DOI article:
Krasny, Piotr: Exempla viva: the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church as inspirers of Charles Borromeo’s instructions on shaping sacred srt
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38234#0055
54
choir of the local cathedral, he stated in his constitutions
of 1542 that during the visitation of the diocese of Verona
he had repeatedly noticed that ‘in many places the great-
est sacrament, that is, the Eucharist, has not been kept
respectably enough and in an as sufficiently honourable
place as it should be’. He indicated this honourable place
by prescribing that in all parish churches subject to his
jurisdiction the sacrament should be kept in a beautiful
tabernacle made of wood or other material, locked, and
mounted upon the high altar [...], and well and firmly
established’.115 He also ordered that an altar lamp be burn-
ing in front of the tabernacle for the greater glory of the
Blessed Sacrament.116
These actions of Giberti were praised by his biographer
Pietro Francesco Zini (1526-1574) who in his life of the
bishop (first published in 1555 and repeatedly re-printed)
stated that, by having installed the tabernacle in the mid-
dle of the church, ‘like the heart in the breast and mind in
the soul’, in order to ‘arouse the devout souls of the priests
and the faithful alike to worshipping God’117, he had found
the best place to expose and venerate the sacrament.
Apparently similar motivations accompanied the ac-
tions of other north-Italian prelates who, around 1550,
promoted the exposition of the tabernacle on the high al-
tar. The initiatives of the bishop of Verona inspired Gon-
zaga, among others, who, as attested by Daino, during the
remodelling of the Mantuan cathedral had a gilt wooden
tabernacle supported by four collonnettes, decorated with
various painted figures, in which the Body of Our Ford
Jesus Christ is continuously held and in front of which
lamps are burning’ installed on the high altar.118
An extraordinary opportunity for disseminating this
form of sacrament exposition occurred to Reginald Pole
when he was propagating the cult of the Eucharist as
the main means of restoring the Catholic identity to the
115 ‘sacramentum magnum, quod est Eucharistia, in multis locis non
ita digne atque in loco honorabili, prout decet, repositum sit’, ‘ta-
bernaculum ligneum aut ex alia materia pulchrum cum sua clavi
fiat, et super altari magno collocetur et [...] bene et firmiter sta-
bilitatur’, I.M. Gibertus, ‘Constitutiones ex Sanctorum Patrum
dictis et canonicis institiutis collectae’, in idem, Opera nunc pri-
mum collecta, ed. by I. Bragadenus, Veronae 1733, p. 69. See also
M. Agostini, ‘L’altare e il tabernacolo del vescovo Giberti nal-
la cappella grande del duomo di Verona’, in Gian Matteo Giberti,
pp. 150-151 (as in note 25).
116Ibidem, p. 70. See also A. Nagel, ‘Tabernacle’, pp. 239-254 (as in
note 108).
117 ‘tanquam cor in pectore et mentem in animo’, ‘devotos, et sacer-
dotum et populi animos (ut aequum est) concitet ad religionem’,
P.F. ZiNus, Boni pastoris exemplum, p. 8 (as in note 23). See also
U.M. Lang, ‘Tamquam cor in pectore’ (as in note 112); M. Agos-
tini, ‘L’altare e il tabernacolo’, p. 150 (as in note 115).
118 ‘tabernaculum ligneum deauratum super quatuor parvis colum-
nelis cum aliquibus figuris pictis, in quo continue stat sacramen-
tum Corporis Domini nostri Iesu Christi cum lampadibus ascen-
sis’, G. Daino, De origine, p. 142 (as in note 91).
English Church, at the Westminster synod.119 In the Refor-
matio Angliae, promulgated at the synod at the beginning
of 1556, he included a recommendation that in all church-
es in the Kingdom a ‘tabernacle should be erected on the
middle of greater altar, so high as to be easily seen by all,
and that it will be so fixed as not to be easily removed by
any one’, and the Blessed Sacrament kept inside should be
honoured by the burning of the altar lamp.120 It is, howev-
er, highly probable that this regulation had been enforced
only in a few churches121, before Elizabeth I issued, in 1558,
the Act of Uniformity that ordered all English clergy to cel-
ebrate sacraments in the Protestant rite.122
So, it turns out that it was only Borromeo, a prelate in
charge of a vast diocese and exerting a strong influence on
the reforms implemented by hierarchs in the neighbour-
ing dioceses, who was the first to have the opportunity
to introduce the custom of mounting the tabernacle on
the high altar on a large territory.123 However, by the time
he set out to putting that task into practice, the formula
of a high altar with a sumptuous tabernacle installed on
top of it had already been fully developed, and the mes-
sage carried by such an arrangement thoroughly defined.
