Professor George La Piana (1878-1971), Catholic modernist at Harvard (1915-1947) The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Williams, George H. 1973. Professor George La Piana (1878-1971), Catholic modernist at Harvard (1915-1947). Harvard Library Bulletin XXI (2), April 1973: 117-143. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37364168 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ,, I F . \ . ,. ' . (-i1:0RGE LA PiANA (1878-1971) BY ROSITA CASEl-lO (rlarvard J)iviuity School) Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XXI, Number 2 (April 1973) Professor George La Piana (1878-1971) Catl1olic Modernist at Harvard (1915-1947)* George H. TT'illia1ns EORGE LA PIAN At the John Hopkins 1\1orisonProfessor of Church History at Harvard1 died at a nursing home in .........South Natick, I\1assachusetts, 28 February 197 r at age ninety-three~ As d1e editor of T be Catbolic fl istoricalRe~ vie-w put it sin1ply in an unsigned obituary~ "Professor IJa Piana n1ay ,vcll have been the last survivor of the priest-scholars ,vho ,vcrc in- volved in the ?vlodcrnist controversy· of the present century4~t 1 George J-'a Piana ,vas born in Piana dcgli Albancsi in Sicily, 2 7 February.. 1878.2 ·rhe hill to,vn of Piana, above the cathedral cities of • Pon-ions of the follo\·ving sketch ,;,,;,rcrcrcid as a Djdnjt}' Schoo] Faculty 1nin- u to at t1i c tnt n\orb l s~rvice in A pp lcto n. Ch np cl on the :3nn iversary of the dco.th. l\1cmucrs of the corrlmincc for the minute ·were J\1.arfo.Grossm:ann, Ralph Lazz~ro, Rob crt Le c \Vol ff. an cl G cor ge H. lV ill iams. Chairman. Professor L~ P fan a left h i:s Papers to the Andny-er-Har,·ard Librarr. An1ong them Js the typescript Auto- b iogr;;1p hy in n1an y- v crsi o ns :)n d lncorn plet~. The ItaU an pages ,vere di elated to Vera Orto1oni .-3nddlff cr slightly f rum the numerous ,Tersions in English. Loufae Pfeiffer -and Lydfo. Cavan~ugh, both of ,Yhom kne,\~ Italian~ did the English pages. Nancy H. Gr-l:Cr hus left c1 pojgn:ant description of the efforts of t11ese devoted ,vomen and the difficulties they all encountered in keeping their transcriptions in sotne order. 1\1r. Alan Seaburg, Curator of Tvlanuscri pts in the An dover-H anTard Libnrr 1 1u.s prepared a lleg:j5cer of the La Plana P~pers, \\'hich comes to thirty pages. Profc.s~or lvlilton \ 1 ~sil Au~!;tos prepared the '[Bibliogr-aphy of the \~-'orl-:~ of George L~ Pianat Harvilrd Di'irini1y School Bulletin,, XXIII (1957~58) 9 103-108 9 in connection ,vfrh 'iln c~s~yin \\'hich L~ Pfo.nrr is dealt "·ith hr George H~ TVilliam!,_, 1 ~cA Century of Ch urc It 1-listory ac H arv~rd. 18 57-19 57, ' j bid., 3 7-{]4. 2 F atllcr l~ohert Tri~co~ foe. ch., L\ 711 (J u1y 197 c),. 3 11 f. Th etc re son1c di ~erep:i nc ies in the Papers as to L'J P j a na 1 bi nh. In most places it: j s ghTcn a 5 27 F ch ru iry. In h ter ye:J.rs he reguia rl y celebra t1=d it on :28 February; and th~rc \Va5 ::i. tradition th.:1t he was in fact born on 19 February in a leap year. lVlany of the rccords: 1 h o,ve ver, indicate the birth as 3 l\·larc h; b llt th is -appearsto ha vc been the date on which his father prese ntcd him for a 1nuni.clpa 1 birt11 cet tifi- e~ tc, -andt l 1is document ,v as thcrca f tc r us~d for offid al purposes. 1 I 7 Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XXI, Number 2 (April 1973) 118 I-Iar-vard Li brnry Bulletin l\1onrcale and Palern10, all three featuring in the boyhood and early career of George La Piana, \Vas the center of an Albanian settlement, lVhich originated ,v hen refugees under George Skanderbeg (Little Alexander~ d. 1468) fled to Italy· fron1 the Otto1nan Turks in the fifteenth century. The rite of the Al bani an ref ngccs in Pian a and e]se- ,vhere in Sicily and on the peninsula \V3S Byzantine; their obedience, Ron1an. In Piana it5cl f there had long been nvo churches, one Greek in 1iturg y, thc other Latin, both Ca th oli c; but th c 111nr kc d diffcrence in Christian practices tended to keep the nvo ethnic groups apart. The A 1b a nian priests , ·vore beards; and, married