Rewiring the Circuit: Campi's Reformation

REWIRING THE CIRCUIT: CAMPIS REFORMATION Review Article by Dermot Fenlon Liturgy, Sanctity andHistory in Tridentine Italy:Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation ofthe Particular. By Simon Ditchfield. [Cambridge Studies in ItaUan History and Culture.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xvi, 397. $79.95.) Here is a book which throws singular new light on the CathoUc Reformation and the cult of the saints in early modern Italy. FoUowing in the wake of scholars like John d' Amico and Charles Stinger, Ditchfield examines the widespread concern ofhumanists like Raffaele Maffei,at the beginning ofthe sixteenth century , with the "many and various detaUs in saints' lives and other commentaries which are to be considered apocryphal." This concern was met Ui the work of Cardinal Quiñones for the reform of the breviary. In the Quiñones breviary, Scripture, hymnody, and hagiography were combined in a way that was designed to supply a minimal basis of priestly formation. The principles underlying its conception were adopted by Cardinal Carafa and the Theatines, and passed in a straight Une into the reforms of the Council of Trent. Maffei's plea for what Ditchfield caUs "a textuaUy chaste liturgy" thus found fruition in the papal bull Quod a Nobis of 1568. Part One of Ditchfield's book explores the reception of this decree in the locaUties. Between Rome and the Italian dioceses there immediately developed a process of feedback and arbitration, as bishops like Paleotti andValier found themselves under pressure to retain local saints and traditions. How much, if anything, might be conserved of local liturgies which lacked the two-hundredyear test appUed by Quod a Nobis? First Cardinal SMeto, then, after 1588 the newly estabUshed Congregation ofRites,undertook the reconsideration oflocal traditions. Thus the creation of the Congregation should be seen, according to Ditchfield, as "a papal response to the demands of a frequently embattled episcopate " rather than "an interfering watchdog intent on imposing a . . . standardizing poUcy that did not take local needs and priorities into account." Standardization occurred, but Ditchfield prefers the expression 'regularization.' Just as in the study of secular government "simpUstic views of absolute monar275 276REWIRING THE CIRCUIT: CAMPI'S REFORMAnON chy have long since been abandoned," so should they be in matters of ecclesiastical government. "Things were no different in the religious sphere." Ditchfield appUes this insight to a reconsideration of the theses about Rome and the local churches advanced by scholars like Prodi and Alberigo in the past forty years. The result is a compelling new assessment verified by Ditchfield's discovery in the Ubrary ofthe Roman Oratory, ofthe complete documentation surrounding the revision of the Piacenzan Breviary of 1598. The ensuing story affords a striking insight into the workings of local Uturgical reform at close quarters. Here we have a unique case study of the CathoUc Reform in a seventeenth -century Barchester. Pietro Maria Campi (1569-1649), a canon of Piacenza Cathedral, undertook the revision of the local breviary at the request of his bishop. Campi's text, and the bishop's endorsement of it in 1598, were questioned by the Canon Theologian ofthe Cathedral, Daniele Garatola. Garatola was the official responsible for priestly spiritual formation in the diocese. His was the task of ensuring that the clergy were suitably equipped for preaching and theological instruction. Garatola 's objections to Campi's revised breviary were essentiaUy those of Raffaele Maffei and Carafa at the beginning of the century:"many and various detaUs . . . to be considered apocryphal." Garatola objected to Campi's account of Piacenza 's patron saint, S. Antonino. Piacenza's supposed possession of the body of S. Giustina lacked documentary substance. There were other objections. Should such material, he asked,"be preached to the People or inserted between the offices of canonical hours by the bishop?" The essential issue, for Garatola, was that such material should not be "reformed"locaUy,"for this is simply prohibited by PiusVs injunction at the front of the Roman Breviary." Campi's breviary, in Garatola's estimate, marked a regression from the Tridentine reform. To ensure a breviary that would be a worthy basis of priestly formation , it was necessary to have recourse to Rome. Rome had begun that reform; only Rome could...