Oratory of Divine Love

The Company of Divine Love (more familiarly, The Oratory of Divine Love) was a leading manifestation of a movement within the Catholic Church dating from the end of the 15th century and continuing into the 16th century, whereby men (predominantly lay, but joined by priests and prelates) banded together in small local confraternities with the aim of uniting in spiritual exercises and religious devotions and of undertaking corporal works of mercy, in particular the founding of hospitals for the sick and incurable.

Founded by Ettore Vergnazza in Genoa in 1497, the Oratory of Divine Love spread to Rome and Naples through his initiative, and the movement also took root in numerous other Italian cities. The Roman confraternity received papal approbation from Leo X probably in 1516 (the founding documents are missing) but it was active from 1515 to 1524 on which latter date four prominent members founded the Theatine Order. The activities of the confraternity were anticipated and continued by similar groups at Rome such as the Società di S. Maria del Popolo e di San Giacomo in Augusta (1508-1535) and the Confraternity of Charity or of S. Jerome (1520-1536) all of which obtained, for their statutes and for the statutes of the charitable institutions they founded, canonical recognition together with papal approval and encouragement most notably in the form of indulgences granted to those who assisted their work.^[1]

The Oratory was a seedbed of spiritual and moral reform within the Catholic Church which preceded the rise of Protestantism and later, when the Protestant Reformation was in full spate, gave impetus to the Counter-Reformation.

Origin of the movement

In the late 1490's the Italian peninsula was devastated by widespread social distress caused by French armies of invasion under King Charles VIII and his successor King Louis XII, and by novel health emergencies attributed to the invaders (in particular, out-breaks of morbus Gallicus traditionally identified as syphilis),^[2] It was in response to this distress and in reaction to the worldliness of many clergy and prelates, that groups of Catholic laymen and clergy banded together in small confraternities committed to living out their Christian faith through spiritual and devotional exercises united to works of charity, especially the founding and operating of hospitals for the sick and incurable, and asylums for children, and for repentant prostitutes.^[3] Among the men instrumental in forming the Divine Love movement, which originated in Genoa in 1497, was Ettore Vernazza who was inspired by the teaching and example of the Genoese mystic St. Caterina Fieschi Adorno. It was through the initiative of Vernazza that the movement established itself in Rome and Naples.^[4] Similar movements sprang up in other Italian cities including Brescia, Bologna, Savona, Venice, Verona, Vicenza and, under the patronage of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, Florence where it was formally established on 1 January 1519.^[5]

The Roman Oratory of Divine Love

Vernazza was in Rome between 1513 and 1514 to obtain papal approbation for the Company (or Confraternity) of Divine Love in Genoa (secured by a bull issued by Julius II and confirmed by Leo X on 19 March 1513, a few days after his election as pope), but he stayed on for some months longer and returned to Rome in spring 1515 in order to stimulate interest in the aims of movement. He succeeded in attracting leading members of the Roman Curia (among them, Bandinello Sauli, created cardinal in 1511 and in 1517 disgraced and restored to favour) and prominent Genoese merchants such as Girolamo Gentile, and in 1516 Leo X gave papal approbation to the establishment of the Confraternity in Rome,^[6] where the confraternity met at the church of S. Dorotea a Trastevere located in an area where many Genoese lived.^[7] The main charitable institution administered by the Oratory in Rome was the hospital of San Giacomo in Augusta degli Incurabili, the largest and wealthiest of it kind, and still in existence.^[8]

Legacy

The guiding principles of the movement attracted devout laymen (particularly nobles and rich merchants) as well as priests and prelates many of whom proved themselves able to play a decisive role in promoting reform within the Catholic Church in the 16th century and in defending it against the challenge of Protestantism. Among the most notable of these were four members of the movement who, in 1524, together founded the Theatine Order, one of the new institutes of clerks regular that characterise the Catholic Counter-Reformation, namely: Saint Cajetan (Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene), Paolo Consiglieri, Bonifacio da Colle, and Giovanni Pietro Carafa (afterwards Pope Paul IV).^[9] Other leading figures connected in one way or another with the Oratory of Divine Love included Gasparo Contarini, a lay diplomat appointed cardinal by Pope Paul III and only subsequently inducted into holy orders, and the Englishman Cardinal Reginald Pole.^[10]

