The Hospitaller Commandery of Santa Maria Maddalena di Faenza : an attempt at its reconstruction

Abstract

This dissertation’s purpose is to attempt the reconstruction of the Hospitaller commandery of Santa Maria Maddalena of Faenza in the late eighteenth century. This commandery formed part of the Grand Priory of Venice. The few surviving documents have been the base of my dissertation. It is through these documents that I have found secondary sources to confirm and add to the information found in the primary documents. The information on the commandery in question was principally gathered from the prioral visit and miglioramenti reports found at the Archives of the Order of St John at the National Library of Malta in Valletta. These archives contained three documents in total- one miglioramento of 1621, one prioral visit of 1778 and another miglioramento of 1789. My original plan was to compare the two miglioramenti documents to compare the state of the commandery from 1621 to that of 1789. Unfortunately, the document of 1621 could not be used for this dissertation since it was unreadable. Despite this, I have tried to reconstruct the commandery as accurately as possible. The first chapter of the present dissertation is of an introductory nature where a description of the commandery and activities of the commandery are described from the outside looking in. To clarify, I decided to start my dissertation by studying the Grand Priory of Venice and its relations with the commandery of Santa Maria Maddalena of Faenza. I decided to take this perspective to place the commandery in the Order of St John’s reality as a whole while also focusing on the local reality in the Italian peninsula. After studying these relations, the chapter moves on to deal with local matters in Faenza with particular attention to the commandery and its administration. The second chapter deals with the history of Faenza. This chapter is split into three. The first being the historical overview of the city. I deemed it important to delve into the city’s past before the first presence of Order of St John in order to understand the city’s history which was an eventful one at that. The second part focusses on a brief history of the commandery since its inception and the qualities that made it into a Hospitaller commandery. The final section of this chapter delves into the structures that were under the care of the commandery both within and outside the borders of Faenza. This would serve as a foundation for later chapters which go into the description of such structures owned by the commandery. The third chapter explores an important commander in the commandery’s historyFra` Sabba Castiglione. Given the several times that he was mentioned throughout the documents, I had to find out more about what he contributed to the commandery. Some information is found in the documents of 1778 and 1789 and more knowledge can be extracted from the findings that are still with us to this day, especially those within the church of Santa Maria Maddalena. Thus, this chapter describes Fra` Sabba Castiglione’s early life, his career and his contributions on the commandery of Faenza. The fourth chapter gives particular attention to the churches cared for by the commandery. Throughout the prioral visit and miglioramenti reports, one finds ample description on churches that formed part of the commandery both within and outside of the borders of the city of Faenza. I felt it important to pay particular attention to the Chiesa della Commenda and describe it as best as possible using the information found in the archival documents as well as secondary sources. Luckily, the church, its items and some of it artwork survived and these sources have truly given insight into the commandery’s history outside of the archival sources. The fifth chapter traces the financial aspects of the commandery. The Miglioramento of 1789 was the foundation for this chapter since it provides detailed account of all the maintenance done on the commandery. The original plan for this chapter was to compare and contrast observations and miglioramenti from the 1621 and 1789 reports. However, after trying to consult the document from 1621, it proved to be very difficult to read. Luckily, the document from 1789 provides ample evidence of the commandery’s improvement through the Order’s financing efforts in the areas that belonged to the commandery. The concluding chapter truly encapsulates the information found in the documents of 1778 and 1789 and puts the evidence into perspective, as has been done throughout the dissertation. The main reason behind the strategy adopted for the conclusion was to truly show how the smallest unit of land, the commandery, with all the activities that took place on its land, truly mirror the character and raison d’être of the Order of St John.