Fortanerius Vassalli
Fortanerius Vassalli was an Italian Franciscan, who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, a cardinal a few weeks before he died. He died on the way to Avignon, he held a wide variety of ecclesiastical posts. He was Patriarch of Grado, he attacked the Manfredi of Faenza. He was Archbishop of Patriarch of Venice, he was appointed Archdeacon of London late in 1361, Prebendary of St. Paul's
Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe
The Basilica of Sant' Apollinare in Classe is an important monument of Byzantine art near Ravenna, Italy. When the UNESCO inscribed eight Ravenna sites on the World Heritage List, it cited this basilica as "an outstanding example of the early Christian basilica in its purity and simplicity of its design and use of space and in the sumptuous nature of its decoration"; the imposing brick structure was erected at the beginning of 6th century by order of Bishop Ursicinus, using money from the Greek banker Iulianus Argentarius. It was located next to a Christian cemetery, quite on top of a pre-existing pagan one, as some of the ancient tombstones were re-used in its construction. Sant'Apollinare in Classe was consecrated on May 9, 549 by Bishop Maximian and dedicated to Saint Apollinaris, first bishop of Ravenna and Classe; the Basilica is thus contemporary with the Basilica of San Vitale of Ravenna. In 856, the relics of Saint Apollinaris were transferred from the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe to the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna.
The exterior has a large façade with two simple uprights and one mullioned window with three openings. The narthex and building to the right of the entry are additions, as is the fine 9th century round bell tower with mullioned windows; the church is on two aisles. An ancient altar in the mid of the nave covers the place of the saint's martyrdom; the church ends with a polygonal apse, sided by two chapels with apses. The nave contains 24 columns of Greek marble; the carved capitals of the columns depict acanthus leaves, but unlike most such carvings the leaves appear twisted as if being buffeted by the wind. The faded frescos depict some of the archbishops of Ravenna, date to the 18th century; the lateral walls are bare, but were once covered with gorgeous mosaics. These were demolished by the Venetians in 1449, although they left the mosaic decoration in the apse and on the triumphal arch, the church's most striking features; the upper section of the triumphal arch depicts, inside a medallion, Christ.
At the sides, within a sea of clouds, are the winged symbols of the four Evangelists: the Eagle, the Winged Man, the Lion, the Calf. The lower section has, at its two edges, the walls showing precious gems from which twelve lambs exit; the sides of the arch show two palms. The decoration of the apse date to the 6th century, can be divided into two parts: in the upper one, a large disc encloses a starry sky in, a cross with gems and the face of Christ. Over the cross is a hand protruding from the clouds, the theme of the Hand of God. At the side of the disc are the figures of Elijah and Moses; the three lambs in the lower sector symbolize the saints Peter and John, alluding the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor. in the lower one is a green valley with rocks, bush and birds. In the middle is the figure of Saint Apollinaris, portrayed in the act of praying God to give grace to his faithful, symbolized by twelve white lambs. In the spaces between the windows are the four bishops who founded the main basilicas in Ravenna: Ursicinus, Ursus and Ecclesius, all with a book in a hand.
At the sides of the apse are two 7th century panels: the left one, much restored, portrays the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV granting privileges to an envoy of the Ravenna's archbishop. In the right panel are Abraham and Melchisedek around an altar, on which they offer a sacrifice to God; the choice of the subject is linked to the fight against Arianism, as it restates the both divine and human nature of Christ, the former negated by the Arians. In addition, the representation of Apollinaris among the apostles was a legitimation to Maximian as the first bishop of a diocese directly related to the early followers of Jesus, being Apollinaris, according to the legend, a disciple of St. Peter; the Basilica's walls are lined by numerous sarcophagi from different centuries. They attest the changes of style from the 5th to the 8th centuries: from reliefs with human figures of the Roman sarcophagi, to Byzantine symbolism, to the increasing abstraction and simplification of these symbologies. Basilica of San Vitale, another 6th-century church in Ravenna famous for its Justinian mosaic.
