British School at Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome (9.1920)

Note on a Copy of the Res ponsiones of Robert Parsons. 227
gave it to the Praepositus, or Provost, of the ‘ Roman College ’ of San
Paolo alia Colonna. This may have been at the time that Voss left
Rome to return to his native country, where he died at Liege in 1609.
The little church of S. Paolo alia Colonna, to which our book passed,
though now all but forgotten, was for the brief period of its existence
one of the most important in Rome. It stood on the north side of the
Piazza Colonna, and had been erected under Clement VIII.1 by the Clerks
Regular of St. Paul2—more popularly known as the Barnabites—who
wished to centralise their various activities in a locality more accessible
than was their mother-house at S. Biagio dell’ Anello.3 Moreover, a
church dedicated to S. Paul, patron of the Barnabites, seemed peculiarly
in place under the shadow, as it were, of the column upon whose summit
a statue of the Apostle had only recently been placed by order of
Sixtus V. (1589). At the bottom of the title-page of Voss’s copy of
Parsons’s book is written : Bibliot. Collegii Rom. S. Pauli in Columna,
the word ‘ college ’ which appears here and in the dedicatory inscription
instead of ‘ congregation ’ being in accordance with Barnabite usage,
so that Coll. Rom. S. Pauli, etc., means nothing more than the Roman
branch of the Barnabites established at S. Paolo.
The church was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1617, rebuilt on
an ample scale, but eventually demolished in 1659, by order of Pope
Alexander VII., for the enlargement of the Palazzo Chigi. The Barnabites
of San Paolo then rejoined their mother-house in Rome which had been
removed early in the century from S. Biagio dell’ Anello to the more
spacious church of S. Carlo ai Catinari, where the order still flourishes.4
With them they brought the book of Parsons which was now duly
1 The Church, which had been begun some years previously, was opened to the public
in 1596. See Orazio M. Premoli (Barnabite), Storla dei Barnabiti net Cinquecento, 1913,
p. 337 L and cf- Armellini, Chiese di Roma, p. 312. It was the seat of the famous Academy
of Music of Sta. Cecilia and of the Company of S. Ivo, founded by a number of lawyers
to defend the lawsuits of the poor, and of various other confraternities. See Memorie
intorno alia Chiesa dei SS. Biagio e Carlo, 1861, p. 39, and pp. 142—153 (quto ed. =
p. 10 and pp. 37 ff. of fo. ed.).
2 Founded at Milan about 1533 and surnamed ' Barnabites,’ from the Church of
St. Barnabas, which belonged to them in the sixteenth century.
3 This very ancient church was given to the Barnabites by Gregory XIII. in 1575.
Memorie, p. 9 (qut0 ed. — p. 3 of fo. ed.) ; Premoli, op. cit. p. 269.
4 S. Carlo, to which the name of S. Biagio was prefixed in memory of the first Roman
home of the Barnabites, was begun in 1611. In 1870 the convent was suppressed, and
the Barnabites moved to the beautiful house, No. 6 Via Chiavari, which was once Cassiano
dal Pozzo’s. See Premoli, * Cassiano dal Pozzo ’ in L'Arcadia, ii. 1918.

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