Special Collections
Lorenzo Bedeschi
1. GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 Library
Biblioteca Umanistica, Università degli Studi di Urbino
1.2 Collection name
Fondo Lorenzo Bedeschi
1.3 Biographical notes
Lorenzo Bedeschi was born in Prati (a district of Bagnacavallo in Ravenna province) in 1915, into a peasant family with republican traditions. He studied at the Gregorian University in Rome and became a priest. In 1940 was sent to the Balkans as a military chaplain. He returned to Italy after September 8 1943, and participated in the Resistance in the Italian Liberation Corps. After the war, he became an editor and parliamentary correspondent for the Catholic newspaper “L'Avvenire d’Italia”. He also took part in the Christian avant-garde movements and collaborated with the journal “Adesso” founded by Don Primo Mazzolari. He took an interest in modernism and religious reform at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries becoming one of the most authoritative scholars on that matter.
Towards the end of the 1960s, he started teaching contemporary history at the University of Urbino. In Urbino, he also founded Centro studi per la storia del modernismo, that in 1972 began publishing the annals “Fonti e documenti”. As a recognition of his work in rediscovering modernism and religious reform, Louise Juston-Sabatier donated to Centro studi per la storia del modernismo the important archive created by her father, the French Protestant pastor Paul Sabatier. In April 1979, Bedeschi personally took care of the transport from Sabatier house, known as La Maisonette, from Saint Michel de Chanbrillanouix (France) to Urbino. In 1989, together with Carlo Bo, he promoted the creation of Fondazione Romolo Murri in Urbino, where the archive of the priest entrusted to Bedeschi by his son Stelvio was merged.
Meanwhile, his activity of study, collection of documentation, and cultural organization continued constantly. He published numerous works on modernism and related topics with publishers such as Il Saggiatore, Feltrinelli, Bompiani, Morcelliana, Vallecchi, Guanda, and others. He died at the age of 91 in Bologna, where he had lived in the last decades of his life, in November 2006.
1.4 Date and methods of acquisition
Fondo Lorenzo Bedeschi was donated to the University of Urbino, after his death, in February 2007 by express wish of the owner.
1.5 History of the collection
The Lorenzo Bedeschi Collection was donated to the University of Urbino along with his personal archive: it conntained work documentation, correspondence, and private papers that the Bedeschi kept at his house in Bologna, in Via Bellinzona 5. The transportation from Bologna to Urbino was carried out in February 2007, supervised in Bologna by Don Ivo Manzoni and Professor Paolo Giannotti and in Urbino by Dr. Federico Marcucci. The books, that were contained in 355 boxes, were initially deposited at the Biblioteca Umanistica. By March 2007 the emptying of the boxes was completed. The material was divided into “Documents”, “Newspapers”, “Magazines”, and “Monographs”. The material was then transferred to a storage that belongs to the University of Urbino, under the supervision of Dr. Federico Marcucci. In 2015 the collection was moved to Biblioteca Scientifica (Campus Enrico Mattei), where Dr. Luigi Balsamini completed the inventory of the archive and, in 2018, began the process of cataloguing the library collection. In 2019, with the relocation of Biblioteca Scientifica and the inaccessibility of the rooms in the Mattei Campus due to renovation works, the Lorenzo Bedeschi Collection was transferred to Emeroteca Umanistica in Palazzo Diani. The cataloguing of the books was completed in August 2022, while the cataloging of the magazines is yet to be initiated, and some of them have been discarded (the list of discards is available).
1.6 Collection increase
No further material is expected to be added to the collection.
1.7 Collection indexing
Fondo Lorenzo Bedeschi was donated to the University of Urbino without any kind of inventory. The books catalogue is accessible on the National Library System (opac.sbn.it) and on the Polo SBN Marche Nord (bibliomarchenord.it/SebinaOpac; sba.uniurb.it/SebinaOpac). Regarding the magazines, which are yet to be cataloged, a paper inventory is available.
1.8 Collection accessibility
The collection can be accessed at the following address: permalink
2. DESCRIPTION
2.1 Extent
The collection consists of 8,138 monographic units: around 300 extracts and about 4,000 magazine issues. They are mostly related to contemporary history and thought behind the Christian religion, with particular reference to the modernist movement. Attached material found within the volumes (newspaper clippings, note sheets) is stored separately, in envelopes labeled with the name of the volume.
2.2 Description identifier, organization, and placement
Fondo Lorenzo Bedeschi has maintained its autonomy towards to the other collections. It is divided into sections marked by the following locations:
A) Reference Works (189 units)
B) Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary History (1,518 units)
C) Ecclesiastical and Religious History (1,196 units)
D) Religious Thought and Life (2,998 units)
E) Philosophy, Economics, Sociology, Politics, Education, Law (1,423 units)
F) Literature and Correspondence (575 units)
G) Art, Architecture, Photography, Travel (124 units)
H) Miscellaneous (44 units)
I) Works by Lorenzo Bedeschi (71 units)
L) Miscellaneous Extracts (uncatalogued)
2.3 State of conservation
Well preserved.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY E DOCUMENTATION
3.1 Bibliography e documentation
No papers have been published regarding this collection. On Lorenzo Bedeschi:
«Le Carte», n. 7, 2005: numero speciale contenente Bibliografia dei principali scritti di Lorenzo Bedeschi (1944-2005);
Lorenzo Bedeschi cittadino onorario di Urbino: cronaca del conferimento avvenuta il 20 giugno 1992, Urbino, Editrice Montefeltro, 1992;
Alfonso Botti, Rocco Cerrato, Don Lorenzo, a memory
https://www.istitutostoriamarche.it/uploads/File/Don%20Lorenzo%20Bedeschi,%20un%20ricordo.pdf
4. NOTES
4.1 Special notes and reports
The Lorenzo Bedeschi Collection shows the intensive research and studies of its owner: it contains numerous themes, figures, and aspects of the cultural, political, and religious life of the contemporary times, with a particular focus on Catholic culture between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the modernist movement. The collection is deeply entwined with Bedeschi's personal archive, which contains diaries, notebooks, handwritten notes, typed texts, printing proofs, photocopies, photographs, prints, extracts, magazines, newspaper clippings, and so on. Moreover the archive contains a large amount of incoming correspondence (sometimes copies of outgoing correspondence) with well-known figures from the political, cultural, and editorial worlds of the second half of the twentieth century; but Bedeschi also had correspondece with numerous students, scholars, friends, and religious figures he met during his long career. Other related collections can be the Romolo Murri Collection and the Paul Sabatier Collection, also housed at Palazzo Diani, near the Lorenzo Bedeschi Collection.
PERMALINK TO THE CATALOGUE
COMPILER'S NAME
Luigi Balsamini