The First Tuscan Jesuits

chapter 3 The First Tuscan Jesuits

As the Medici were building their dominio, a Basque noble was building a new approach to Catholic missions and education. In 1528, shortly before the Siege of Florence, Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) began his theological studies with a year in Paris. Before Cosimo I became duke in 1537, Ignatius had completed his academic training. In the intervening years, he had begun a lifelong as- sociation with the “first Jesuits”: Nicolás de Bobadilla (1511–90), Pierre Favre (1506–46), Diego Laínez (1512–65), Simão Rodrigues (1510–79), Alfonso Salm- erón (1515–85), and Francis Xavier (1506–52). By the time the companions left Paris for their first great mission, a journey to Palestine, they numbered nine: Paschase Broët (1500–62), Jean Codure (1508–41), and Claude le Jay (1504–52) had been recruited by Xavier. As the Venetian–Ottoman conflict prevented them from traveling to the Holy Land, they remained in the Italian peninsula, performing traditional ministries of the word and acts of charity. In 1540, they gained papal recognition as the Compagnia di Gesù (Society of Jesus) in the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae.1 While much of the global success of the Catholic Reform would depend on the Society of Jesus, that group at first confronted obstacles on multiple fronts. They were faced with suspicion by an established ecclesiastical hierarchy, both the religious orders and the diocesan administration. They also navigated a complex web of foreign policy issues involving most of the leadership of West- ern Europe. Pope Paul IV Carafa (r.1555–59), for example, resisted the Society of Jesus in part because of its Spanish associations. He was also opposed to the most innovative of the aspects of the new order, and insisted that the Jesuits drop their prohibition of reciting the Divine Office. Moreover, he attempted to persuade them to adopt a model of governance similar to the Theatine order, which he co-founded, in which the superior general would be elected

1 The best English-language study of the early years of the Society is still O’Malley, First Jesuits. For more general background, see Bangert, History of the Society of Jesus; Bangert, Jerome Nadal, S.J., 1507–1580: Tracking the First Generation of Jesuits, ed. Thomas M. McCoog (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1992); and Pietro Tacchi-Venturi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia, 2 vols. (Rome: Civiltà Cattolica, 1951–52), continued by Mario Scaduto in vols. 3–5 (Rome: Civiltà Cattolica, 1964–92). The Tuscan foundations have received little at- tention in the Anglophone world, but have been the subject of studies in Italian, cited here throughout.

The First Tuscan Jesuits 91 every three years.2 Carafa’s requirement of chanting the Divine Office was not official and therefore expired at his death. However, Pius V imposed a similar obligation in 1567, which was not revoked until 1573, during the pontificate of Gregory XIII (r.1572–85).3 Pius IV (r.1559–65), on the other hand, was a sup- porter. He entrusted the Seminario Romano to the Society’s care (despite pro- tests from secular priests in Rome) and promoted their work around Europe.4 Later popes continued the contentious relationship between the Roman hierarchy and the Jesuits. On the one hand, Sixtus V (r.1585–90) worked to change the Constitutions during his tenure. On the other, Gregory XIV (r.1590–91) con- firmed the privileges of the Jesuits in 1591, overturning Sixtus’s changes and confirming the original methods of governance and of accepting novices.5 The Society began to create an educational system shortly after its recognition. Beginning with the foundation of a college in Messina in 1548, the Jesuits undertook a clear and well-planned expansion from Rome, establishing a plat- form of educational activities and alliances with political power. They built schools and carried out “domestic missions” in a program which Juan Alfonso de Polanco (1517–76) designed to benefit the Society, the students, and the region in which the colleges and missions were built. The Jesuits initially settled in major urban centers in Catholic Europe and its colonies, educating the sons

2 Paul IV did demonstrate fairness at least once, when he resolved a dispute brought to him by Nicolás de Bobadilla (1511–90), one of the first Jesuits, in opposition to Ignatius’s and later Laínez’s leadership. In 1557, along with another malcontent, the Frenchman Ponce Cogordan (1500–82), Bobadilla communicated with the pope regarding a series of allegations about current members of the Society, including accusations that the leadership had Jewish ancestry. Paul IV reviewed the evidence and ruled against Bobadilla and Cogordan. Robert Aleksander Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-Blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 91–93. 3 Bangert, History of the Society of Jesus, 52, and Jonathan Wright, God’s Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigues, and Power—A History of the Jesuits (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 58. 4 O’Malley, First Jesuits, 236, 295, and 309–10. 5 Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, vol. 22, Six- tus V (1585–1590), Urban VII (1590, Sept. 14th–Sept. 24th), Gregory XIV (1590–1591), Innocent IX (1591, Oct. 29th–Dec. 30th) (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1932), 400–1. The confirmation, Ecclesiae catholicae, a letter sometimes referred to as a bull, was prepared in secret, to prevent pressure or intervention from Spain. It was written during a conflict between Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615) and the count-duke of Olivares (Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel Ribera y Velasco de Tovar, 1587–1645). It restored the privileges and practices of the original Constitutions, making liberal references to earlier confirmations, with a pointed statement referring to prior papal approval and the growth of the Society since its foundation. The full text of the bull is found in Institutum Societatis Iesu (Prague: Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandae in Collegio Societatis Jesu, 1705): 1:95–101.