COLLECTION OF LETTERS
WRITTEN BY
MAGDALENE of CANOSSA
(1774- 1835)
( EPISTOLARY = EP )
UNABRIGDED CRITICAL EDITION
By Emilia Dossi, Canossian Sister
FIRST VOLUME
(EP. I)
F A M I L I A R L E T T E R S
PRESENTATION
The religious and historical importance of the Marchioness, Magdalene of Canossa (1774-1835) and her charitable work is lavishly reflected in the collection of her letters, since these are not an exhibition of her literary style, but tools for the work she undertook in her service of God.
More than what she wrote, her correspondence reveals, first of all, what she lived and suffered in daily life.
In fact I think it is difficult to substitute a collection of letters as the main historical source for an understandingof the spiritual and intimate life of a person.
The importance derives also from the time and place where the letters were written,to the extent that theseare reflected in them.
The centre of influence of the Marchioness of Canossa’s charity is Verona: the Verona of the early nineteenth century, at the end of the reign of the Serenissima, disputed between France and Austria, and finally in the complacent hands of the Emperor of Vienna, together with Veneto and Lombardy,
**************
The unabridged and critical edition of the collection of letters of the Marchioness, Magdalene of Canossa,is presented with simplicity, rigour and gravity, above all with gravity, in its first volume, which consistsof more than four hundred letters written to friends and relatives.
My assignment is to assure the validity of the work and its practical execution, the complete and faithful transcription of the originals as they are,until these come out inprint.
Each letter is provided with all the possible notes: a summary account precedes the text of the letters, in which the essential elements are collected and summed up. Each of these is then accompanied by historical notes regarding people, places and other details, bearing on the matter of the content of each letter.
***************
No one can now say or writesomething serious about Magdalene of Canossa or her work, without reading the text of the collection of her letters attentively. No one will take in hand the volumes of this collection of letters without being fascinated by and taking advantage of the knowledge of the world which surrounded the Marchioness.
I have only to express my warmest congratulationsto the Canossian Institute which has begun this work and has carried it out with great sacrifices. But the result of this really does honour to the Institute.
ILDEFONSO TASSI
Professor of the Faculty of Theology
of the Pont. Univ. Lateranense Principal of the Inst. “Ecclesia Mater”
Rome, 15 August, 1975 Feast of the Assumption.
PRESENTATION
of the
SUPERIOR GENERAL
I am glad to present to the Institute the first volume of thecritical edition of the letters of our Founder, Magdalene of Canossa.
Many were the requests for an authentic, not retouched documentation which can become the patrimony of the Institute.
This volume, gathering all the letters to her friend Durini anda few others to some of her relatives, forms a precious source to know our Mother, her thoughts and the genesis of her work.
It is presented in the form of a critical work, provided with all the necessary notes for the understanding of the text and the references to the times, with the style of the 1800s and the cultural context in which Magdalene lived.
From a careful reading, even if the style of these letters is sometimes difficult to follow, there emerges the figure of a woman captivated by Christ, in search only of his Will, firmly committed to carrying out the divine plans, tender and warm-hearted, but also strong and dynamic and above all, a woman with a tireless activity.
No difficulty can hold her back. She is open to every possibility. Humble in her research, she asks for and accepts help and advice, urged on by her desire for the divine glory and to be useful to her beloved poor.
This is a humble documentation, very much like the Gospels. It quenches our thirst and makes us long to drink some more. To understand Blessed Magdalene of Canossa means to love her, appreciate her and to become enthusiastic about her.
I particularly wishthat the Daughters of Charity may make of this a personal experience.
Sr. Filomena Annoni
Rome, 15 September, Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (1975)
PREFACE
For a long time it was lamented that the Institute of the Canossian Daughters of Charity had in the letters of their Founder, a patrimony which could have given a very remarkable contribution tohistory, sociology and spirituality, but that it was presentedin a way that was incomplete, dissected and practically unusable.
The present Mother General, M. Filomena Annoni and her Councillors, Serafini Antonietta, Maruti Giuseppina, Poletti Rina, Moreno Elena, Valsecchi Maria and Tasca Natalia, decided that one of the members of the Institute should take upon herself this task, even though the work seemed to be immense and not at all easy,nor one that could be completed quickly.
Perhaps the impressions at the beginning of the work seemed to be rather negative. Magdalene of Canossa had always been frail in health, but with the cure of her time, which often consisted of blood-letting, she ended up alternating between an apparent physical well-being and a noticeable organic weakness. When she became Founder,she was compelled to undergo frequent and rather uncomfortable journeys. She felt the needto be helpedby casual secretaries in the drafting of her letters. Often thesewere able to convey her thought, but not her style. So sometimes the letters have a lot of grammatical mistakes.