before their ordination, they lived \Vith ,vife and children 1 and 1naintainedus-ages in the to,vn different from the J.....atin-rite inhahi tan ts ,vith respect to baptism., com- munion, and several f cnst d-ays. Bct\vccn the t\vo groups there ,v2s 21s0 conflict over cc clcsi a sti cal j ur j sdic tion and -cconon1ic pri vii eg esa The Albanians of }Jiana used Greek at ,vorship, Albanian in their homes, and rtalian in the streets. "fhrough so1ne intermarriage they" tended to increase slightly relative to the Ita]ian-speaking denizens of the tOlVIl and surrounding high plain. The parentage of George La Pjana ,vas of 1nixcd stock~ His fa thcr, \Tinccnzo (b. l 849) s had been trained for civil engineering~ ~nd super- vised consunction of railroads. He ,vas :J. sma11hn1do,vner, scttli ng do\ vn as an 2 d niinistra tor of th c large f arn1s of often absentee land- lords in the Pi11naregion. The son vtould ahvay·sremetnher ho,v, for the ,vorkers on his fa.thcr1s land,. the midday pasta \Vas placed upon an outdoor tahle under the shade of the olive trees, ,vith a11h1red hands taking as they ,verc able. The father~s older brother had gone off to become an Augustinian friar and a teacher of l.,:ltin and (;reek in a school of the order of Ron1et but had been deprived of his post af tcr \rictor En1manuel entered Ron1e as capital of the United I(ingdo1n of lta1y in 1870. Uncle Francesco, rendered petmanently unbalanced by his traun1ntic cljslodgcn1cnt,lived in the upper roo1n of the J.JaPiana fa n1i1 ) 7 house along ,vi th t, ·vo other origina 1 ch nrac tcrs.. Ano ther of three old n1en, destined to be jnflucncial in the life of the most distin- guished issue of that ]ivcly· and unpredictable household1 ,vas Papa Ghiurghu~ ,vho uppears to ha.v~ been ]1is Alb~nian 1natcrnal grand- I father .. The n1other in the ever-enlarging househo]d, Giuseppina Ca- I !. * Qjorgio•s p:lternal grnndfother \\'as SavcrJo .. ~11dhis p8.[ernal grllnd mother \1:.ta.i;: Antonin a D 1Alfa. Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XXI, Number 2 (April 1973) CatholicA1oder11ist at Harvard paci "' La Piana~preserved the A lh anian ho1ne crafts. She e1nhroidcred ccclesiastic~l vest111entsand alt2r cloth.s of fine silver and gold.. Giorgio ,vas born the second child of cight.v Right after his birth, he \Vas taken by his n1other and the nurneruus relations living in and near their hon1e to a neighbor - an agcdJ,v-hite-bearded schoolteacher, ,vho had locally tl1e reputation of a sootl1saycr. Tl1e La Piana f a1nily ,vere, Jikc their neighbors, intrigued by· the possibly· providential in1- pli cations of the nearly coi nci den ta i death of th c t\ vo gr cat antagonists of their larger ,vorld: Vittorio E1nanuele and Pio Nono, ,vho left off fron1 their cartbly confrontation rcspectivcl 1r on 9 Janu-ary and 7 Fch- rnary 1878.0 l"hc soothsayer professed to descry .son1evague co1nbi~ nation of the strength of the one and the spiritual unction of the other infused in the second offspring before hi1n of the La Piana fa1nily; but ,lthcn the mother eagcr]y pressed for further specificity~the seer ,vould say only: "Quod dixi dixi.'' The father of the infant Giorgioat this very tin1e m~y hnve concciv·cd his strategy to in1plen1ent the prophecy. \Tincenzo had had his first son, SrLverio,baptized according to the BJ7 - zantine rite. I-Ic no,v had Giorgio baptized according to the J...-atin rite. He ,vas dctcrn1incd to have ut least one of his .sons bccon1e a By,-.antine-rite bishop, the other a JJatin-rite bishop1 and by their joint efforts to usher in ethnic -and ecumenical harn1ony, perhaps even fur beyond the confines of PiJna.7 In 1885, ,vhcn Giorgio ,,ras seven, cholera broke out in P~lern10 and in l\1.onreale,and n1any of the ,veil-to-do there sought the rcl2tive. safety of the hiH to,vns; -a father and a lovely da\lghrer ,vho resided a,vhile ,vith the L-aPiana fan1ily·n1ade it possible after\vards for Gior- gio to be taken du\vn to Palermo ,vith thetn for his early schooling. He ,vould vividly rcn,ember the horse-dra,vn omnibuses of the great port city.