Cornelio Fabro: A Biographical, Chronological, and Thematic Profile from Unpublished Documents, Archived Notes, and Testimonials

By Rosa Goglia

Cornelio Fabro, a Stigmatine priest, is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. He was born in Flumignano on August 24, 1911. For decades he undertook an exemplary pastoral apostolate in the parish Santa Croce al Flaminio (Rome) while simultaneously dedicating himself to the intensive work of teaching at numerous universities, both pontifical and public.
Fabro was internationally recognized for his Thomistic studies, characterized by a historic-critical re-thinking of the texts of Saint Thomas from the perspective of the notion of participation, his encounter with modern thought (particularly Hegel and Heidegger), as well as for his studies and translations of Kierkegaard. His intellectual output includes some 30 books and over 900 articles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IVE Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781947568334

Book preview

SELECTED WORKS OF CORNELIO FABRO

Vol. 1: Selected Articles on Metaphysics and Participation

Vol. 2: Selected Articles on Søren Kierkegaard

Vol. 3: Selected Articles on Atheism and Freedom

Vol. 5: The Phenomenology of Perception

Vol. 6: Perception and Thought – forthcoming

Vol. 9: God: An Introduction to Problems in Theology

Vol. 19: Introduction to St. Thomas

Rosa Goglia

CORNELIO

FABRO

A Biographical, Chronological,

and Thematic Profile from

Unpublished Documents,

Archived Notes, and Testimonials

Edited by the Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project of the Institute of the Incarnate Word

Cover Design

  ©   2023 by IVE Press, Chillum, MD

        Institute of the Incarnate Word, Inc.

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  ©   2023 by Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project

        All rights reserved

Originally published in Italian as Cornelio Fabro: Profilo Biografico

Cronologico Tematico da inediti, note di archivo, testimonianze

First edition by Editrice del Verbo Incarnato, Segni 2010

First English translation published 2023

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor’s Preface

Foreword

Preface

The Approach

FIRST PART

FROM BIRTH TO CULTURAL DEBUT

CHAPTER I: 1911-1928

CHAPTER II: 1929-1948

SECOND PART

ACADEMIC CAREER AND

ECCLESIASTICAL ASSIGNMENTS

CHAPTER III: 1948-1949

CHAPTER IV: 1950-1954

CHAPTER V: 1955-1956

CHAPTER VI: 1957

CHAPTER VII: 1958-1959

CHAPTER VIII: 1960-1963

CHAPTER IX: 1964-1968

CHAPTER X: 1969-1970

CHAPTER XI: 1971-1976

THIRD PART

MATURITY

CHAPTER XII: 1977-1984

CHAPTER XIII: 1985-1994

CHAPTER XIV: 1995

Appendix: A Brief Fabrian Review

Bibliography

Index of Names

EDITOR’S PREFACE

The Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project is pleased to present this translation into English of Cornelio Fabro: Profilo Biografico Cronologico Tematico de inediti, note di archivio, testimonianze (Segni [RM]: EDIVI, 2010), authored by Sr. Rosa Goglia, ASC, who was Fr. Fabro’s devoted secretary for nearly 20 years and prior to that, his student.

This translation has been made to follow Goglia’s original text as closely as possible. However, in order to make the text more accessible to English readers, the following changes have been made:

– Most quotations or phrases in a different language, whether in the body text or in a footnote, have been replaced with an English translation and have been moved to editor’s footnotes. When the translation is from a published work, the citation is provided in these footnotes. Long quotations have been separated from the paragraph and indented to distinguish them from Goglia’s text.

– This text uses two sets of footnotes. The first set, designated with Arabic numerals, are Goglia’s notes. While keeping Goglia’s style, complete names and titles have been given for abbreviations uncommon in English. For other abbreviations, the English equivalents have been used.

– The second set of footnotes, indicated with letters, are notes from the editor. These include corrections to any errors or discrepancies in the original document, citations as mentioned above, and short translations. Occasional notes from the editor are designated with [Ed.].

The Project thanks those who assisted in preparing this book for publication, especially Sr. Mary Magdalene Eitenmiller, O.P., and Sr. Marie de Prouille Klobucher, S.S.V.M., for their work on the translation. The Project also thanks the religious of the Institute of the Incarnate Word and the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará for their editorial work. Fr. Cornelio Fabro, C.S.S. is one of the most important Thomistic philosophers of the twentieth century, but is unfortunately little-known in the English-speaking world. We hope that this translation of Fr. Fabro’s biography will arouse more interest in his person and in his thought.