Bishop Maximianus of Ravenna, credited with building the Basilica Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century, no. 505, 1979, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ISBN 9780870991790 Media related to Sant'Apollinare in Classe at Wikimedia Commons Photos Ravenna Tourism site
Pietro Aldobrandini
Pietro Aldobrandini was an Italian cardinal and patron of the arts. He was made a cardinal in 1593 by his uncle, Pope Clement VIII, he took over the duchy of Ferrara in 1598. He became archbishop of Ravenna in 1604, he bought the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, spent large sums on this and other buildings such as the Villa Aldobrandini. He was a patron of Torquato Tasso, of Girolamo Frescobaldi. Pietro Cardinal Aldobrandini at Catholic-Hierarchy Biographical Dictionary of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bologna
The Archdiocese of Bologna is a metropolitan archbishopric of the Catholic Church in northern Italy. The cathedra is in the cathedral church of San Pietro in Bologna; the current Archbishop is Matteo Zuppi, installed in 2015. The archdiocese has the following suffragan dioceses: the Diocese of Imola, the Diocese of Faenza-Modigliana, the Archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio. A detailed list of the various governments that have ruled Bologna is provided by Giovanni Battista Guidicini. In 1527, the Holy See became the absolute ruler of Bologna, was represented by a Legatus a latere and a Vice-Legate. On 22 February 1530, Pope Clement VII crowned the Emperor Charles V as Holy Roman Empire, the last such event in history; the bishopric of Bologna was founded in the 3rd century. It was a suffragan of the diocese of Milan, but at the end of the 5th century became a suffragan of Ravenna; because of the schism of the Antipope Clement III, Pope Paschal II, at the Council of Guastalla in October 1106, released Bologna from obedience to the church of Ravenna, made it directly dependent on the papal See.
Bishop Victor, enjoyed the privilege of being consecrated a bishop by Pope Paschal II in 1108. But when he came to die in 1129, the Bolognese resisted the demands of Archbishop Gualterius of Ravenna that he should consecrate the newly elected Bishop Henricus; the papal Legate, Gerardus of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, heard the dispute in his court on 13 April 1130, Archbishop Gualterius established his right to consecrate the bishops of Bologna. In 973, Bishop Albertus participated in a provincial synod of the ecclesiastical province of Ravenna, presided over by Archbishop Honestus, held in the village of Marzalia in the diocese of Parma. Bishop Albertus complained to the assembly that his diocese was so poor that he was not able to sustain his clergy or his churches, on top of which Bishop Ubertus of Parma had taken control of certain territories near Parma which were the property of the diocese of Bologna. Ubertus replied; the Archbishop and bishops agreed with the Bishop of Parma, chastised Albertus for raising the subject in the synod, ordering both parties not to raise the matter again.
A major earthquake struck Bologna on Christmas Day, 1222, causing the vaults of the cathedral ceiling to collapse. Another severe earthquake occurred on 21 April centered at Cremona. In the winter of 1410, Pope Alexander V and the Papal Court arrived in Bologna, on their way from Pistoria toward Rome, which had fallen to papal forces on 1 January 1410. Alexander died, while he was still in Bologna, on 4 May, waiting for the pacification of Rome and its neighborhood. A Conclave therefore took place in Bologna, beginning on 14 May and concluding on 17 May with the election of Cardinal Baldassare Cossa, the Legate of Bologna, who took the name John XXIII. Pope Leo X visited Bologna from 8 December 1515 through 18 February 1516, where he held negotiations with King Francis I of France, their talks resulted in the abrogation of the French Pragmatic Sanction and the conclusion of a new Concordat between the Papacy and France. In 1568, as one of his efforts to implement the decrees of the Council of Trent, Bishop Gabriele Paleotti established the diocesan seminary of Bologna.
