BETWEEN ARISTIDES
FIRST TERTIARY COMMUNITY
AT THE CALENDASCO GURGLE
To understand pre-Corradian events in Piacenza
by Umberto Battini
popularizer and historian of S. Corrado
FIRST TERTIARY COMMUNITY
AT THE CALENDASCO GURGLE
To understand pre-Corradian events in Piacenza
by Umberto Battini
popularizer and historian of S. Corrado
 |
| the statue of Brother Aristide in front of the hospitable hermitage of Calendasco |
In the book by historian Raffaele Pazzelli “The Third Order Regular of Saint Francis Through the Centuries”, published in Rome in 1958, we find fundamental historical data, which, in addition to serving this brief synthesis, will lend themselves to the following report.
The community in Calendasco of Terziari in hermit's habit composed of a few religious men led by the friar Aristide, like any tertiary community, in addition to not being very conspicuous, was also legally independent, with a union with the other tertiary communities “amico foedere”, that is, a bond of mutual assistance.
This lack of unity evidently caused a lesser outward appearance of the phenomenon of common life among the Tertiaries, so it was easy for it to be overlooked in the chronicles of the time, and in fact the first historian who researched and found several documents from the early times of the Order, De Sillis, provides us with the reason for the lack of documents in the oldest Tertiary Convents.
De Sillis in the 1621 book on the Tertiaries of St. Francis or Penitents clearly says about the existence and loss of documents that it was:
“...because of the humble kind of life of our Fathers;, having no large monasteries, but mostly hermitages or small dwellings in the shadow of hospitals or churches, they did not possess archives, nor did they care about this but only about living holy lives, in charity towards God and neighbor.”
Fredregando from Antwerp also says that the Tertiaries:
“In many places they opened hospitals and hospices for the poor and pilgrims, where some brothers necessarily had to take up residence.”
A historian from a few centuries ago, the so-called ‘Anonymous of Montefalco’ in Umbria, deals extensively with the friar Aristide.
The writing of the Anonymous was found by another great historian of the Third Order, Fr. Gabriele Andreozzi, see in Analecta TOR by Andreozzi himself “S. Rocco in Montefalco, the Porziuncola of the Third Order Regular” and is rich in data useful to us, which in another study we will present to devotees and history enthusiasts.
The community in Calendasco of Terziari in hermit's habit composed of a few religious men led by the friar Aristide, like any tertiary community, in addition to not being very conspicuous, was also legally independent, with a union with the other tertiary communities “amico foedere”, that is, a bond of mutual assistance.
This lack of unity evidently caused a lesser outward appearance of the phenomenon of common life among the Tertiaries, so it was easy for it to be overlooked in the chronicles of the time, and in fact the first historian who researched and found several documents from the early times of the Order, De Sillis, provides us with the reason for the lack of documents in the oldest Tertiary Convents.
De Sillis in the 1621 book on the Tertiaries of St. Francis or Penitents clearly says about the existence and loss of documents that it was:
“...because of the humble kind of life of our Fathers;, having no large monasteries, but mostly hermitages or small dwellings in the shadow of hospitals or churches, they did not possess archives, nor did they care about this but only about living holy lives, in charity towards God and neighbor.”
Fredregando from Antwerp also says that the Tertiaries:
“In many places they opened hospitals and hospices for the poor and pilgrims, where some brothers necessarily had to take up residence.”
A historian from a few centuries ago, the so-called ‘Anonymous of Montefalco’ in Umbria, deals extensively with the friar Aristide.
The writing of the Anonymous was found by another great historian of the Third Order, Fr. Gabriele Andreozzi, see in Analecta TOR by Andreozzi himself “S. Rocco in Montefalco, the Porziuncola of the Third Order Regular” and is rich in data useful to us, which in another study we will present to devotees and history enthusiasts.
It remains important that even centuries ago, in Umbria, hundreds of kilometers from Calendasco, a surviving historian ‘Anonymous’ was able to pass down the Friar Aristide called to Montefalco by Calendasco to preside over the construction of the Convent of S. Rocco of the Tertiary nuns.
(I own the facsimile copy of the study ed.)
In the aforementioned volume Pazzelli clearly informs us that:
“The third place whose memory has been handed down to us is the hermitage-convent of Calendasco near Piacenza. Since 1280-1290, a community of hermits existed here, under the obedience of Friar Aristide, the same one who came to Montefalco in 1290 to visit Blessed Chiara and on that occasion received the donation of the aforementioned Signors Bennati. After the construction of that Convent he left some of his Friars in Montefalco and returned to govern his community in the Piacenza area. Here in 1315 he received into the Order a nobleman from Piacenza, Corrado Confalonieri, predicting that he would become a great saint”.
Umberto Battini
popularizer and historian of S. Corrado
IF COPI CITE SOURCE
