DOI Artikel:
Krasny, Piotr: Exempla viva: the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church as inspirers of Charles Borromeo’s instructions on shaping sacred srt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38234#0040
39
3. Gian Matteo Giberti, copper engraving, in LM. Gibertus, Opera
nunc primum collecta, 1733
shepherd’.23 He was preconised bishop of Verona in 1524,
but then spent a few years in Rome as a close collabora-
tor of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici, 1478-1534)
who offered him the cardinal’s hat. Having experienced
a spiritual crisis during the Sack of Rome in 1527, Giberti
decided to withdraw to his heavily neglected diocese and
to start exercising his duty of the ordinary bishop as best
he could. Shortly, he brought order to the administra-
tion system and liturgical life of the diocese, and began
to carry out regular canonical visitations. He resolutely
disciplined dissolute and idle clergymen, propagating, by
means of pastoral instructions and an example he set by
himself, the ideal of a pastor who lead a moral life, was
devoted to his pastoral work, and incessantly deepened
his theological knowledge by reading the Bible and works
of the Fathers of the Church.24 In 1542, near the end of his
life, he compiled extensive constitutions for the diocese of
Verona, in order to cement the changes he had introduced
23 P.F. Zinus, Boni pastoris exemplum et specimen singulare, Venetiis,
1573-
24 M.A. Tucker, ‘Gian Matteo Giberti. Papal Politician and Ca-
tholic Reformer’, The English Historical Review, 8, 1903, no. 70,
pp. 277-286; A. Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e Controriforma. G.M.
Giberti (1495-1543), Rome, 1969, passim; idem, Riforma pretriden-
tina nella diocesi di Verona. Visite pastorali del vescovo G.M. Gi-
berti 1525-1542, Vicenza, 1989, passim.
4. Ercole Gonzaga, portrait in the Deposition altarpiece in San Vicen-
zo in Mantua, mid-16th century. After Giulio Romano, ed. by S. Po-
lano, Milan, 2001
and to provide other bishops with the sense of direction
for reforms to be carried out in their local Churches.25
Giberti’s actions stirred the reformist zeal of his im-
mediate neighbour, the bishop of Mantua, Ercole Gonza-
ga (1505-1563, Fig. 4)26, who, at the age of twenty, became
cardinal and started a career in the Roman Curia. But in
1537 he returned to his diocese and carried out visitations
of his parishes, only to discover that, just as in Verona,
a substantial part of the clergy scandalized their parish-
ioners by immoral conduct and poor education.27 Gon-
zaga, who was known for his gentle disposition, did not
want to exercise a harsh discipline towards elderly priests,
so he concentrated mainly on reforming the Mantuan ca-
thedral school, so that it could educate priests capable of
25 R. Pasquali, ‘Le “Constitutiones” per il Clero di Gian Matteo Gi-
berti’, Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, 39, 1991, pp. 231-232;
Idem, ‘Nelle Costituzioni per il clero la riforma della Chiesa ve-
ronese per la riforma della Chiesa universale’, in Gian Matteo Gi-
berti (1495-1543)• Atti del convegno di studi, ed. by M. Agostini, G.
Baldissin Molli, Verona, 2012, pp. 61-72.
26 P. Piva, L’altro Giulio Romano. Il Duomo di Mantova, la chiesa
di Polirone e la dialettica col Medioevo, Quistello, 1998, pp. 109;
112-113; P-V. Murphy, Ruling Peacefully. Cardinal Ercole Gonza-
ga and Patrician Reform in Sixteenth Century Italy, Washington,
2007, pp. 17, 76,109.
27 Ibidem, pp. 67,109.
3. Gian Matteo Giberti, copper engraving, in LM. Gibertus, Opera
nunc primum collecta, 1733
shepherd’.23 He was preconised bishop of Verona in 1524,
but then spent a few years in Rome as a close collabora-
tor of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici, 1478-1534)
who offered him the cardinal’s hat. Having experienced
a spiritual crisis during the Sack of Rome in 1527, Giberti
decided to withdraw to his heavily neglected diocese and
to start exercising his duty of the ordinary bishop as best
he could. Shortly, he brought order to the administra-
tion system and liturgical life of the diocese, and began
to carry out regular canonical visitations. He resolutely
disciplined dissolute and idle clergymen, propagating, by
means of pastoral instructions and an example he set by
himself, the ideal of a pastor who lead a moral life, was
devoted to his pastoral work, and incessantly deepened
his theological knowledge by reading the Bible and works
of the Fathers of the Church.24 In 1542, near the end of his
life, he compiled extensive constitutions for the diocese of
Verona, in order to cement the changes he had introduced
23 P.F. Zinus, Boni pastoris exemplum et specimen singulare, Venetiis,
1573-
24 M.A. Tucker, ‘Gian Matteo Giberti. Papal Politician and Ca-
tholic Reformer’, The English Historical Review, 8, 1903, no. 70,
pp. 277-286; A. Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e Controriforma. G.M.
Giberti (1495-1543), Rome, 1969, passim; idem, Riforma pretriden-
tina nella diocesi di Verona. Visite pastorali del vescovo G.M. Gi-
berti 1525-1542, Vicenza, 1989, passim.
4. Ercole Gonzaga, portrait in the Deposition altarpiece in San Vicen-
zo in Mantua, mid-16th century. After Giulio Romano, ed. by S. Po-
lano, Milan, 2001
and to provide other bishops with the sense of direction
for reforms to be carried out in their local Churches.25
Giberti’s actions stirred the reformist zeal of his im-
mediate neighbour, the bishop of Mantua, Ercole Gonza-
ga (1505-1563, Fig. 4)26, who, at the age of twenty, became
cardinal and started a career in the Roman Curia. But in
1537 he returned to his diocese and carried out visitations
of his parishes, only to discover that, just as in Verona,
a substantial part of the clergy scandalized their parish-
ioners by immoral conduct and poor education.27 Gon-
zaga, who was known for his gentle disposition, did not
want to exercise a harsh discipline towards elderly priests,
so he concentrated mainly on reforming the Mantuan ca-
thedral school, so that it could educate priests capable of
25 R. Pasquali, ‘Le “Constitutiones” per il Clero di Gian Matteo Gi-
berti’, Ricerche di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, 39, 1991, pp. 231-232;
Idem, ‘Nelle Costituzioni per il clero la riforma della Chiesa ve-
ronese per la riforma della Chiesa universale’, in Gian Matteo Gi-
berti (1495-1543)• Atti del convegno di studi, ed. by M. Agostini, G.
Baldissin Molli, Verona, 2012, pp. 61-72.
26 P. Piva, L’altro Giulio Romano. Il Duomo di Mantova, la chiesa
di Polirone e la dialettica col Medioevo, Quistello, 1998, pp. 109;
112-113; P-V. Murphy, Ruling Peacefully. Cardinal Ercole Gonza-
ga and Patrician Reform in Sixteenth Century Italy, Washington,
2007, pp. 17, 76,109.
27 Ibidem, pp. 67,109.