St. Francis Manuscripts Headed to U.S., in First Trip Out of Italy in 700 Years
TEOLO,
Italy — Scattered around the steel table of a monastery in the Veneto
region of Northern Italy are manuscripts, one with green, red and
intensely blue medieval miniatures of dragons, another adorned with
ornate leaves culminating in golden flowers.
A
monk gently lays an off-white leather book on the table, and opens it
at a long letter A drawn in red ink, the start of a paragraph in gothic
letters.
“I
never thought I would have had these in my hands,” said the Rev.
Pierangelo Massetti, responsible for the restoration laboratory at the
Praglia Abbey, near Padua. “St. Francis wrote this poem. And this text
may be the foundation of the Italian language, the first text ever known
in vernacular.”
New
Yorkers will see it soon, as Father Massetti and his collaborators are
finishing restoring 13 medieval manuscripts of the 19 artifacts from the
Sacred Convent of St. Francis in Assisi, before their departure for the
United States on Monday.
Leaving Italy
for the first time in 700 years, the documents will be shown at the
United Nations headquarters Nov. 17-28, and then be open to the public
in Brooklyn Borough Hall until mid-January in an exhibition, “Friar
Francis: Traces, Words and Images.”
The
signature of the saint of the poor and neglected, who inspired Pope
Francis to choose his name, is nowhere to be seen. Historians agree that
he most likely dictated his writings, but certainly his hand touched
the papal bulls that in the 1220s registered the pope’s messages to the
order.
However, these 19 artifacts are the most ancient documents of St. Francis’ life and theological tradition.
St.
Francis, born the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, chose to
give up his prosperous, worldly life and live in poverty, preaching
peace and respect for all forms of life.
“St.
Francis was a man, a saint, of the people, who truly stood with those
who are the least every day,” Ken Hackett, the United States ambassador
to the Vatican,
said at a news conference in Rome last week. “We can see Pope Francis
exemplified in his trace, as he puts into practice every day his
advocacy for the marginalized and the disadvantaged.
“This
exhibition’s arrival in New York will give Americans the chance to know
the history and the spirituality of St. Francis, and the chance to be
inspired.”
Among
the artifacts, the highlight is Manuscript 338, a miscellaneous
collection of medieval texts inscribed by at least nine different
amanuenses. It contains “Canticle of the Sun,” a praise and thank you to
the Lord for such creations as “Brother Fire” and “Sister Water.”
“Francis’
hand is not in this poem, not even a line, but there is all of his
spirit in it,” said Franco Cardini, professor emeritus of medieval
history in the Florence branch of the Scuola Normale Superiore. “It’s
unique.”
For
this manuscript, the challenge was to restore the original cover, in
13th-century wood covered in goat leather, and then reconstruct the
missing fragments, like the spine and the borders, Father Massetti said.
Over
the past five months, Father Massetti, two other monks and three young
restoration experts have cleaned all the manuscripts with a soft paint
brush, page by page.
In
some, the medieval ink had perforated the page; in others it had faded.
Some were missing entire figures or miniatures, others the binding
cover.
The
restoration experts have repaired the fissures of the parchment with
Japanese vegetable fiber or a bovine membrane. They have consolidated
the ink and the colorful paintings through a starch gel.
Five
of the manuscripts, ranging from the size of a choral book to the
pocket format, were unbound, parchment by parchment, and were finally
reassembled and stitched back together with a linen thread.
The
longest restoration work was on Manuscript 328, Father Massetti said, a
text by the Franciscan friar Ubertino da Casale, a 14th-century
manuscript that interprets the Rule of St. Francis and the poverty of
Christ.
Artifacts
also include a precious fragment, a parchment with the early recounting
of the life of St. Francis, commissioned around the time of his
canonization in 1228. A more comprehensive recounting of St. Francis’
life and gestures will also be on display in a book written by Father
Thomas of Celano in the 1240s.
The
exhibition was already on display at the Lower House of Parliament this
year and has been requested by museums and foundations all over the
world, from Russia to Argentina.
The
friars of the Sacred Convent of St. Francis in Assisi are, however,
reluctant to let the founding texts of their order trot the globe and
will rather house them in their library after January.
In
Assisi, about six million visitors a year, 40 percent of them
Americans, visit St. Francis’ basilica, where the saint is buried.
Over
one and a half million people take a glance at St. Francis’ grave by
webcam every month, “the largest virtual pilgrimage in Assisi,” said the
Rev. Enzo Fortunato, director of the press office of the Sacred Convent
of St. Francis.
As
Father Massetti prepared to ship the manuscripts across the ocean, he
confessed he had had a few agitated months. Restoring the manuscripts
was both a professional responsibility and a matter of security for him.
He
remembers nights in which the alarm for the 19th-century safe of the
laboratory would even go off three times, if tremors shook the area.
“I
know it’s under my responsibility here,” Father Massetti said. “There
is an estimated value, but should they go lost it would be an
inestimable loss, impossible to pay back.”
View slideshow here:
No comments:
Post a Comment