One boarding school many cultures: boarders and integration
The Colleges of the Society of Jesus are characterised by a long tradition of integration between students of different origins and dialogue between their cultures, let us retrace it through some examples found in the sources of the historical archive of the EUM Province.
In the colleges of the Society of Jesus, boarders from different states studied. Let us remember that before 1861 there was no United Italy and they were considered: subjects of the Kingdom of Naples, subjects of the Papal States, subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even though they lived within the borders of what would only be a Unitary State many decades later.
A study of the papers of the Colleges shows a great mobility of boarders: we remember that the Count of Trapani was sent to the Noble College of Rome of the Society of Jesus, not to that of Naples, precisely to give him the opportunity to live in another territory and come into contact with boys from other states: Roman, but also Lombard, French. He was not the only one; the registers of pupils at the various colleges in the provinces reveal dozens of similar cases, boarders from different social classes sent by their families to a school located far from their place of origin, often in another country.
The Loreto boarding school – which we have already remembered for having hosted a young scholastic named Angelo Secchi who taught physics – was established for the training of Illyrian students, i.e. from the Balkan Peninsula.
As early as the 16th century, the institute also welcomed local boarders: Piceni, Umbrians, Marche, taking the name Illyrian-Laurean College.
At this boarding school, even in the 19th century, we find surnames of boarders of Albanian, Croatian and Serbian origin.
Moving a few kilometres from Rome, at the Collegio dei Nobili in Mondragone we find a large group of Maltese boarders, of whom we also have a photograph, the names of Paul, Joseph and Gerald Strickland, De Martino of Malta, Galen, Francis Chappell.
Many foreign boarders were sent by their families to a boarding school of the Society of Jesus, far from their own city where one often existed, with the desire to bring the boys into contact with different cultures in a different territory.
Diversity and confrontation with other cultures, therefore, have always been considered an added value in Jesuit boarding schools by both the parents of the boarders and the Jesuits.
Pictured are Maltese boarders in Mondragone.
Maria Macchi
