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    ( 43 £

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    MEMOIR OP SCIPIO DE RICCI , BISHOP OF PISTOIA , AND REFORMER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN TUSCANY .

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    [ In a former number we gave a brief review of De Potter ' s life of thi $ eminent man . The present memoir has been transmitted to us from Italy , and the importance of the subject , together with the additional sources of information possessed by our correspondent on the spot , will , no doubt , render a renewed notice of the eminent Bishop acceptable to our readers . ]

    [ No . I . ] " Unbounded charity , an ardent love of truth , indefatigable study in the search of it , and uuconquerable firmness and perseverance in its defence and diffusion , — such were the chief features of that character which it pleased its Divine Founder to bestow on his church in the person of Scipio de Ricci , when he sent him forth to restore to religion the vigour and beauty of her early youth , and to defend her as a faithful guardian from the attempts of her enemies . To fulfil this high destination

    ail the powers of his mind were bent , and he has thus deserved a distinguished place amongst the benefactors of his species . Yet the world , corrupted and deceived , has been hitherto occupied in calumniating and opposing him , rather than in pro- ? fiting by his enlightened views . In the revolutions of time , however , the period must infallibly arrive when the light of truth shall break through the clouds which obscure it . If he has not been permitted to live to see the period when the incontestable truths he first proclaimed to Italy shall be universally acknowledged and

    diffused , let a few flowers at least be scattered on his tomb which may bear testi *> mony to our gratitude for his labours , and our admiration for his virtues . " - ** ? 'Elogio di Monsigniore Scipione De Ricci , Bastia , 1827 . " " The contest long hung doubtful beween Pistoia and Rome . —The Ultrar Papists proclaimed that the heresy of Luther had set its foot on the soil of Italy ; the partizans of Ricci , that a salutary barrier was placed against the overbearing power of Rome . "— " Carlo Botta , Storia D'ltalia , dal 1789—1814 . " Vol . I . p . 37 .

    As many of the pages of the Monthly Repository have been devoted to the noble object of commemorating the actions and sacrifices , and embalming the memory , of the illustrious champions of the Protestant Reformation , I may perhaps be allowed to claim a p lace in behalf of one who , in the bosom of the Church of Rorjie itself , laboured hard and suffered much in ths thankless tasfc pf reforming abuses , and who , if he still continued to wear her livery and fight behind her shield , did so , not from cowardice , but from conviction ; being enthusiastically attached to what he considered to be the

    pure and original constitution and doctrine of the Catholic church . When it is considered that his well-meant but unsuccessful efforts cost him the loss of a bishopric , which some men calling themselves members of a reformec } church have preferred to an approving conscience and an unsullied fame , he will not be regarded as unworthy a memorial . —I allude to Scipio De Ricci Bishop of Pistoia and Prato , in Tuscany ; and the idea of this communication is suggested to me by my temporary residence in this country , where his name is reyered and " familiar in the mouths of men as household words . *

    The materials employed in drawing up this memoir are , 1 . The Eulogiurn above-quoted , written in Italian , and published anonymously , but well jknown in Florence to be the production of a distinguished ecclesiastic , the contemporary and friend of Ricci . 2 . The History of Italy , by C . Botta , also in Italian , but , I believe , translated into English , which , although com-

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 439, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/7/