Fr. Nathaniel Dreyer, IVE

October 13, 2022

FOREWORD

The story goes that when St. Gaspar Bertoni, founder of the Congregation of the Stigmatines, would go out in search of rare and unusual books, the collectors and booksellers of Verona would shake in their shoes, because he, with a bloodhound’s nose, would immediately discover something important and seize it for the library that he was installing in the new religious house. The literary heritage on sale at that time often came from monasteries suppressed years earlier by Napoleon. His search, with special permission from Pope Gregory XVI, did not stop at Verona, but volumes would also arrive from Padua, Venice, and Paris: ancient manuscripts, incunabula, and precious editions, such as the most important works of Baronio, edited by Mansi, and of the Jesuit theologian, Fr. Francisco Suárez.

I have heard that, during the immediate post-war years, Fr. Cornelio Fabro would also make the rounds of the bookstalls or little antique bookshops of Rome in quest of rare and important works. Those were the years in which the destruction of the Second World War had scattered books and texts of great richness and importance into the most unthought-of oblivion and the most complete abandonment. And for our confrere as well, the horizons of the search opened out into Europe and beyond, to form that most precious library of about thirty thousand volumes that we now possess.

In this light, I always, almost spontaneously, compared the figure of this Stigmatine religious to his Founder.

In St. Gaspar Bertoni’s intentions, the search was not aimed at mere literary pleasure or some collecting mania, but rather its purpose was to provide the means for his disciples’ complete and profound preparation for the task of evangelizers as Apostolic Missionaries. Antonio Bresciani, a Jesuit and one of the founders of the periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, assures us that it was common opinion in Verona that Don Gaspar, in addition to having profoundly studied theology, was also a profound connoisseur of the Greek, Latin, and Italian classics.

And so was Fr. Cornelio. For him, everything was guided by his deep desire (I would almost say the yearning) for research on God and man, along the lines of freedom for the truth and of the truth in freedom.

While I follow with great joy the birth of this first biography of Fr. Cornelio Fabro, presented here by Sister Rosa Goglia, his dear and most faithful secretary for so many years, I would like to synthetically express one single thought about him: Fabro as a philosopher, theologian, essayist, scholar, writer, and teacher, can never be separated from Fabro as a disciple of Christ, a man of profound spirituality, a religious, and a priest.

His reflections, his philosophical and theological insights, and the world of his knowledge were always the soul of his faith and belief, and, at the same time, his spiritual life as a Christian was the driving force of his research and work.

Only in this framework can so many moments of his life be understood, where, very naturally and easily, he would go from university professorships and international philosophical congresses, from moments of study and article writing, from heated debates within cultural circles of friends, to the simple moment of personal prayer, reciting the breviary or the rosary, to the celebration of the Eucharist and the Sunday homily for his faithful at Santa Croce al Flaminio, to the pastoral ministry of confession in the Basilica, to kicking the ball around with the boys of the parish in the oratory courtyard with true soccer enthusiasm, and to a nice glass of Piculit or Tocai, famous wines of his Friulian homeland, shared in friendship with the brothers of his community.

I hope that readers, while leafing through these pages, may not only learn the facts, episodes, and curiosities of his life, but may also perceive the scholar’s passion for the Truth and the profound spirit of a disciple of Christ.

Fr. Andrea Meschi

Superior General of the Stigmatines

PREFACE

In the redaction of the biographic and cultural path of the Friulian philosopher, I have followed a chronological-thematic criterion. His is a complex biography in which—as he himself said—the biographic element has conditioned and spurred on the course of thought from deep within.

I drew my information from archived notes and scattered unpublished writings, both from those already in my possession and from others, in which he describes his memories and the intertwining of events and hardships of a life in which dedication and profusion of energy knew no rest or yielding.

I confess that some emphases and underscores bear the stamp of personal knowledge—they are reflections that our philosopher would often return to in conversations or that he sprinkled here and there in his writings and academic lessons.

