Postilla sul Bovara, ministro moderato

The essays here collected concern aspects and problems of the ecclesiastical policy of Giovanni Bovara, Minister for Cult of the Republic and of the Kingdom of Italy in the Napoleonic age not dealt with in the previous monographic volume written by the author and entitled Un ministero per il Culto. Giovanni Bovara e la riforma della chiesa in età napoleonica (Milano Franco Angeli 2002): the drafting of a bill on marriage, the new catechism, the regulations of the”holy places”(charitable institutions, hospitals, orphanages), the reform of the diocesan seminaries and the suppression of religious homes in charge of girls' education. Isolated so to speak in a narrower field spotlight compared to the wider framework of the previous volume, these essays constitute a privileged observation post to better investigate and understand the reasons at the root of Bovara's “cautious conduct”, a moderate behaviour, far from the extremes of Napoleon and of some men in his government, starting from Viceroy Eugenio, suggested by abstract considerations of order and rationality: firstly the will to act in the respect for religious traditions and people's mentality, privileged place of a long duration and of resistance to novelty, so as not to cause too strong reactions among the local population and to meet their pastoral requirements. Secondly, the need not to break off all relations with the old ecclesiastic order, because of the inefficiency of the new structures of the state, which was still inadequate to take on tasks traditionally entrusted to the clergy in the matter of school, education of seminarists and so on. This anthology forms an opportunity for reflecting on the role of the Italian ruling class and on its difficult pursuit of autonomy from Paris and, deling with a class that - as in Bovara's case – had formed in the second half of the eighteenth century in the Habsburg's jurisdictionalistic Milan, it makes it possible to reaffirm the continuity between the old regime and the Napoleonic age.