In 1582 the diocese of Bologna was raised to the status of a metropolitan archbishopric by Pope Gregory XIII in the bull Universi orbis of 10 December 1582, which removed it from the ecclesiastical province of Ravenna. It was assigned as the diocese of Imola. In a decree of the Vatican Sacred Congregation of Bishops of 8 December 1976, a new arrangement of certain dioceses in ecclesiastical provinces was announced. Nine of the early bishops have been recognized as saints in popular culture, three other bishops and three archbishops have been elected to the Papacy as Pope Innocent VII, Pope Nicholas V, Pope Julius II, Pope Gregory XV, Pope Benedict XIV and Pope Benedict XV. Bishop Adalfredus suffered many sleepless nights, worried about the number and behavior of his Canons and their hangers-on. Exasperated, he acted. On 16 August 1045, citing decrees of the holy Fathers that in each Church clerics should be ordained in accordance with the ability of that church to support those clerics ministering at the altar, he issued a decree in which he limited the number of Canons in the Cathedral of Bologna to fifty.
Mentioned are the Archpriest, the Cantor, the Archdeacon. To support them, he granted them three parts of the ten percent tithe, the episcopal income; the Canons of the Cathedral Chapter were, according to information laid before the pope, interfering with the jurisdiction of the Archdeacon of Bologna. On 28 March 1219, Pope Honorius III wrote to the clergy and people to support the Archdeacon against the rebellion of the Canons. So that the Church of Bologna might not be despoiled of its rights if there were no person in the Chapter to have oversight of it, on 22 April 1219 Honorius granted the Archdeacons of Bologna full and free administration and temporal, to correct and reform and decide matters. In separate letters, the Pope warned the Chapter and the Bishop not to interfere with the legitimate and canonical rights and jurisdiction of the Archdeacon. In 1687, the Chapter of the Cathedral of S. Peter was composed of sixteen Canons. In 1842 there were eignteen Canons
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw light on all aspects of Roman history; the Corpus continues to be updated in new supplements. CIL refers to the organization within the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities responsible for collecting data on and publishing the Latin inscriptions, it was founded in 1853 by Theodor Mommsen and is the first and major organization aiming at a comprehensive survey. The CIL collects all Latin inscriptions from the whole territory of the Roman Empire, ordering them geographically and systematically; the earlier volumes collected and published authoritative versions of all inscriptions known at the time—most of these had been published in a wide range of publications. The descriptions include images of the original inscription if available, drawings showing the letters in their original size and position, an interpretation reconstructing abbreviations and missing words, along with discussion of issues and problems.
The language of the CIL is Latin. In 1847 a committee was created in Berlin with the aim of publishing an organized collection of Latin inscriptions, described piecemeal by hundreds of scholars over the preceding centuries; the leading figure of this committee was Theodor Mommsen. Much of the work involved personal inspections of sites and monuments in an attempt to replicate the original as much as possible. In those cases where a cited inscription could no longer be found, the authors tried to get an accurate reading by comparing the versions of the published inscription in the works of previous authors who had seen the original; the first volume appeared in 1853. The CIL presently consists of 17 volumes in about 70 parts, recording 180,000 inscriptions. Thirteen supplementary volumes have special indices; the first volume, in two sections, covered the oldest inscriptions, to the end of the Roman Republic. The other volumes cover other topics. Volume XVII, for instance, is devoted to milestones.
A volume XVIII is planned. A two-volume "Index of Numbers", correlating inscription numbers with volume numbers, was published in 2003; the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften continues to update and reprint the CIL. Epigraphy Inscriptiones Graecae Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae Prosopographia Imperii Romani "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum". Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 13 November 2009. "CIL volumes". Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 19 December 2009. "English translations of selected inscriptions from CIL". Attalus.org. Retrieved 8 October 2012
Guido Maria Conforti
Saint Guido Maria Conforti was a Roman Catholic Italian archbishop and was the founder of the Xaverian Missionary Fathers on 3 December 1895. He was known to make frequent visits to his parishes and worked to support the religious education and religious involvement among the youth. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1996 and he was canonized in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI. Guido Maria Conforti was born in Casalora di Ravadese, in 1865, the eighth of ten children of Rinaldo Conforti and Antonia Adorni, he attended elementary school from 1872 and each day on his way to the school he would stop by the church of Santa Maria della Pace, his parish church, where he used to have conversations with the crucified Jesus Christ. This was, he recalled: "I looked at Him and He looked at me and seemed to say so many things". He enrolled in the seminary in Parma at the age of 17 in November 1876, he began reading the works of Saint Francis Xavier which inspired in him a desire to be a missionary, but his requests to join the Society of Jesus or the Salesians of Saint John Bosco were denied.