She could have corrected them, but the nobility of those days did not pay much attention to the style of letter-writing. Moreover the Italian language was not considered for official use .
The political situation, the non-existence of a united Italian state, the alternating foreign regimes and the supremacy of the French language among people of higher classes of society justified this linguistic indifference.
Then as the years went by, with the desire to reflect on the thoughts of the Founder, more than once, attempts were made to make her collection of letters known, but the admiration of the Religious for thevirtues of Magdalene of Canossawas intoleranttowards what seemed to be a laxity of style. It seemed necessary to remedy this by correcting and interpreting, and in the ultimate analysis, of running the risk of unwittingly misinterpreting the content. Finally nothing was done about it.
To give the collection ofthe letters of Magdalene of Canossa an authentic shape therefore meant embarkingon the most elementary needs for a critical work. The first feelingsthat this process provoked in the less critically prepared members of our religious family was a sense of discomfort.
Then there was another perspective. Various biographers of any noteworthy person usually highlight one or more characteristics of the individual. Then, around these, they fill in their details which gradually presents the reality of that person, as complete and often “unique and unrepeatable”.
We werethusused to a series of fixed ideas, which presented the Marchioness of Canossa as “such a” person and none other.
But if we study her letters carefully, we notice that many of these ‘characteristic’ traits remain. But they are better understood, amplified, sometimes even rectified and in certain aspects rediscovered, so that Magdalene of Canossa does not appear only with a halo, but in her psychological complexity, which is perhaps something new.
The span of time during which she writes or makes others write, goes from 1800 to the first months of 1835, a relatively shortperiod. But, if it is seen within the framework in which she lived, it makes your head spin.
Our century which is drawing to an end, is dominated by such a rapid pace of discoveries, inventionsand changes that these upsetand frighten us. Perhaps the speedy convulsions of the history of her times and ours, have the same violent rhythm, even if under different aspects.
In 1795 the French Revolution was a thing of the past. The Convention was replaced by the Directory. Thiswas the starting point of thecampaign of the political fortune of Napoleon. The sudden and violent seizure of the State on 18 Brumaire (name of the second month of the calendar of the French Revolution) takes this officer from Corsica and raises him to be, first emperor, and then, supreme ruler of the whole ofEurope.
The coalitions follow one after another, but Napoleon overcomesall obstacles. Yet by 6 April 1814 he has to acknowledge his total defeat.
The (Italian) peninsula, which for centuries had almost forgotten that it had been part of a kingdom, had felt with him the same waveringbetween hopes and disappointments.
The CisalpineRepublic, the ItalianKingdom, these were vague hopes for better days, when the name Italy could perhaps have meant a stable reality.
But if from 1796 to 1805, the initiatives, at first chaotic and then well marked by such good organizersas Melzi and Prina evoked trust, from 1805 to 1814 the more recent interference of Napoleon impoverished the new Kingdom in a frightful way.
Relationships with the Churchgo beyond the lines of safety, and the Pope himselftogether with many Prelates, is arrested and taken to France.
The negative aspects outweigh, at least in part, the positive ones, which were also not lacking. The Viceroy Eugenio Beauharnais, the only one who could have saved the ItalianKingdom, hands over its territories to Austria with the Convention of Mantua on 23 April 1814.
In her letterof 4 May 1814 to Durini, Magdalene describes the enthusiasm with which the people from Verona – she can only speaks of them – welcome the Austrians, as their longed-for liberators, even though, not many months later, they will notice that the chains are different, but just as if not even heavier.
And from 1815 to 1835 – the year Magdalene dies – the “underground” Italyis in continuous tension. It strives to reach the point when it can feel and be able to define itself as a free and sovereign land, to be the master of its fate, without having to passively accept a foreign rule.
For this ideal some of the youth of the nobility, well off and well educated, die or languish in jail. But under the sun, in the open air, there is another part of this subjugated society that disturbs more than arousesthe pity of the Austrian ruler.
The wars, which have gone on for so many years, have depleted the nobles with their continual land revenues, but they have also reduced the less well-to-do classesto beggary, which ignorance has degraded even further. More than moral consciousness what is disappearing is even human sensitivity.
Many historical and biographical studies of those times emphasise, almost with crudeness, the spread of immorality even among those who should have been witnesses of the merciful Christ. They hardly mention the numberless crowds of generous people who gave up everything: money, activity, the renunciation to their own welfare, so that the sick, the poverty-stricken, the derelict, those fallen in wicked ways, may find subsistence, guidance and support.
