Le origini devote dell’Umiltà torinese. I gesuiti, la corte sabauda e l’assistenza al femminile

[Autom. eng. transl.] According to the testimony of Emanuele Tesauro, the (re) foundation of the Compagnia dell'Umiltà in Turin in the penultimate decade of the sixteenth century is due to the Jesuit Father Leonardo Magnani. Since then the female congregation remained under the spiritual direction of the Jesuits until their suppression in 1773. The terms of this relationship and their becoming, in a long-term perspective, are the object of the research that is proposed here. Based on the funds available at the Turin archives - as reported in the call for papers - and at the provincial archives of the Jesuits of Milan and the general archives of Rome, the study develops according to three main investigative directives. The first focuses on the 'charismatic' figure, and today almost unknown, of Father Magnani, to assess, in particular, the relationships he had with important representatives of the Savoy court - such as the Milanese baron Paolo Sfondrati -, starting from the study of published and unpublished letters. The second proposes a comparative analysis of the original assets of the Compagnia dell'Umiltà with those of similar lay female congregations, which, like the Turin association, relied on the direction of the Jesuit fathers in Italy in the 16th-17th centuries. On the basis of the indications provided by the Antiquities of Milan, an anonymous manuscript, but of a Jesuit ambit, the focus is above all on Milan and Rome, where the Jesuit fathers animated the charitable activity of female lay groups, which, as in the case of the Turin ladies of Humility, they assumed the burden of managing women's welfare institutions.