Majorana at Jesuit schools
Our column today returns to the school benches: we once again deal with the Majorana family. In previous months we have already dedicated an in-depth article to Ettore Majorana, a former pupil of the Massimo Institute from 1915 to 1921.
Luciano and Salvatore Majorana
Ettore, however, was not the only member of the family to attend the Institute. Before him, in fact, his elder brother Salvatore was enrolled from 26 October 1912, then Luciano admitted the following year in November, whose enrolment is recorded not only in the registers but also in the Institute’s school diaries.
In the archives there are photos taken of the Majorana children wearing the Institute uniform and shown here.
We would like to remind readers that when the Majoranas attended the Massimo, the institute was located near Termini Station, in the building that still bears the name ‘Massimo’ and houses the National Museum of Rome, which was the school’s second seat from 1887 to 1960.
First Salvatore, then Ettore and Luciano, entered the Massimo as boarders, thus residing in the school which, on the upper floors, housed the dormitories where the children and boys slept.
Initially Salvatore and Luciano were listed as boarders, then as collegiates like Ettore himself from the time he entered, however, from 1920 all three are always listed in the registers as boarders.
The terms are not synonymous: even a study of tuition fees reveals differences between the status of boarding school and that of boarder. Although today the term ‘convittore’ refers to a student living in the boarding school, in the past it could only refer to students who attended classes and then returned home, as opposed to boarders who lived there, as the institute’s papers suggest. It is then in 1920 that the Majorana family moved to Rome and perhaps this event may have influenced the change of enrolment status, with the wish to reunite the brothers with the rest of the family.
Claudio and Angelo Majorana
During the boarding school period the three Majorana brothers were also joined by Claudio and Angelo Majorana, Ettore’s cousins Luciano and Salvatore, as they were sons of Dante Majorana, a brother of Ettore’s father.
Almost all the Majoranas made their First Communion and Confirmation at the Institute during their school career, as the registers show, some of them were also enrolled in the Marian Congregation, like Ettore himself.
In addition to the registers mentioned here, the archives also contain enrolment notes and group or individual photos of Luciano and Salvatore Majorana.
The case of the Majorana brothers and cousins, in this sense, is by no means unique, in the course of its centuries-long life the Massimo Institute has seen several generations of the same family grow up, from great-grandparents to grandchildren, often hosting entire family nuclei, such as the Parisi, a family that boasted about ten members enrolled in the institute, some of whom later entered the Company.
Maria Macchi