In this study, I was spurred on, as it were, by the continual editing I did of the rough drafts of his various publications—this obliged me to have often close and rigorous dialogues and discussions with the author. If I sometimes take up some particular again, it is not a repetition because it has the purpose of revealing other angles, just like in the sharp curves of mountain trails, where the scenery during the ascent is ever the same and ever new.

Certainly, this is not the best of biographies—much remains within the folds of the pages, due to the stature and versatility of this thinker—but we had to breach the infinity of his research and of his spiritual, human, cultural, and scientific depth. To this end, I have sought to give ample space to the words of the author and of his reviewers and critics.

I owe a great deal to the precious collaboration of the teacher, Annamaria D’Ambrogio, who arranged Fr. Fabro’s library with intelligence and dedication: three rooms on the ground floor and two of the rooms of his study on the third floor. She offered me valuable suggestions for the redaction of these notes and took on the labor of transcribing them. For her as well as for me, the papers we had before us were not cold and impersonal, but continual reminders of those who had lived through those experiences and of others that they called to our minds.

I would like to thank Fr. Fabro’s confreres, the Stigmatine Fathers, for providing me with some of their testimonies and with the rich annotations of the community’s Chronicles; Father Elvio Celestino Fontana, Doctor in Philosophy and Director of the Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project, for the typographical revision of the whole work; the religious brothers and sisters of the Incarnate Word who work in the Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project; as well as Fabro’s nephew, Claudio Fabro, for some archival research.

I also thank the readers who will graciously help me perfect this work.

Rosa Goglia

THE APPROACH

My path runs towards the only goal: the truth of being [esse] in its self-posing and self-proposing without end. A path on which the biographical element has conditioned and spurred on the course of thought from deep within, without any desire for ostentation

(C. Fabro, 1987)

I met Fr. Fabro (this is how he wanted to be called) in 1958, when he was a professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Saint Mary of the Assumption Higher Teaching Institute (today LUMSA). With him as my advisor, I graduated with a thesis on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, after having studied German.

Whoever knew Fr. Fabro, not only through studying his writings, but also by listening to and attending his lessons or conversing with him in the spartan premises of his well-stocked and beloved library (of almost thirty thousand volumes and collections that he knew individually), could not but have the impression of being in the presence of a great master. He was always available for dialogue and discussion, never judging the person in front of him. Rather, always with an alert and attentive attitude, he would seek that fragment or grain of truth hiding in the depths of his or her soul. He was a teacher because, always and only seeking the truth, he would pursue it as a free conquest of the teacher-student encounter. Each of his remarks had the power to open a gap, a breach into the infinite in the mind of his interlocutor, who would consider his own work the capacity to see that light with his own eyes, owing Fabro nothing, since Fabro’s task was to set the student free even from his own teaching, because freedom is risk and responsibility. He was a teacher of freedom: freedom for the truth and truth in freedom.¹

A thinker of towering erudition, a profound authority in contemporary philosophy, his interests and in-depth studies ranged from the philosophy of St. Thomas to modern and contemporary thought, from biology, psychology, and phenomenology, to existentialism, science, theology, spirituality, and mysticism. Free from systems and easy syncretism, he went to the heart of the problem of freedom, which was a strong yearning, a relentless passion in a life entirely devoted to the investigation of the Truth in which to anchor freedom.

His knowledge was first-hand, directly from the sources, and almost always from editions edited by the authors themselves, or, in the case of ancient writers, from critical editions.

I listened to and transcribed almost all of them. Reading his writings and listening to his lessons supported my professional preparation and my many apostolic ministries. From 1966 to 1977, I personally met with Father Fabro only sporadically, but I had the opportunity to follow his university lessons continually, thanks to the attentive solicitude of the professor Anna Giannatiempo, his assistant in the chair of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Perugia, who saved and periodically delivered to me the recordings on tapes or reels. From 1977 to 1995, the year of his death, I lived a new mode of discipleship, beginning with proofreading his countless publications, but gradually intensifying into more articulate forms, such as putting his things in order and taking care of his library. I was assisted in this by a valiant collaborator, the teacher Annamaria D’Ambrogio, who, until 1995, also distinguished herself through her valuable support in the great scholar’s multiple demands—and all this without living in the same city: Fabro in Rome, D’Ambrogio and I in Frosinone. My visits were weekly and so most of the work continued to be carried out in Frosinone, which had almost become a branch office, and this without diminishing any of my professional obligations to work and to the congregation. A huge number of manuscripts would pass through my hands. I would arrange to have them typed up and then verify the fidelity of the transcription. After having submitted them to the professor, I would send them to the publisher, and then start over with the correction of the subsequent rough draft. This allowed me to preview each new work at least three times. Not only that, but I was able to observe the scrupulosity of his work, his commitment to remaining in the essentials, crossing out whatever seemed superfluous to him—never to me, but of course I would never dare to insist: at most I would conserve a photocopy of the excluded parts, and he noticed it. Sometimes he would say, half-jokingly, Publish it after my death, but he never made me destroy it. Other details of this collaboration may be found in my statement, Padre C. Fabro, professore e maestro, nel ricordo di un’allieva,

