P. Riccardo Friedl: between documents and personal objects
Our archive today once again offers us objects, owned by a Jesuit, that have survived a century of history and come down to us. In fact, the fonds of the residence in Florence return the personal objects of Fr. Riccardo Friedl.
At the end of February 1917, Fr. Riccardo Friedl, a Jesuit of Slovenian origin, died in the Florence residence of the Society of Jesus.
Born in Split on 16 September 1847, he studied as a child with the Jesuits, where he probably matured the decision to enter the Society of Jesus, put into practice in November 1862 with his entry into the novitiate in Verona.
P. Friedl lived in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, often moving between the Austrian and Italian dominions, documentation concerning him can be found in the fonds of the provinces of Veneto-Milan, Turin, Rome, where he lived for several years in various communities: Turin, Florence.
In our archives, some of his father’s personal items were recently found, which we present today in the section.
These are two pocket watches, still fitted with their chains, kept in a metal box, visible in the photo accompanying this article.
One of the two watches is still working because of the mechanical mechanism it contains.
In addition to the precious clocks, a wooden crucifix that was in the Jesuit’s room has also come down to us.
These are objects of everyday use, witnesses to the usual life of the Jesuits, all the more precious because for most of the Jesuit fathers and brothers we have no personal objects, and only in rare cases do they come down to us. In the year and a half that the column has been active, this is the third time that we have presented objects to the public, and the first time that they have been everyday objects.
It was precisely in the residence in Florence that Fr Friedl spent the last years of his life, and it is here that his personal papers have been preserved; however, further material from the Jesuit is also to be found in the Veneto-Milanese Province collection.
Fr Friedl’s life, entirely dedicated to teaching and administering colleges, was considered so exemplary by his contemporaries that several years after his death a cause for beatification was opened, which has not yet been completed.
For this reason, the objects preserved in the archive cannot yet be considered relics of the second degree.
Fr Friedl’s body rests temporarily in the crypt of St Ignatius, pending the continuation of the cause of beatification opened in 1943.
Maria Macchi
