ROME: 2 November 2012 --
It
will be of interest for many readers to know that Part
II of Peter
Braido's 'Don Bosco the Educator' is now available for
perusal or
download in English. This gives English-speaking readers
who have not
had the opportunity to access a number of very important
primary
documents (perhaps because they have limited knowledge of
Italian) to
read them, plus the critical apparatus which comments on them,
in their
entirety for the first time
The documents involved cover the period 1854-1862, a time when
the
incipient Oraotry and attached Home were growing at an
outstanding
rate, along with at least two other oratories strategically
placed
around the city (Porta Nuova and Vanchiglia).
The documents produced here in English
in full, along with critical
comment are as follows: Introduction
to
the Draft Regulations for the Oratory, the Historical Outline (Cenno storico) of the
development
of the oratories from 1841 to 1854, the later Historical Outlines (Cenni storici). These
three show a
Don Bosco who is still very much the diocesan priest in Turin.
The Cenno storico,
most of which had
been translated already by Fr Lenti, has here been included in
its
complete and, as Braido indicated, 'original' version
- but where he
reconstructs this version using later corrections and
annotations
introduced by Don Bosco as his 'scribes' made copies or
offered
suggestions.
A second set of documents of the narrative kind include Don
Bosco's History of Italy
written for young
people, and various reviews of this. The reviews were written
in a
particular journalistic style which would be very hard to
understand if
translated literally, so the translator has chosen to
'modernise' this
style somewhat - but hopefully not losing the rather
convoluted
argument that Niccolò Tommaseo wanted to pursue - while
'commenting' on
Don Bosco's work, he also wanted to philosophise on what
historical
writers should really be doing! He obviously came under some
criticism
for his effort, since he feels obliged to add a rejoinder!
Then there is a circular for a lottery written by 'The
Commission', but
we assume that DB had a strong hand in its composition, and
the
Catholic newspaper, L'Armonia's
comments
on what a feast day at the Oratory was like.
Finally you have a section of the introduction Don Bosco wrote
to the
first draft of the Salesian Constitutions as far back as 1858.
