The research for this paper was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by the President’s Supplementary Fund of the University of Saskatchewan.

¹ Rosa, Mario, ‘The Italian Churches’, in Church and Society in Catholic Europe of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Callahan, William J. and Higgs, David, Cambridge 1979, 66–76, esp. pp. 68–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Bascapè, Carlo, Novaria, seu de ecclesia novariensis, Novara 1612, 3Google Scholar. Other neighbours of Novara were the dioceses of Pavia and Vigevano to the south, Vercelli to the west and Sion to the north-west.

³ The names of vicariates, especially in the mountainous regions, were subject to change over the decades, reflecting the residence of the vicars foranei, who supervised local affairs for the episcopal curia. Thus, the index of pastoral visitations of the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Novara lists the vicariate of the Pieve Vergonte under Masera in the eighteenth century, part of Varallo Sesia under Rimella and part of Domodossola under Varzo.

⁴ The conclusion that few Novarese clerics studied at Turin is supported by the discussion and tables of Balani, D., Carpanetto, D. and Turletti, F. in ‘La popolazione studentesca dell’ Università di Torino nel settecento’, Bolletino Storico-bibliografico Subalpino lxxvi (1978), 9–109, esp. p. 107Google Scholar.

⁵ Archivio Storico Diocesano di Novara, Ada visilationis (hereinafter cited as AV), vols lxv-xcvii for Taverna’s visits and vols ccxc-ccclii for those of Balbis Bertone.

⁶ Seasonal migration was especially important in the districts of Lakes Maggiore and Orta and in the northern mountains, where scores of men left their homes as traders or in search of employment. In the acts of Gian Pietro Volpi’s visit to the Antigorio valley in 1627, for example, men are described as going to Milan, Bologna and Rome in search of work, AV, cviii. 10r, 42r, 268V, 293r, 341r.

⁷ The ratio of population to priests was 161 to one in the centre regions of the diocese, 150 to one in the region of the lakes and 177 to one in the mountains.

⁸ William J. Callahan, ‘The Spanish Church’, in Church and Society, 34–50, esp. p. 36.

⁹ In the early seventeenth century the following towns had collegiate churches, each of which had at least one or two canons involved in the cure of souls: Borgomancro, Baveno, Pallanza, Omegna, Intra, the Island of San Giulio, Borgosesia and Domodossola. Gozzano and Varallo Sesia had collegiate churches in 1616–18, but the cure of souls was administered by parish priests who were not members of the chapter. By the eighteenth century the curates of these two towns had also obtained the status of canons.

¹⁰ This information comes from the visits of Bishops Antonio Tornielli and Giulio Maria Odescalchi, AV, cxxxvii, cxli, cl-clvii, clix-clxiii, clxv, clxviii, and represents a good cross-section of the regions of the diocese. It is corroborated by visits to two of the diocese’s smaller seminaries. In 1593 two seminarians of the Island of San Giulio listed their fathers’ occupations as shoemaker, two as merchants of ‘small things’ and others as notary, goldsmith and mason, AV, xx. 85V. In 1617 one seminarian of Santa Maria at Suna stated that his father was noble feudatory of the town, while others listed their fathers’ occupations as innkeeper, charcoal seller, grain merchant, livestock merchant, baker, carpenter and silversmith, AV, lxxxviii. 353r-4r.

¹¹ The numbers 400 and 1,200 were calculated by subtracting the numbers of assistant curates, mercenary chaplains, retired priests, priests living on their patrimony and priests of unknown status from the total numbers of priests. The numbers are rounded off because it was possible for priests to hold more than one chaplaincy, provided the duties did not conflict or could be performed by a substitute.

¹² AV, cccl, ‘Inventario delle rendite e obblighi annui del ven. Seminario di Novara... 1764’.

¹³ The priests listed in Table 2 include provosts and canons involved in the cure of souls from Borgomanero, Varallo and other large towns.

¹⁴ For a study of Italian schools before the Council of Trent see Grendler, Paul F., ‘The organization of primary and secondary education in the Italian Renaissance’, The Catholic Historical Review lxxi (1985), 185–205Google Scholar, esp. pp. 192–6, where he notes the decline of ecclesiastical schools in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and their rise again after the middle of the sixteenth century.

¹⁵ P. G. Longo, Problemi di vita religiosa nella diocesi di Mvara, prima del episcopate di Carlo Bascapè (1593) e con particolare riferimento al periodo 1580–1500, unpubl. tesi di laurea, University of Turin 1969–70, ii. 208–10.

¹⁶ Bascapè describes simple benefices in the Novaria, seu de ecclesia novariensi, 61–7.