FIGURE OF A THINKER AND OF A TEACHER

The work of Cornelio Fabro, [says Armando Rigobello], should be grasped as a whole in its constant distinctive characteristics and in its difficult (and sometimes polemical and contested) cultural and, more specifically, philosophical and Christian testimony. Fabro is a radical thinker; he is not a man of trends or schools—he puts himself before issues crucial to existence and takes a stand. His teachers, Thomas and Kierkegaard, are very different from one another, but he feels equally close to both: he reads Kierkegaard with Thomistic concerns and St. Thomas with Kierkegaardian concerns. In reality, he listens to himself and communicates himself and his taking a stand in the dramatic seriousness of thought. His interest in atheism, in order to grasp its internal contradictions, but also to understand the motivations for it from within, also denotes his essential way of doing philosophy, in which his great methodological and philological preparation and the very weight of erudition never quash the restless search and the religious care for the soul.

Fabro is a kind of thinker and teacher that one does not frequently encounter. Whoever met Fabro in the Pontifical or State Universities drew an essential teaching from it, as well as a healthy speculative and existential provocation that forced them to face life directly. Apart from the great value of his works, indeed, in vital connection with them, Fr. Fabro’s radical maieutic concern, also, and perhaps above all, in milieus of secular culture, remains a precious testimony and leaves an impression that we hope will continue to bear fruit for many years.²

* * *

Fabro used to say that to understand Kierkegaard, the only criterion is Kierkegaard himself, that is, the docile self-abandonment to the rhythm of his discourse and the attentive reception of his self-giving within the devices of an exquisite literary dexterity and of a disconcerting, problematic radicality.³ We, too, can assert that in order to understand Fabro, the only criterion is Fabro himself.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL-CULTURAL PROFILE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

During some periods of forced and imposed rest for health reasons, our philosopher began to write the memoirs of his life, which were always vivid in his memory and in the fabric of his daily life. The first title that we encounter is Ricordi sparsi, begun in February 1979 and continued in Passoscuro (Rome) in August. After an interruption, it was taken up again in the years 1983–84 with the title Momenti della Memoria; these have an evocative and descriptive tone. Between these two periods, his retirement from academic teaching at the University of Perugia approached. The Director of the Institute of Philosophy [of the University of Perugia], Prof. Antonio Pieretti, asked Fabro to write the cultural profile of his career, to be published in a commemorative volume compiled by the University, which would contain the contributions of many of his fellow-professors and colleagues. Fabro worked hard on this; he wrote the Appunti in several parts between April and June 1980, but in the end, he did not hand them over in their entirety. He sent a more scientific and concise version for publication with the title Appunti di un itinerario, enriched by the conclusion, Ringraziamento: l’intesa e l’attesa, written in 1982. The aforementioned volume was published with the title Essere e Libertà— Studi in onore di Cornelio Fabro.⁴

In 1983, during a brief hospitalization in the Quisisana Clinic in Rome, Fabro resumed and completed Momenti della Memoria, which had already been partially published. In this work, when Momenti della Memoria is cited, I am referring to this version.

In 1987, at the invitation from the editor of a prestigious philosophical journal, he wrote an Autopresentazione, entitled Appunti di un itinerario: un invito e una decisione, from September 6 to 9, 1987, which will be cited as Autopresentazione. Due to a shipping error, however, it was not published.a

In 1988, he wrote the Prologo fenomenologico, which he sent to the journal Gladius as the last point in the process of the Itinerario; it was published in Spanish in 1992.