References

^ See, for example, Leo X: motu proprio Salvatoris nostri, 19 July 1515, approving the confraternity of S. Maria del Popolo e di S. Giacomo (Fois, p.92).
^ As is now generally accepted, the disease was introduced into Europe from the Americas following the discoveries of Columbus. See Baker and Armelagos, "The Origin and Antiquity of Syphilis: Paleopathological Diagnosis and Interpretation [and Comments and Reply] ", Current Anthropology, Vol. 29, No. 5 (Dec., 1988), pp. 703-737 , and Rothschild, Bruce M., "History of Syphilis", Clinical Infectious Diseases, Vol. 40, No. 10 (May 15, 2005), pp. 1454-1463.
^ Fois, pp.83f., 106; Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge (CUP, 1989), pp.6f. The "incurable" in this context meant those suffering from syphilis, a literary name which only slowly established currency. For the competing views on the vectors of the disease, see Gary Ferguson's review in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 638-641 (at pp.638f.), of Arrizabalaga, Henderson and French, The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe, New Haven (Yale University Press, 1997).
^ Fois, pp.86, 94. Vernazza, a notary, was the father of Battistina Vernazza whose godmother St. Caterina Fieschi Adorno was.
^ Daniela Matteucci, "Gli Ospizi di S. Maria Maddalena e S. Marta", in Bonella, Anna Lisa and Franca Fedeli Bernardini, L'Ospedale dei Pazzi di Roma dai papi al '900, Edizioni Dedalo (Roma, 1994) vol.2, p.331.; Armstrong, Alastair, The European Revolution 1500-1610, Heinemann (Oxford, 2002), pp.75f.; and (for a short list of cities) Black, Christopher in Black and Gravestock (eds), Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas, Ashgate Publishing (Aldershot, Hants, 2006), p.20.
^ Fois, pp.90f.
^ Daniela Matteucci, "Gli Ospizi di S. Maria Maddalena e S. Marta", in Bonella, Anna Lisa and Franca Fedeli Bernardini, L'Ospedale dei Pazzi di Roma dai papi al '900, Edizioni Dedalo (Roma, 1994) vol.2, p.331.
^ See Henderson, John, The Renaissance Hospital, Yale University Press (2006), p.98. For the continued existence of the hospital, see Martini, Antonio, "Origine e sviluppo delle confraternite", La Ricerca Folklorica, No. 52, (La devozione dei laici: Confraternite di Roma e del Lazio dal Medioevo ad oggi) (Oct., 2005), pp. 5-13, at p.11.
^ Campanelli, Marcella, "L'Ordine dei Teatini alla Metà del XVII Secolo secondo L'Inquiesta Innocenziana", in Campanelli, Marcella (ed.), I Theatini, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura (Roma, 1987), pp.3f. The Order's Rule was approved by Clement VII in the brief Exponi nobis dated 24 June 1524 and the Order was granted canonical status by a second brief of the pope dated 7 March 1533: see Campanelli, ibid., pp.4-6.
^ Cantimori, Delio, "Italy and the Papacy", in Elton, G.R. (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. II Cambridge (C.U.P., 2nd edn, 1990), pp.288ff. at p.295.

Sources

Solfaroli Camillocci, Daniela , I devoti della carità: Le confraternite del Divino Amore nell'Italia del primo Cinquecento, Istituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici, il pensiero a la storia 98 (Milan, 2002).
Fois, Mario SJ, "La risposta confraternale alle emergencie sanitarie e sociali della prima metà del cinquecentro romano: le confraternite del Divino Amore e di S. Girolamo della Carità" in Benítez, Josep M. (ed.), Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 41 (2003), Faculty of Ecclesiastical History at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Roma, 2004), at pp.83-108.

[1] See, for example, Leo X: motu proprio Salvatoris nostri, 19 July 1515, approving the confraternity of S. Maria del Popolo e di S. Giacomo (Fois, p.92).

[2] As is now generally accepted, the disease was introduced into Europe from the Americas following the discoveries of Columbus. See Baker and Armelagos, "The Origin and Antiquity of Syphilis: Paleopathological Diagnosis and Interpretation [and Comments and Reply] ", Current Anthropology, Vol. 29, No. 5 (Dec., 1988), pp. 703-737 , and Rothschild, Bruce M., "History of Syphilis", Clinical Infectious Diseases, Vol. 40, No. 10 (May 15, 2005), pp. 1454-1463.

[3] Fois, pp.83f., 106; Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge (CUP, 1989), pp.6f. The "incurable" in this context meant those suffering from syphilis, a literary name which only slowly established currency. For the competing views on the vectors of the disease, see Gary Ferguson's review in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 638-641 (at pp.638f.), of Arrizabalaga, Henderson and French, The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe, New Haven (Yale University Press, 1997).

[4] Fois, pp.86, 94. Vernazza, a notary, was the father of Battistina Vernazza whose godmother St. Caterina Fieschi Adorno was.

[5] Daniela Matteucci, "Gli Ospizi di S. Maria Maddalena e S. Marta", in Bonella, Anna Lisa and Franca Fedeli Bernardini, L'Ospedale dei Pazzi di Roma dai papi al '900, Edizioni Dedalo (Roma, 1994) vol.2, p.331.; Armstrong, Alastair, The European Revolution 1500-1610, Heinemann (Oxford, 2002), pp.75f.; and (for a short list of cities) Black, Christopher in Black and Gravestock (eds), Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas, Ashgate Publishing (Aldershot, Hants, 2006), p.20.

[6] Fois, pp.90f.

[7] Daniela Matteucci, "Gli Ospizi di S. Maria Maddalena e S. Marta", in Bonella, Anna Lisa and Franca Fedeli Bernardini, L'Ospedale dei Pazzi di Roma dai papi al '900, Edizioni Dedalo (Roma, 1994) vol.2, p.331.

[8] See Henderson, John, The Renaissance Hospital, Yale University Press (2006), p.98. For the continued existence of the hospital, see Martini, Antonio, "Origine e sviluppo delle confraternite", La Ricerca Folklorica, No. 52, (La devozione dei laici: Confraternite di Roma e del Lazio dal Medioevo ad oggi) (Oct., 2005), pp. 5-13, at p.11.

[9] Campanelli, Marcella, "L'Ordine dei Teatini alla Metà del XVII Secolo secondo L'Inquiesta Innocenziana", in Campanelli, Marcella (ed.), I Theatini, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura (Roma, 1987), pp.3f. The Order's Rule was approved by Clement VII in the brief Exponi nobis dated 24 June 1524 and the Order was granted canonical status by a second brief of the pope dated 7 March 1533: see Campanelli, ibid., pp.4-6.

[10] Cantimori, Delio, "Italy and the Papacy", in Elton, G.R. (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, vol. II Cambridge (C.U.P., 2nd edn, 1990), pp.288ff. at p.295.

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