At the time, the rector of the seminary was future cardinal and Blessed. Their relationship became a friendship, he was ordained to the priesthood on 22 September 1888 in Parma. After his ordination, Conforti served as a professor at the seminary where he studied and he became the vice-rector of the seminary, he became the Vicar-General of Parma on 7 March 1896. Conforti established the Xaverian Missionaries on 3 December 1895 and it received the approval of Pope Leo XIII. At this time, in 1899, he sent the first missionaries to China. Leo XIII appointed him as the Archbishop of Ravenna on 9 June 1902 following the death of Cardinal Agostino Gaetano Riboldi, he submitted his resignation to a reluctant Pope Pius X due to his ill health in October 1904; the next month, on 14 November, he was made both the Coadjutor Bishop of Parma and the Titular Archbishop of Stauropolis. In 1907 he became the Bishop of Parma, he was known to travel to all parishes via horseback or other means to inspect his new archdiocese.
Conforti is said to have provided the initiative behind Pope Benedict XV's encyclical, Maximum illud, of 30 November 1919. That document is called the Magna Carta of modern Catholic missionary work, he travelled to China in 1928 via Marseille to visit the Xaverian Missionaries working there. He met with his contacts to inspect their work. Conforti returned to Parma soon after his visit to China and fell ill in October 1931, he died a month and he was interred in Parma. His tomb was relocated in 1942 and once more in 1996; the cause of sainthood was introduced in Parma on 29 May 1959 under Pope John XXIII and the work done on a diocesan level culminated on 11 February 1982 with Conforti being declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II on account of his life of heroic virtue. A tribunal for a miracle needed for his beatification opened and closed in 1993 and John Paul II recognized the healing as a miracle on 6 April 1995, it led to his beatification on 17 March 1996. A second tribunal for a miracle needed for canonization opened on 4 October 2005 and closed on 16 November 2005 and Pope Benedict XVI signed the decree for the miracle on 10 December 2010, leading to his canonization on 23 October 2011.
Augusto, Luca. Guido Maria Conforti. Vescovo e missionario. Milan: Paoline Editoriale Libri. ISBN 978-88-315-3964-7. Botti, Ferruccio. Mons. Guido Maria Conforti: note storico-critiche nel centenario della nascita. Quaderni di Vita nuova, 6. Parma: Scuola tipografica benedettina. Conforti, Paolo. La casa del vescovo: San Guido Maria Conforti: storia della famiglia. Parma: Silva editore. ISBN 978-88-7765-190-7. Etaba, Roger Onomo. Les missionnaires xavériens au Cameroun. Yaoundé: Éditions CLÉ. ISBN 978-9956-0-9108-9. Manfredi, Angelo. Guido Maria Conforti. Bologna: EMI. ISBN 978-88-307-1892-0. Teodori, Franco. Beato Guido Maria Conforti: omelie e lettere: giubileo costantiniano, primo congresso catechistico, settimana catechistica: 1913. Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Hagiography Circle Saints SQPN Catholic Hierarchy Xaverians Missionaries
Giulio della Rovere
Not to be confused with Giuliano della Rovere, who became Pope Julius II. Giulio della Rovere known as Giulio Feltrio della Rovere was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church and a member of the della Rovere family. Della Rovere was the second son of Francesco Maria I della Rovere and Eleonora Gonzaga and the younger brother of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. Della Rovere was elevated to cardinal in 1548 at the age of 13, he had two illegitimate sons: Giuliano. Both were legitimised, as were their children, by Pope Pius V in 1572 and Ippolito was made Marchese di San Lorenzo. While bishop, he was the principal consecrator of principal consecrator of: Giovanni Oliva, Archbishop of Chieti.