Therefore, all Borromeo could do was to intensely pro-
mote such a location of the tabernacle, which, anyway,
was enough for the idea of introducing this solution to be
associated in various areas of the Catholic world with the
authority of that very cardinal.
THE TAMING OF THE INSOLENCE
OF TOMB MONUMENTS’
One of the most crucial changes in the interiors of ear-
ly modern churches, prescribed in Borromeo’s writings,
was that of eliminating from them sumptuous tomb
monuments, which, precisely in the north of Italy, were
119 W. Wizeman, The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s
Church, Aldershot, 2006, pp. 162-180.
120 ‘tabernaculum in medio altaris maioris ita eminenter, ut ab omni-
bus conspici possit, collocetur et ita affigatur, ne facile a quoquam
amoveri possit’, Reformatio Angliae ex decretis Reginaldi Poli car-
dinalis Sedis Apostolicae legati, Romae 1562, fol. iov; English tran-
slation after: R. Pole, The Reform of England, trans, by H. Raikes,
Chester, 1839, p. 21. See also U.M. Lang, ‘Tamquam cor in pecto-
re’ (as in note 112); W. Wizeman, The Theology, pp. 179, 252 (as in
note 119); J. Edwards, Archbishop Pole, pp. 95,173 (as in note 30).
121H. PoGSON, ‘Reginald Pole’, p. 16 (as in note 34).
122 S. Doran, C. Durston, Princes, Pastors and People, pp. 22, 207
(as in note 36).
123 Unlike the tiny dioceses of Verona and Mantua, which counted
about 200 churches each, the Archdiocese of Milan had 46 colle-
giate churches, 753 parish churches and a large number of church-
es belonging to religious orders. Additionally, 15 bishoprics were
subordinated to the Metropolis of Milan. See W. Góralski, Re-
forma trydencka, pp. 21-24, 55—62 (as in note 7).
choir of the local cathedral, he stated in his constitutions
of 1542 that during the visitation of the diocese of Verona
he had repeatedly noticed that ‘in many places the great-
est sacrament, that is, the Eucharist, has not been kept
respectably enough and in an as sufficiently honourable
place as it should be’. He indicated this honourable place
by prescribing that in all parish churches subject to his
jurisdiction the sacrament should be kept in a beautiful
tabernacle made of wood or other material, locked, and
mounted upon the high altar [...], and well and firmly
established’.115 He also ordered that an altar lamp be burn-
ing in front of the tabernacle for the greater glory of the
Blessed Sacrament.116
These actions of Giberti were praised by his biographer
Pietro Francesco Zini (1526-1574) who in his life of the
bishop (first published in 1555 and repeatedly re-printed)
stated that, by having installed the tabernacle in the mid-
dle of the church, ‘like the heart in the breast and mind in
the soul’, in order to ‘arouse the devout souls of the priests
and the faithful alike to worshipping God’117, he had found
the best place to expose and venerate the sacrament.
Apparently similar motivations accompanied the ac-
tions of other north-Italian prelates who, around 1550,
promoted the exposition of the tabernacle on the high al-
tar. The initiatives of the bishop of Verona inspired Gon-
zaga, among others, who, as attested by Daino, during the
remodelling of the Mantuan cathedral had a gilt wooden
tabernacle supported by four collonnettes, decorated with
various painted figures, in which the Body of Our Ford
Jesus Christ is continuously held and in front of which
lamps are burning’ installed on the high altar.118
An extraordinary opportunity for disseminating this
form of sacrament exposition occurred to Reginald Pole
when he was propagating the cult of the Eucharist as
the main means of restoring the Catholic identity to the
115 ‘sacramentum magnum, quod est Eucharistia, in multis locis non
ita digne atque in loco honorabili, prout decet, repositum sit’, ‘ta-
bernaculum ligneum aut ex alia materia pulchrum cum sua clavi
fiat, et super altari magno collocetur et [...] bene et firmiter sta-
bilitatur’, I.M. Gibertus, ‘Constitutiones ex Sanctorum Patrum
dictis et canonicis institiutis collectae’, in idem, Opera nunc pri-
mum collecta, ed. by I. Bragadenus, Veronae 1733, p. 69. See also
M. Agostini, ‘L’altare e il tabernacolo del vescovo Giberti nal-
la cappella grande del duomo di Verona’, in Gian Matteo Giberti,
pp. 150-151 (as in note 25).