The present work is divided into three parts in order to offer an almost immediate, synoptic, and resumptive understanding of his Biographical—Chronological—Thematic Profile.

¹ After graduation, I was not able to follow him into the academic career, but I had the opportunity to listen to his taped university lessons from 1966 to 1983, and not only his academic lessons, but also his homilies—a total of about 770 recordings.

I listened to and transcribed almost all of them. Reading his writings and listening to his lessons supported my professional preparation and my many apostolic ministries. From 1966 to 1977, I personally met with Father Fabro only sporadically, but I had the opportunity to follow his university lessons continually, thanks to the attentive solicitude of the professor Anna Giannatiempo, his assistant in the chair of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Perugia, who saved and periodically delivered to me the recordings on tapes or reels. From 1977 to 1995, the year of his death, I lived a new mode of discipleship, beginning with proofreading his countless publications, but gradually intensifying into more articulate forms, such as putting his things in order and taking care of his library. I was assisted in this by a valiant collaborator, the teacher Annamaria D’Ambrogio, who, until 1995, also distinguished herself through her valuable support in the great scholar’s multiple demands—and all this without living in the same city: Fabro in Rome, D’Ambrogio and I in Frosinone. My visits were weekly and so most of the work continued to be carried out in Frosinone, which had almost become a branch office, and this without diminishing any of my professional obligations to work and to the congregation. A huge number of manuscripts would pass through my hands. I would arrange to have them typed up and then verify the fidelity of the transcription. After having submitted them to the professor, I would send them to the publisher, and then start over with the correction of the subsequent rough draft. This allowed me to preview each new work at least three times. Not only that, but I was able to observe the scrupulosity of his work, his commitment to remaining in the essentials, crossing out whatever seemed superfluous to him—never to me, but of course I would never dare to insist: at most I would conserve a photocopy of the excluded parts, and he noticed it. Sometimes he would say, half-jokingly, Publish it after my death, but he never made me destroy it. Other details of this collaboration may be found in my statement, Padre C. Fabro, professore e maestro, nel ricordo di un’allieva, published electronically in 2003 on the website maintained by the Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project in Segni (Rome).

On memory lane, so many things come to mind, but we cannot say everything at once. Whenever I would come back from visiting him, especially from one of our weekly meetings, that same evening I would note down his impromptu reflections in an agenda. I filled two agendas (from May 13, 1978, to May 3, 1995), and in the course of this book, I will refer to some of these, citing: Annotations, month, day, and year.

I want to thank him again for having included my name in the following works, referring to my collaboration: Kierkegaard, Diario, vol. XII (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1983), p. 215; Kierkegaard, Gli atti dell’amore (Rusconi, 1983), p. 137, with a special second edition of 300 copies ad personam numbered from 1 (Prof. Fabro) to 300—copy no. 14 was printed for Rosa Goglia; Momenti dello spirito, vol. II (Assisi, 1983), p. 438; and Gemma Galgani. Testimone del Soprannaturale (Rome: CIPI, 1987), p. 19.

² A. Rigobello, Il ‘Tomismo autentico’ di un originale pensatore—Gli ottant’anni di Cornelio Fabro, L’Osservatore Romano (September 16–17, 1991), p. 3.

³ Cf. C. Fabro, introduction to Opere, by S. Kierkegaard (Florence: Sansoni, 1993), p. XIII.

⁴ A. Pieretti, editor (Rimini: Maggioli, 1984), 586 pages.

a These autobiographical manuscripts have since been published by Sr. Rosa in a book called Il golfo amato della mia speranza (Segni: EDIVI, 2020). Quotes from these manuscripts will be cited and translated from this title.

FIRST PART

BIRTH TO CULTURAL DEBUT

CHAPTER I

1911–1928

Beyond our external and internal senses there are some mysterious channels in which the meaning of our life flows: beyond the internal and external senses; and philosophers seek the source of it

(Aphorism 1238)

HIS FAMILY

Cornelio Fabro was born in Flumignano (Udine) on August 24, 1911, and baptized with the name of Cornelio Remigio in the Parish of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul on August 27, 1911, by Fr. Aristide Luccardi, O.F.M.Cap. His godparents were Luigi Cum and Lucia Biasio. In 1920, he made his First Holy Communion and was confirmed in the same parish (on November 28, 1920). He was the third of four children (all born in Flumignano): Antonio, Secondo, Cornelio Remigio, and Alma Teresina.¹

