouthern Colorado Death in the Victorian Family. By Pat JaUand. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xii, 464. $45.00.) Victorian England is often perceived in...

As One Sent. Peter Kenney S.J., 1779-1841. His Mission in Ireland and North America by Thomas Morrissey, S.J.

356book reviews enment theology. This Hooke attempted by a "revitalized theology of reUgion" that distinguished him both from the conservative apologists and the antichristian Deists or Atheists. His major importance and contribution lay therefore in the domain oftheological method, its problematics, its typology. In the author's eyes this approach deserves to be taken seriously, despite the fact that the "Modernizer ways" Hooke opened were not followed in the aftermath of the French Revolution that destroyed the world in which they were developed. An important study, therefore, that might have been more forceful in its original state with a scholarly apparatus. The first part, particularly, suffers from a number of approximations, minor errors, and lack of references that, at times, make it dUficult to grasp the nuances of an admittedly complex historical and intellectual context. Some of the judgments and Interpretations could be disputed , as they must have been during the defense of the dissertation. A few recent works have been overlooked, among them Philippe Lefebvre's important Les Pouvoirs de laparole. L'Église etRousseau 1762-1848 (Paris, 1992). Jacques M. Gres-Gayer The Catholic University ofAmerica Late Modem European As One Sent. Peter Kenney SJ., 1 779-1841. His Mission in Ireland and North America. By Thomas Morrissey, SJ. (Washington, D.C: The CathoUc University of America Press; Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 1997. Pp. xii, 529. $54.95.) In his foreword Emmet Larkin welcomes this biography as worthy of the historical importance of its subject as a maker of the modern Irish church. Peter Kenney was a key figure Ui the early nineteenth-century reorganization of the Society ofJesus Ln Ireland and the United States. He was an outstanding orator. Archbishop Murray of Dublin declared that "the only other orator whom I ever thought of comparing him to was Daniel O'ConneU." He moved easUy among the movers and shakers of Irish Catholicism. Murray, Archbishop MacHale of Tuam,"J.K.L." Games Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin), and other bishops were his friends. He was the trusted adviser of Blessed Edmund Rice in the foundation of the Irish Christian Brothers, of Teresa Ball with the Loreto sisters, and of Mary Aikenhead with the Irish Sisters of Charity. He served as superior of the Irish Jesuit mission and later as provincial of the Irish vice-province. He was twice the Jesuit general's official visitor to the missions of Maryland and Missouri and helped put both on a firm footing. He dealt successfully with conflicts between "nativist"American-bornJesuits and the Europeans who had joined them. In Ireland he had been vice-president of Maynooth and he opened Clongowes Wood College. In America he helped set Georgetown CoUege on a steady course and was involved with the problems of getting permission to charge tuition at St. book reviews357 Louis University, contrary to then-standard Jesuit practice. Other issues were Jesuit slave holding and the growing controversy between proponents of an urban apostolate and those who wished to retain the emphasis on rural ministry characteristic of the Maryland mission since its foundation. Kenney was party to the overaU startup of the restored Jesuit order as one of the first novices in England, as a scholastic in SicUy, and as a delegate of the Irish Jesuits to meetings in Rome, where he died. On one occasion during his SicUian sojourn he accompanied a British naval cruiser on an abortive mission to rescue Pope Pius VII from Napoleon. AU these tales Morrissey has told weU in a readable and valuable book. James Hennesey, SJ. Christ the King Seminary EastAurora, New York 'By WhoseAuthority?'Newman, Manning and the Magisterium. Edited by V Alan McCleUand. (Bath: Downside Abbey Press. 1996. Pp. x, 290. $44.00.) This collection consists of fourteen essays by eight weU-known scholars of nineteenth-century religious history in Great Britain. A couple of the essays are very similar to work previously published, and two of the essays are about lesser-known Tractarians, Robert Wilberforce and T. W AUies. Thus, the title of this volume is a bit misleading, especiaUy since the theme of magisterium is scarcely evident in several of the essays. Manning,WUberforce, andAUies came into the Church...

Representations of Pope Pius VII: The First Risorgimento Hero

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, after his epic struggle with Napoleon, Pope Pius VII became an international celebrity and was regarded as a quasi-saint. His visage, which was frequently represented throughout Europe, connoted many, often conflicting, ideas to various factions, including passive resistance to Napoleon, European nationalism in general, moderate liberalism, the Catholic Revival, and preservation of the status quo (monarchies and the principle of the ancien regime). In an examination of the major representations of Pius VII by such artists as David, Camuccini, Wilkie, Pinelli, Minardi, Lawrence, and Canova, the distinctly different flavor of the works by Italian artists is readily apparent. Whereas non-Italian artists tended to represent Pius as either an adversary of Napoleon or as an enlightened patron of the arts, Italian artists produced more rhetorical, politically ideological works in which Pius symbolized the resurgence of Italian civilization. Thus, he became an inspi...

Representations of Pope Pius VII: The First Risorgimento Hero

Representations of Pope Pius VII: The First Risorgimento Hero

A Portrait of Pope Pius VII, by Robert Lefevre, French, 1755-1830

A Portrait of Pope Pius VII, by Robert Lefevre, French, 1755-1830

Lorenzo Respighi

DURING the last forty years the Eternal City has possessed two astronomical observatories.It was at the old building, connected with the Collegio Romano, that Scheiner collected the principal materials for his famous work on the sun, called from its dedication to Prince Orsini, the Duke of Bracciano, “Rosa Ursina”; and though it is with some justice that Delambre speaks disparagingly of its contents as compared with its bulk, the observations of the solar spots show with what care they were made, and they afford the first indication of the now familiar fact that their rotation varies in duration in different heliographical latitudes, though Scheiner's idea seems to have been that it was not the same in the two solar hemispheres. But it was not until 1787 that the present observatory of the Collegio Romano was commenced, nor until 1804 that the general interest felt in the great eclipse of February 11 in that year induced Pope Pius VII. to provide G. Calandrelli with the means of furnishing it with suitable instruments. Another astronomical phenomenon, the appearance of the great comet of 1843, led his son Ignazio Calandrelli, to wish to form a new observatory on the Capitoline Hill; but it was not until five years later that Pius IX. was able, in 1848, to provide him with the means for carrying out this design. Mean-while Calandrelli continued his observations at Bologna, ably assisted by the subject of our notice.