Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Provisional Calendar of St. John Capistran's Correspondence

1989; St. Bonaventure University; Volume: 49; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/frc.1989.0010

1945-9718

Gedeon Gál, Jason M. Miskuly, Ottokar Bonmann,

Byzantine Studies and History

A PROVISIONAL CALENDAR OF ST. JOHN CAPISTRAN'S CORRESPONDENCE* INTRODUCTION St. John Capistran, O.F.M. (1386-1456), as a reformer, inquisitor , promoter of the Observant movement, twice vicar general of the Observant friars, renowned preacher, papal diplomat and crusader, carried on a very extensive correspondence. Between 1418 and 1456 he exchanged letters with popes (Martin V, Eugene IV, Nicholas V and Callistus III), cardinals, bishops, kings, princes and military commanders.1 He was continuously on the move. Between 1418 and 1451 he travelled from one end of Italy to the other, with side trips to Palestine, France and Belgium. While preaching in Austria, Germany , Moravia and Poland from 1451 to 1455, he battled fiercely against the Hussites. During the eighteen months preceding his death on October 23, 1456, he preached and organized a crusade against the Turks in Hungary. It is primarily through his letters that we are able to pinpoint his whereabouts at any given time. As a jurist, Capistran kept careful record of his correspondence .2 A few days before he died at Ilok (Ujlak in Hungarian), he ordered his companions to take all his books and writings back to the Franciscan friary in his hometown of Capistrano " The redactors respectfully dedicate this calendar to the memory of the late Fr. Ottokar Bonmann, O.F.M. (1906-77). 1 The best general survey of Capistran's correspondence and the problems of its preservation and publication is Ottokar Bonmann's "Um das Opus epistolarum des Hl. Johannes Kapistran (1386-1456)," Religion-Wissenschaft-Kultur 8 (1957): 9-23. Italian version: "L'epistolario di S. Giovanni da Capestrano nel corso dei secoli," Studi Francescani 53 (1956): 275-98. 2 The register of Capistran's second vicariate (1449-1452) was known to Luke Wadding (d.1657), but disappeared from the library of St. Isidore's College in Rome around 1700. 256OTTOKAR BONMANN, O.F.M. (L'Aquila). He left with his confreres in Austria, however, the polemical letters he had written against the Hussites so they might be used to refute the errors of that sect. Some of these letters survive in as many as twenty manuscripts.3 Part of the correspondence taken to Capistrano was stored in the reliquary of the Franciscan church in that village. In the course of subsequent centuries, almost half the letters written on paper became so badly damaged by humidity that Bonmann was unable to decipher them, even with the aid of ultraviolet light.4 Fortunately, a large part of the correspondence was copied or published before deterioration set in. Alexander Ricci (d.1497) transcribed fifty letters in his Chronica Ordinis Minorum,5 and Luke Wadding (d.1657) included 140 in vols. 1113 of his Annales Minorum.6 Approximately 100 letters, some of which had already been published by Wadding, are preserved in the so-called Liber epistolarum, produced in the seventeenth century.7 Antonio Sessa of Palermo inserted about 200 of Capistran 's letters—most of them copied from Wadding—in his Opera Omnia Sancti Ioannis a Capistrano, which was compiled in preparation for Capistran's canonization on October 16, 1690.8 Even before Sessa, Wadding had expressed the hope of publishing Capistran's Opera Omnia.9 This project was revived by 1 See the appendix which will follow Part II of this calendar. 4 These letters are currently preserved in four large volumes, labeled A, B, C and D, and glued to hard-paper leaves. Vol. A contains letters 74-172; vol. B, letters 173-286; vol. C, letters 287-375; and vol. D letters 376-482. The following note appears on the fly-leaf of volume A: "Questo carteggio per cura del sottoscritto restauró a sue spese il Ministero dell'Educ. Naz. nella fine del 1939, servendosi dei Monaci Basiliani di Grottaferrata (Roma). — Roma, 6-V-1940. P. Aniceto Chiapini, O.F.M." Letters 1-73, written on pergamene and much better preserved, are kept separately. 5 Cod.73, Archivio di Stato di L'Aquila. 6 Annales Minorum seu Trium Ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum. 3rd ed. 25 vols. (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1931-34). Vols. 11-13. 7 The best copy is found in Rome, Bibl. Naz., cod. 2468 (Gesuitici 339...