And among these, the nobility and priests excelled so that in Verona alone, and almost contemporarily, we could list them, whether they belongedto the “Fratellanza”or not, the founders of various Institutes at the service of those rejected by fate: Leonardi, Sagramoso,Bertoni, Naudet, Mazza, Campostrini, Provolo, Bresciani, Steeb.
Among them is also Magdalene of Canossa who, through her letters, displays this widepanorama of that flowering of charity. But her acquaintances, rather her partnerships in doing good works, are not restricted to Verona alone. They include Venice, Rome, Riminiand more than ever Milan, where all the nobility,men and women, seem to be waiting for her requests to collaborate with her for the multitudes who suffer, without any distinction of their social status.
Here is a collection of many letters, about a thousand of them, which she wrote or made others write, to friends, relatives, Government officials, priests or prelates, which all converged toward a single goal: the realization of her dream of giving herself to God so that – for His sake–the most abandoned people may be taken care of, may live decently and may be prepared, to contribute actively, to the life ahead of them.
Addressed to the projectshe had already achieved, there is another enormous quantity of letters, more than two thousand of them, written to the members of the Houses she has founded, be they aspirants, religious or superiors. She conveys to each of them motherly concern through her guidance regarding discipline and spiritual matters.
On account of their great number, we have decided to divide this collection ofMagdalene’s letters into three parts, published in four volumes.
- FAMILIAR LETTERS: to Durini, brothers and sisters, friends
- OFFICIAL LETTERS: to ecclesial and civil authorities, andalso to relatives or friends for matters of business regarding her various foundations
- LETTERS TO MEMBERS: of the various Houses of the Institute (Part 1 and 2).
With a thorough reading of Volume I: “Familiar Letters”, a desire spontaneously arises: to know even the exterior traits of this woman who has a lot to say also in our times, even as she passes through the various phases of the human spirit. At firstshe is doubtful about her ideal which does not appear well defined. Later she attains a certainmaturity and awareness, that even urges her to impose her directives to historical people who seemed less reachable, such as emperors and popes. She gets the active and immediate collaboration of a numerous crowd: those in government, the nobility and influential professionals at higher levels of society, humble people who knows how to overthrow the defences of the antagonists.
The pictorial reproductions of the time have perhaps do not do full justice tothis person. So it was decided to print even the passport granted to Magdalene for her journeys beyond the confines of the Lombard-Veneto Region. These are only a few elements actually, but they give the reader the freedom to reconstruct the picture of this lady which the imagination (of previous biographers) has partly altered.
**************
The letter which initiates the abovementioned “Correspondence of Magdalene of Canossa” should belong to Volume II, with the replies or requests made by the Marchioness to the various officials,for the realization of her charitable dream. Instead it has been placed before the ‘familiar’ ones because it shows the uncertainty of a person who wants to answer positively to the divine call, but is not yet able to decode the message.
It is the answer that the seventeen-year-old Magdalene gives to the Dominican Father, Domenico Maria Federici from the Convent of the Discalced, where she thinks she is going to realize her dream, but which, on the contrary, seems almost immediately a wrong choice.
This is followed by the 349 letters written by Magdalene of Canossa to the Milanese Lady, Countess Carolina Durini.
**************
Among the scholars, who dealt with this correspondence, there is a remarkable numerical difference. For instance in Piccari, “Sola con Dio solo”, Ancora, Milan 1966, there appear at least an additional 50 letters. This difference is due to the index of the texts, in which there is a duplication of references. The author justifies this since these are references forthe purpose of study.
We also notice that from 1820 to 1827, there is an obvious shortage of letters.
It is a void that cannot be filled, because we were unable to consult the family Archives of the heirs, the researches done at Fabrica Durini, the holiday villa of the Durini family and the Archives of Milan –among which the most important is that of the Malvezzi – which did not give any positive results.
The letters which follow the Correspondence with Durini, include those written to her brother Bonifacio, some to her nephews, nieces and friends of both sexes. Altogether, these are 62 letters, dealing withvarious topics. They do not have an official style and are the only ones we could trace.
***** ***********
To throw light on the relationship of Magdalene of Canossa with each addressee, before each group of letters,there is a short presentation of the addressee himself and the reasons behind that particular correspondence.
The references printed at the foot of each letter, are the result of research done in the Archives of Rome, Milan, Venice, Treviso and in places aroundBrescia. We will give exact information of the source in the notes themselves.
During this research we found some unexpected, but very valid collaboratorssuch as: Count Franco Arese from Milanwhom we casually met at the Trivulzi Archives of Milan, Professor Secchi Claudio Cesare, Director of the ManzoniArchives of the same city, and in Verona Monsignor Pietro Rossetti, an expert inthe history of that capital city.