¹⁷ In 1593 the seminary of Novara had an enrolment of twenty-five clerics. Archivio provinciale dei Barnabiti, Milan: Carlo Bascapè. Registri di lettere del tempo del suo vescovado dal 1503 al 1615, i Ep. 500, to Guglielmo Vidoni, rector of the seminary of Milan, 7 Sept. 1593. The seminary of Varallo possessed an annual income of only 500 lire in 1593, and Bascapè left it vacant to allow its revenues to accumulate, AV, xix. 23r-6r. The enrolment of the seminary of San Giulio was eight in 1593, AV, xx. 85r.

¹⁸ Bascapè. Reg. vise, i Ep. 404, to Don Pietro Aldobrandini, 10 Aug. 1593.

¹⁹ Ada Ecclesiae Mediolanensis a Carlo Cardinals. Praxedis Archiepiscopo condila, Milan 1599, 258.

²⁰ Curates who studied at institutions outside Novara included Giovanni Viscardi of Cravegna, who studied philosophy and law at the University of Bologna, and Francesco Pizzetto of Bolzano, who studied letters and cases of conscience at the Jesuit colleges of Rome and Milan, AV, xlvi. 216; lxxi. 228v.

²¹ For a study of clerical education at Novara during and after the episcopate of Bascapè see Thomas Deutscher, ‘Seminaries and the education of Novarese priests, 1593–1627’, this Journal xxxii (1981), 303–19.

²² Bascapè, Reg. vesc, xxiv, Ep. 322, to the vicar general of Novara, 13 July 1612.

²³ In 1608 Bascapè reported an enrolment of twenty clerics at Suna, Reg. vesc, xxi, Ep. 416, to the head of San Paolo at Piazza Colonna, Rome, 7 Jan. 1608. For the foundation of the seminary of Borgomanero see AV, lxxv. 117r-18r and discussion of the origins of the Oblates of San Gaudenzio and San Carlo, below.

²⁴ The Barnabites left Novara after the arrival of the Jesuit Order in 1624.

²⁵ AV, lxv-xcvii.

²⁶ For example, in 1617 Bartolomco Monte, coadjutor in the cure of souls at Borgomancro, instructed not only clerics as obliged by his benefice but also other boys of the town, AV, lxxv. 12, while at Galliate in the vicariate of Trecate, Giovanni Gambara taught grammar to a number of boys for 60 lire from the community plus a small payment from his pupils, AV, lxxiii. 391v.

²⁷ When Bascapè visited the vicariatc of Gozzano in 1594, the parish priests of Auzatc, Bolzano and Pogno declared that they taught boys from their towns, AV, xxv. 145V, 1631, 208r. When Taverna came in 1617, only the parish priest of Briga stated that he taught grammar, AV, lxxi. 181 r.

²⁸ In 1762 in the vicariatc of Vespolate, the community of Terdobbiate hired Antonio Befignotti to teach school, hear confessions, minister to the dying and say five masses a week, while the community of Tornaco hired Giovanni Barbavaria to serve as schoolmaster, hear confessions, attend parish functions and say a number of masses, AV, cccxxviii.

²⁹ For example, in 1762 Don Felice Prinseco from the parish of Cravegna in the Antigorio valley was obliged by the terms of the perpetual chapel of San Lorenzo to teach the boys of the town reading, writing and arithmetic for ten months each year. The benefice, awarded by a layman, had been created in 1734 and provided an annual income of 500 lire. At San Michele di Premia, in the same vicariate, Bernardo dc Prato held a similar benefice, in the gift of a lay confraternity, which yielded an annual income of 400 lire, AV, ccexxxiii.

³⁰ The vicariate of Trecate had nine priests who served as schoolmasters, Vespolate six, Romagnano five, Gozzano eight, Intra I seven, Antigorio five, Borgosesia II 10, Pieve Vergonte 10, the Vail’ Anzasca nine, the Valle Vigezzo six and Varallo Sesia I six.

³¹ Lizier, Augusto, Le Scuole di Novara ed il liceo convitto, Novara 1908, 33–52Google Scholar.

³² Ibid. 55–60.

³³ Lizier states that, by the terms of their agreement, the Jesuits were to receive a total of 1,000 scudi of which 600 would come from the Cannobian legacy, 150 from goods left by a Jesuit in Rome, 150 from the Novarese countryside and 100 from the seminary, ibid. 58.

³⁴ For example, in the visit of Bishop Odescalchi to the vicariate of Trecate in 1657, twenty-three priests stated that they had received all or part of their training at the Cannobian School and eight in the diocesan seminaries, AV, clii.

