The Learning of Another Age

I first mentioned this wonderful book of memories and stories, Recollections of the Last Four Popes by Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman (1858) in a post which spoke of the saintly mother of Pope Pius VII. At the time when Pius VII was released from his Napoleonic captivity, if you will, Pius appointed Hercules Cardinal Consalvi his new secretary of state. It was indeed a herculean labor for this minister to regain for the Holy See at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) the territories which had been despoiled by Napoleon. Cardinal Wiseman dedicates an entire chapter to Cardinal Consalvi and it is in this chapter where we find the following story, not directly about Cardinal Consalvi, but about another and greater genius who lived in Rome at that time.

While at Vienna, many learned men from all parts of Germany were naturally introduced to [Cardinal Consalvi], and he was repeatedly asked how was Ignatius De Rossi. The Cardinal felt mortified at not being able to answer, for, to tell the truth, he did not know whom they meant. . . .

This extraordinary man [Ignatius De Rossi] is not so generally known as his illustrious namesake and contemporary at Parma, the collector of the greatest number of Hebrew manuscripts ever brought together. Yet in learning, extensive and deep, he was much his superior . . . .

The memory of this learned and most modest man [Ignatius De Rossi] can only be compared to that of Magliabecchi, and other such prodigies. I will give one example of it, related to me by a witness, his fellow-professor, the late Canon Lattanzi. When once at villeggiatura, at Tivoli, De Rossi offered, on being given a line in any of the four great Italian poets, to continue on, reciting a hundred lines, without a mistake. No one thought it possible; but, to the amazement of all, he perfectly succeeded. He was then asked, if he would do the same with the Latin classics, to which he replied, "It is twenty years since I read the Italian poets, and then it was only for amusement: of the Latin classics I have been professor, so you had better not try me."

The late Cardinal Cappaccini, secretary and friend to Cardinal Consalvi, used to tell how, when he was one of De Rossi's pupils in Hebrew, if the scholars wished to shirk the lesson, they would put a question to their professor, who would start off on a lecture in reply that might have been taken down and published: a marvelous tessellation of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian quotations.

Simply amazing. I don't imagine that there is anyone alive in the world today who could come close to such a feat, I mean, with that particular knowledge of the Latin and Italian poets. I'm sure that there are many alive who have well-cultivated memories, though still and all, it would be a wonder to come across such an one.

I think it right to say that men like De Rossi raised the standard for everyone around them, and though the students of De Rossi may never have rivaled his learning, they were at least made to become men of no small intellectual stature. Today we count ourselves fortunate if we can instruct students for the priesthood in the rudiments of Latin, let alone a thorough-going knowledge of it which could be used for writing and speaking, as was the case in the recent past. And the situation is little different for many of the highest prelates in the Church. But there was a time in which such learning was rather commonplace among the clergy. Giuseppe Sarto, by no one regarded as an intellectual giant, perhaps because he appeared so unexceptional in his own day, came from a poor family in the countryside, yet he was a competent composer of Latin prose and poetry and knew Greek.

They say that back then, the common person was so poorly educated that the clergy themselves could get away with knowing very little. Perhaps in places. But what supposedly educated clergyman of today would Giuseppe Sarto - I take him but as an example - not exceed in knowledge, if only of the Classics? St. John Marie Vianney was put in the retards class because he was unable to follow the theology and philosophy courses in Latin, so he and a few others were given remedial tutoring in those subjects in French. What? I imagine that 90% (at least) of the seminarians in the U.S.A. would fail out right now if that were the standard. And it is a farce to think of how the educated clergyman of the 19th and 18th centuries would exceed in learning the average Catholic layman of today!

We talk of the restoration of the Tradition, but we also need a restoration of traditional learning for the sake of the clergy and the people they must lead and instruct.


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