Fabro, speaking of himself and his sister, notes in his memoirs,

As the youngest and also the most obstinate—unlike Antonio and Secondo—Mamma would call me trist, that is, naughty, because I would never want to give in. Though I would have done and did do anything for Mamma, I did not get along with my brothers. In this state of affairs, one day I clung to Mamma who, annoyed, asked me, So what’s wrong today? I responded, Buy me a little sister, and she replied, That’s not easy. Your father is at war! She added, Pray to the Madonna, that she may grant you the grace. My father came on leave, and on September 24, 1916, my sister Alma was born, to whom I was and still am very devoted. Now we are the last surviving members of the family, always very united, though so far apart; we write each other often. My sister is indeed and has always shown herself to be an extraordinary creature; though she never succeeded much in study (like my brother, Secondo, recently deceased), she is endowed with great intuition and moral rectitude. She was and is still a bit attached to money, but has now given almost all of it to help our nephew, Claudio, get married and set up house. She is still, albeit discreetly, the number one of the family. She loves her sister-in-law, Maria, more than a sister, and now her daughter-in-law, Luigina Cosco, like a daughter.²

CHILDHOOD: A GALLERY OF WOES

The first years of the philosopher from Flumignano were marked by a difficult existential integration: born prematurely and abnormally

in the eighth month, and my survival in those times was judged a miracle, [recounted Fabro in his Autopresentazione] since my mother, taken by surprise, had to—on her own—look after both me and herself. It is well-known how difficult the survival of those born at eight months was for turn-of-the-century medicine—all the more so, since assistance was completely lacking.

The First Four Years

And now followed a gallery of woes that, given their suddenness, succeeded one another in a continual series. I will summarize them, gleaning from my notes. The first, the longest, and the most serious: a total motorial impotence that prevented me completely from speaking and walking until the age of five. My two older brothers, leaving me in a state of almost total isolation, would go to school, and I would pass the time with the curiosities of the rural landscape, the tolling of the bell-tower, the passing of the farmers going to their laborious work in the fields with wagons drawn by oxen or horses, and carts entrusted, on the other hand, to donkeys, which were numerous in the undeveloped and traditional agriculture. My memories are still vivid: I was not at all bored—besides the greetings of the passersby, I was kept company by a big handsome cat that would jump into my arms and let itself be petted in all the ways that a child’s imagination could invent. As soon as they would put me on the ground, I—unable to stand on my feet—would drag myself along the ground, clutching at the grass (I remember it very well), and unable to speak. Since I understood conversations well enough, I would make myself understood by signs.

First Memory

But my health, besides the described situation, was a continuous drama, and I still bear on my body the marks of the greatest ills. The first that I remember was a general malaise with complete anorexia: I rejected everything and cried continuously. My mother, who was helped by a good cousin and by some other close relatives, had no rest. They decided to take me to the parish priest for a blessing, but in vain, and the priest sent me to the Capuchin Friars in Udine, but to no avail: I continued to cry and to refuse both food and drink. The Father Guardian had the inspiration to send me to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Grace (highly venerated in Friuli), situated opposite the castle above the gardens. As soon as Mamma placed me on the altar of the pious image, I immediately stopped crying and smiled broadly—I was cured. When the prayers were finished, they took me to a nearby dairy, and I gulped down a bowl of milk. Our house was near the Napoleonic Way that leads from Codroipo to the Venetian fortress of Palmanova.

Fourth and Fifth Year

At this time (I was not yet four years old), I had a grave attack of typhus that brought me to death’s door (they called it Black Typhus; I had turned purple, with both jaws rigidly contracted, and Mamma would refresh my lips with a feather. . . . I remember it all very well even today, more than 70 years later!). It was the Easter octave and the parish priest came by for the traditional blessing of the houses. Entering my room, he blessed me and then sat on a chest, waiting (so he said!) for me to pass away at any moment. Since . . . I did not pass away, he continued his pastoral visit to the neighboring families, coming by again later for a second blessing. But nothing had changed; I was still at death’s door with a very high fever and my face a purplish-blue color. In the meantime, something new had occurred. A company of artillery had arrived in town a few hours before, and a cousin informed us that they had a doctor. He