Book in italian and latin.

The work, in 17 x 24 cm format, is 2056 pages long and is divided into three volumes housed in an elegant hard cover.

THE PASTORAL VISITS OF BISHOP G.M. GIBERTI 1525-1542

GIAN MATTEO GIBERTI was born in Palermo in 1495 and was a learned bishop with a desire for reform. He was intensely involved in politics at the Papal court in his capacity as datary to Pope Clement VII.

In February 1528 he settled definitively in Verona where, in his role as ‘shepherd’ to the diocese, he did all he could to reform and renew the faith and customs of the clergy and his flock.

The accounts of his pastoral visits, edited by Monsignor Antonio Fasani, have now come to light in three volumes printed by Martino Mardersteig’s Stamperia Valdonega. According to Gabriele De Rosa, they constitute one of the most important bodies of writing in the history of pastoral care, not only as a record of the bishop’s prescriptive and analytical zeal, but also as a monument to a highly developed religious conscience, as solemn as it is elevated and destined to last over time.

The volumes reap a unique harvest of accounts, with some reports using the colourful expressions of the time and describing the life and customs of the different communities in the diocese, even those in remote mountain villages. On the one hand, the introductions by Gabriele De Rosa, Adriano Prosperi and Antonio Fasani help us to make an informed reading of these documents whose very number could frighten us, and to understand the moments of intense spirituality experienced by Bishop Giberti and his team in their encounters with the faithful, while on the other hand they provide a starting point for in-depth analysis of the era immediately preceding the Council of Trent.

At the end of the third volume there is an exhaustive index of the churches inside and outside the city, and Names.

INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY – VICENZA 1989