Roman Question

Abstract: In 1860, Joseph-Louis Guerin, a seminarian in the French city of Nantes, promised his mother that he would bring her a rosary blessed by Pope Pius IX. At first, she thought he was referring to the distant future, after his ordination. But he told her gently that he would be leaving for Rome immediately, and as she wept, he departed to join the pontifical Zouaves, the international volunteer force of devout Catholics dedicated to preserving the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See against the forces of the Italian Risorgimento. Guerin was wounded at the battle of Castelfidardo later that year, and he died on All Saints’ Day, “in ecstasy,” smiling, and with his eyes wide open and insensitive to light. In death his face “preserved the angelic form it had had in life.” Guerin’s story continues in a more unusual vein after his death. In March 1861, a young, desperately ill Italian girl, paralyzed, blind, and epileptic, saw a man in a peculiar uniform—baggy Arab-style trousers and a short jacket decorated with red braid—who instructed her to continue praying. The next night he appeared again and told her that her prayers had been answered: she immediately stood up, opened her eyes and saw an image of the Virgin on the wall. On her way from confession the next day, she recognized her visitor’s distinctive uniform when she passed a contingent of Zouaves in the street, and, shown a photograph of the dead Guerin, she recognized him as her visitor.1 The story of Guerin’s miracle circulated in Zouave commemorative literature, and for many his presumed sanctity came to represent the martyrdom of all Zouaves. Guerin’s story is evidence of a particular strain of French Catholic devotion to Pius IX and of Catholic mobilization in the face of the threat to papal sovereignty. It is a strange narrative, however, that disrupts many of our assumptions about how French men and women experienced emotion, faith, and the supernatural. This essay explores the stories told about Joseph Guerin and other Zouaves, with particular attention to what they tell us about gender and Catholic spirituality. Guerin and his fellow Zouaves were hardly typical of

Abstract: Part 1: myths, monarchs and republicans imperial Rome bread and circuses catacombs and Christians infamy and anarchy saints, tyrants and anti-popes "the refuge of all the nations" Renaissance and decadence patrons and parasites the sack of Rome. Part 2: recovery and reform Bernini and the Baroque il settecento Napoleonic interlude the Risorgimento and the Roman question royal Rome Roma fascista epilogue - the eternal city. Part 3: notes on topography, buildings and works of art.

Abstract: Like most of the rest of Europe, nineteenth-century Italy passed through a phase of heightened political and cultural conflict over the place of religious allegiances in a modern polity. Yet the Italian experience of culture war was also in some respects quite distinctive. In Italian parlance, the word ‘ Kulturkampf ’ was used untranslated as a foreign expression that referred specifically to German conditions. The Italian culture war was less consistently organised at state-bureaucratic level than in Germany and the issues over which it was fought were in some respects quite different. By contrast with France, there was no strong republican- laiciste tradition. In order to convey a sense of what was distinctive about the Italian culture war, we should begin with an overview of the most important flashpoints of the conflict. FLASHPOINTS The presence of the papacy and of the ‘Roman question’ made the church–state relationship in Italy unique. But it is important to note that the history of ‘the pope and Italy’ had not always been one of unremitting antagonism. The unification of the country and the promotion of a national identity were not always seen as inimical to the interests of the papacy. Between 1815 and 1848, there were strong neo-Guelph tendencies within the Italian national movement. In 1843, writing from his exile in Brussels, Vincenzo Gioberti argued that Italy owed its unique historical position in the world to the outstanding imperial achievement of ancient Rome, and its claim to contemporary pre-eminence to the presence of the Holy See.