116Ibidem, p. 70. See also A. Nagel, ‘Tabernacle’, pp. 239-254 (as in
note 108).
117 ‘tanquam cor in pectore et mentem in animo’, ‘devotos, et sacer-
dotum et populi animos (ut aequum est) concitet ad religionem’,
P.F. ZiNus, Boni pastoris exemplum, p. 8 (as in note 23). See also
U.M. Lang, ‘Tamquam cor in pectore’ (as in note 112); M. Agos-
tini, ‘L’altare e il tabernacolo’, p. 150 (as in note 115).
118 ‘tabernaculum ligneum deauratum super quatuor parvis colum-
nelis cum aliquibus figuris pictis, in quo continue stat sacramen-
tum Corporis Domini nostri Iesu Christi cum lampadibus ascen-
sis’, G. Daino, De origine, p. 142 (as in note 91).
English Church, at the Westminster synod.119 In the Refor-
matio Angliae, promulgated at the synod at the beginning
of 1556, he included a recommendation that in all church-
es in the Kingdom a ‘tabernacle should be erected on the
middle of greater altar, so high as to be easily seen by all,
and that it will be so fixed as not to be easily removed by
any one’, and the Blessed Sacrament kept inside should be
honoured by the burning of the altar lamp.120 It is, howev-
er, highly probable that this regulation had been enforced
only in a few churches121, before Elizabeth I issued, in 1558,
the Act of Uniformity that ordered all English clergy to cel-
ebrate sacraments in the Protestant rite.122
So, it turns out that it was only Borromeo, a prelate in
charge of a vast diocese and exerting a strong influence on
the reforms implemented by hierarchs in the neighbour-
ing dioceses, who was the first to have the opportunity
to introduce the custom of mounting the tabernacle on
the high altar on a large territory.123 However, by the time
he set out to putting that task into practice, the formula
of a high altar with a sumptuous tabernacle installed on
top of it had already been fully developed, and the mes-
sage carried by such an arrangement thoroughly defined.
Therefore, all Borromeo could do was to intensely pro-
mote such a location of the tabernacle, which, anyway,
was enough for the idea of introducing this solution to be
associated in various areas of the Catholic world with the
authority of that very cardinal.
THE TAMING OF THE INSOLENCE
OF TOMB MONUMENTS’
One of the most crucial changes in the interiors of ear-
ly modern churches, prescribed in Borromeo’s writings,
was that of eliminating from them sumptuous tomb
monuments, which, precisely in the north of Italy, were
119 W. Wizeman, The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s
Church, Aldershot, 2006, pp. 162-180.
120 ‘tabernaculum in medio altaris maioris ita eminenter, ut ab omni-
bus conspici possit, collocetur et ita affigatur, ne facile a quoquam
amoveri possit’, Reformatio Angliae ex decretis Reginaldi Poli car-
dinalis Sedis Apostolicae legati, Romae 1562, fol. iov; English tran-
slation after: R. Pole, The Reform of England, trans, by H. Raikes,
Chester, 1839, p. 21. See also U.M. Lang, ‘Tamquam cor in pecto-
re’ (as in note 112); W. Wizeman, The Theology, pp. 179, 252 (as in
note 119); J. Edwards, Archbishop Pole, pp. 95,173 (as in note 30).
121H. PoGSON, ‘Reginald Pole’, p. 16 (as in note 34).
122 S. Doran, C. Durston, Princes, Pastors and People, pp. 22, 207
(as in note 36).
123 Unlike the tiny dioceses of Verona and Mantua, which counted
about 200 churches each, the Archdiocese of Milan had 46 colle-
giate churches, 753 parish churches and a large number of church-
es belonging to religious orders. Additionally, 15 bishoprics were
subordinated to the Metropolis of Milan. See W. Góralski, Re-
forma trydencka, pp. 21-24, 55—62 (as in note 7).