Jesuits’ bookmarks

How often do we are interrupted in the middle of a reading and, wanting to keep the mark, we grab the first piece of paper we have at hand to put it in the book? What did the Jesuits of the past use as a bookmark?

To answer this question, a source – that has only recently become part of our archive- helps us. In fact, there is no file called ‘Jesuit bookmarks’. This is not information that we could glean from house diaries, let alone correspondence or the historiae domus.

The Antique Books Fund

The book heritage of the Euro-Mediterranean Province is currently undergoing a process of development and valorization.

During the work of reorganising and cataloguing this important and huge heritage, several ‘materials’ were found inside the books.

These are business cards, cards, invitations, letters, notes that the Jesuits used as bookmarks to mark an important page in their studies. Unfortunately, the removal of the piece of paper causes that slender link between reader and text to be lost forever.

Even in the course of tidying up an archive, however, if pieces of paper are found without any information about the mark, they are often removed. Without this material, it would be impossible to grasp this aspect of the everyday life of so many fathers and brothers.

Bookmarks that were found

Let us open the folder in which these bookmarks are kept today and discover what the Jesuits of the past had at hand to keep their mark. The types are really varied. They often open a window on the everyday life of those who handled books and used what they had at hand. We have identified some of the most frequently used types of bookmarks: documents, drawings, pamphlets.

Documents

Some of the materials used are real archival documents. This was precisely the reason that prompted the cataloguers to alert our historical archive to provide for this documentation.

For example we can find a leaflet, on which the note reads: ‘Note of linen October 1881’. Inside, various items of the trousseau are in a list: sheets, ‘linens’, tablecloths, towels, zinnies, rags, ‘shawls’, socks, overcoats, and headbands. The document is therefore dated to the end of the 19th century, but has been found in much older texts. Indeed, remember that an ancient book is defined as any copy printed up to 1830. Therefore, whoever used that note must have done so in 1881 or in later years while leafing through a cinquecentina or a seicentina.

Some Jesuit will also have found in his pocket the note on the linen to be given to the brother in charge of the laundry and chosen it as a bookmark. In fact, on a second sheet of paper we read another list: two shirts, one lining, one cap, three tablecloths. In addition to this, we read ‘to the 8 October delivered: one shirt, two napkins and a cloth to clean the lamp’.

Also in the folder is a document with the decalogue of steps to be taken before confession and the prayer to be said. There are also numerous messages received and used to keep the sign. Among these is the one from the Superior of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Frascati writing to a Jesuit, unfortunately we do not know who, to warn him not to come for the usual catechetical instruction because both the educande and the external pupils would not be able to attend. It is dated 9 February 1926 and was written on the nun’s business card, a custom that was quite common in the past.

Another sister, Mother Cristina of the House of the Sacred Heart at Villa Lante in Rome, also sent a message on 31 January 1886 asking to remember ‘the soul of her sister Fulvia, who had passed on to a better life’. Years earlier, on 1 February 1870, Clelia Dorelli wrote to a Jesuit from the Visitation Monastery to ask him to come earlier, on 4 February, because both she and the sisters needed to talk to him.

A small note, with Vincenzo Pietromarchi’s name on one side, has a request on the other: ‘Peppì…wake me up’.

Another note addressed to Fr. Monaci seems to have the same purpose: ‘Fr. Cardella is expecting you tomorrow, Thursday 18th between 3 and 3:30 at the Germanicus.

Of the same tenor is also the note on a small card ‘Sister Maria Francesca reminds you to take yourself to the Ursulines after the feast of Our Lady, if you could in the morning it would be better’ dated 31 January 1876.

These are notes often written by the Jesuit in the porter’s lodge who delivered messages to the brothers in the residence.

Another document is also very interesting, not so much for some notes that an anonymous hand took, but for the support: it is a flyer for the Christian Democratic Party’s electoral propaganda for the Chamber of Deputies candidate Pietro Germani.

There are, unfortunately, many fragments of letters, codex or manuscript used as bookmarks. This reminds us that what is extremely valuable in our eyes for reconstructing the past, was material in common use and that our sensitivity and attention to documents has developed over time and was not the same in the past.

Drawings

There is also a nice pencil drawing, probably depicting a Jesuit, which you can see reproduced in the photo gallery. The drawing was made in the back of the regulations of a boarding school; one can read the amounts for boarding and boarding school expenses. We know that it was printed by a printing house in Munich in 1888. This may be the Jesuit College in the Principality of Monaco, dependent on the Province of Turin, but it is possible that the same printer also printed the regulations of other colleges.

Pamphlets

Among the books, actual pamphlets were also found, such as the one containing a printed memoir of the life of St. Luigi Gonzaga, according to the tradition handed down by Cepari, published in Rome in 1887.

Very interesting is the pamphlet produced by the Pontifical Pius Latin American College, and dedicated to the Oratory of St. Louis on the tenth anniversary of its foundation in 1909.

It was an initiative of Fr. Carlo Massaruti, who signed the pamphlet and who had just inaugurated the work of the same name for educational purposes and spiritual assistance to soldiers.

The pamphlet tells us a lot about the activities of the boys who attend the oratory. They can enrol in the schola cantorum, there is also a philodrama section run by the Congregation of Mary Most Holy of the Rosary. Members also have a circulating library at their disposal.

There is also a clipping from a page of a book or perhaps a magazine dedicated to the Holy Hermitage of Monte Senario.

Other bookmarks

Among the many types of cards used to keep the mark are the book cards that once made up the library catalogue, before computer recording. Today electronic records in opacs replace them.

There are also the calendar page for Friday 3 February, the feast day of St. Blaise the Bishop, also visible in the photo gallery accompanying the text. We also find an invitation from the Minister of Education to the inauguration of the photographic exhibition on French historical monuments held in what was then the Royal Borghese Gallery. The event was to be held on Monday 28 February 1927 at 10 am.

Also: mathematical operations and problems solved, an advertising card from a tailor’s shop in Rome, a card from a bookbinding shop in Rome, a telegram, a reproduction of Fr. Giovanni Bigazzi’s poem ‘Il mio penare’ (My suffering) .

Someone used the programme of the IX Study Week of the Roman Scholasticate, held between 13 and 18 October 1941 at 5pm, as a bookmark. This allows us today, to know the speakers and their speeches, we only list the names here: Filograssi, Dezza, Barbera, Brucculeri, Haeck, Magni. There is also the personal library card of the Pontifical Gregorian University, in the name of Fr Antonio de Magalhaes, valid for the academic year 1935 – 1936.

A green card from the college of Villa Mondragone signed by Prefect Zagari, worth ‘a pardon’, then peeps out.

There are many letter envelopes, now empty, but still bearing the address of the addressee of the missive: the Bishop of Velletri, the Curia of Segni, and Canon Raffaele Angeloni.

We end this long roundup with a great classic. Who among us has never used a bus or train ticket as a bookmark? Even if it is an era now in its twilight, as paper electronic ones have rapidly replaced tickets. We are not alone in this habit: a ticket from the Roman ‘tramways’ company for the omnibus has also been found.

These bookmarks tell us that the habit of keeping the sign has us in common with those who lived several centuries before us.

Maria Macchi