Featured documents

Among the personal objects in our Archives, the most remarkable is a second degree relic of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It is a strip of fabric from one of the saint’s under-garments, preserved in a glass case with a wax seal to certify its originality.

The Archives preserve two second-degree relics of Pope St. Pius X: a red silk handkerchief given to the Jesuit Carlo Massaruti as a souvenir of a meeting, and the papalina donated by the pontiff to the Noble College of Mondragone.

Lorenzo Rocci is the author of one of the most well known Italian Dictionaries of Ancient Greek. Not many know he was a Jesuit. Our Archives hold some of his letters and his personal diary, which was recently published.

A distinguished alumnus of Jesuit schools is former Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who attended Collegio San Francesco Saverio in Livorno. Some report cards and diplomas are preserved in his student file.

Between 1915 and 1921 young Ettore Majorana attended the Massimo Institute in Rome together with his brothers Luciano and Salvatore. During recent research for a documentary, some documents related to the student Majorana came to light: photos and class registers, and tuition records.

How did the first Jesuis novices live? And what did they eat? A 16th-century register from Sant’Andrea al Quirinale offers a glimpse into daily life in the novitiate.

Pietro Alagiagian, Jesuit and military chaplain, was held prisoner in Russia during the Second World War. To preserve the hosts, he made a pocket from his clothes on which he sewed the monogram “IHS”, a testimony of faith preserved today in our Archives.

In August 1890 the Jesuits of the novitiate in Castel Gandolfo were gifted a modern Kontakion, hand-written in Greek in the style of ancient Byzantine artefacts, by the monks of Grottaferrata Abbey.

A series of letters by prisoner Giuseppe Mancini dated 1811-1813 helps reconstruct the living conditions in the prison of Fenestrelle, subject of a book by renowned Italian historian Alessandro Barbero.

Letters, photos, postcards and illustrations: Fernando Bortone’s personal archive is one of the rare records of Jesuit missionaries in China.