³⁵ For a study of the limited nature of seminary training in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries see above n. 21.

³⁶ The course of studies from grammar through speculative and moral theology is mentioned explicitly by many of the priests describing their education. For brief accounts of the Jesuit ratio studiorum see Lizier, Le Scuole di Novara, 60, and Eugenio Garin, L’Educazione in Europa 1400/1600, Rome-Bari 1976, 201–7.

³⁷ AV, ccxcvi. 155r.

³⁸ AV, lxxv. 117r-18r.

³⁹ AV, ccxcvi. 210–15: ‘Copia della bolla della S.ra Congregazione de’ Cardinali a favore del Collegio’, establishing the rights of the Oblates in the face of opposition from the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo of Borgomancro in 1706.

⁴⁰ The history and functions of the Oblates arc described briefly in the visit of San Giacomo for 1765, AV, ccclii. 289V. The file ASDN ix 23 Seminari contains two lists of the Oblates and their associates: ‘Cattalogo generale dcgli Obblati presentanci’ and ‘Obblati di Convitto ressidenti ai loro rispettivi Beneficii. 1771’. The ‘Cattalogo’ appears to antedate the list from 1771 because a number of the Oblates whom it lists as serving San Giacomo at Novara or Santa Cristina at Borgomanero received benefices by 1771, while others with benefices in the first list were promoted to more prestigious posts in 1771. The ‘Cattalogo’ names 27 Oblates with benefices in the city and diocese, 13 resident at San Giacomo, Santa Cristina and other institutions cared for by the congregation and eight associates. The 1771 list includes 26 Oblates living in their benefices, nine living in institutions of the congregation and ten associates, among the latter Canon Florio of the cathedral, rector of the seminary of Novara. Among the benefices given to Oblates were the provostships of Invorio and Borgosesia and canonries at the cathedrals of Novara.

⁴¹ AV, cxlix. 227V, 232r.

⁴² AV, clxxxi. 557v-8r.

⁴³ AV, cxxi. 79 bis.

⁴⁴ AV, lxv. 21 r.

⁴⁵ See AV, cccl, ‘Visitatio seminarii urbani’, which describes the seminary buildings and the roles played by the various officers of the seminary. The ‘Status clericorum seminarii Novariae anno scolastico 1763–1764’ in the same volume lists 14 clerics in speculative theology, 53 in moral theology, 26 in philosophy and 27 in rhetoric.

⁴⁶ AV, ccxcvi. 155r.

⁴⁷ AV, cccxliii.

⁴⁸ AV, cccxxiii.

⁴⁹ In 1764 the seminary of Novara enjoyed revenues of 8,421 lire 6 soldi, not including the money paid by clerics for board. Expenses other than food for the clerics totaled 6,841 lire 11 soldi, AV, cccl, ‘Inventario delle rendite, ed obblighi annui del ven. Seminario di Novara... 1764’.

⁵⁰ In 1762 37 priests of the vicariate of Trecate indicated that they had studied at the Cannobian School, 18 at the Cannobian School and one of the diocesan seminaries, five at the Cannobian School and with the Oblates of San Giacomo and 15 at the diocesan seminaries only, AV, cccxxix-cccxxxi.

⁵¹ Lizier, Le Scuole di Novara, 81–7.

⁵² Cognasso, Francesco, Sloria di Novara, Novara 1971, 413Google Scholar.

⁵³ In 1758–65 many priests failed to report the institution or even the city where they studied, often indicating simply that they had studied everything from grammar to moral theology, or grammar’ and the rest’. However, 313 priests did indicate studies at Novarese institutions, 102 at Novara and other cities, 24 only at Milan and 24 in other dioceses.

⁵⁴ In 1616–18 four parish priests, three canons and one chaplain possessed degrees in law, while five parish priests and three canons possessed theology degrees. The sixteen priests with degrees constituted only 3.3 per cent of the diocesan clergy. By 1765 that figure had scarcely altered, although there was a greater tendency among all seminary priests to engage in the study of speculative or dogmatic theology. The figures for 1758–65 were two parish priests, one canon and three chaplains with degrees in law and 15 parish priests, five canons and four chaplains with theology degrees. The 30 priests with degrees constituted only 2 per cent of the total number of priests.

⁵⁵ For a study of a failed attempt by the Austrian administration of Milan to reform seminary studies in Lombardy in the later eighteenth century see Panizza, Mario, ‘L’Austria e gli studi superiori ecclesiastici nella diocesi di Milano durante l’ultimo trentennio del secolo XVIII’, Memorie Storiche delta Diocesi di Milano iii (1956), 167–221Google Scholar.