Salvatore Farina nacque a Sorso nel 1846. Trasferitasi la famiglia in Piemonte, al seguito del padre, visse prima a Casale Monferrato, poi a Pavia, dove si laureò in Leggi, infine a Torino. Dopo il matrimonio con Cristina Sartoris si stabilì a Milano, dove rimase fino alla morte, avvenuta nel 1918. Amico di illustri scrittori, tra cui Tarchetti, Verga, De Amicis e Giacosa, cominciò a praticare l’esercizio letterario come giornalista, romanziere, autore teatrale, direttore della «Gazzetta Musicale» e della «Rivista minima». Verga, nel 1880, gli dedicò una lettera con la premessa alla novella L’amante di Gramigna, sorta di manifesto poetico del grande scrittore siciliano. I romanzi di Farina, oltre cinquanta, ebbero grande fortuna di pubblico e di critica, in particolare in Germania, dove l’autore fu salutato come il Dickens italiano. Il carteggio Farina-De Gubernatis, rimasto fino ad oggi inedito e conservato presso la Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, riveste un alto valore storico e culturale, per l’arco di tempo coperto, per le informazioni in esso contenute, per i fatti e i personaggi menzionati, e, naturalmente, per l’importanza avuta, nell’Italia dell’epoca, tanto dallo scrittore sardo quanto dall’indologo e intellettuale torinese. Dal carteggio emerge senza fraintendimenti di sorta l’esistenza, tra i due, di un vero e proprio sodalizio, di un legame affettivo e di una comunanza di intenti e di ideali durati quasi cinquant’anni. Un lungo periodo durante il quale le vicende personali, le tranches de vie, inevitabilmente segnate da molteplici risvolti intellettuali e umani, si intrecciano significativamente con aspetti salienti della vita culturale e letteraria dell’Italia e dell’Europa a cavallo tra i due secoli.

During the discussions that took place at the Council of Trent, an extraordinary amount of information enlivened the contacts between the assembly and the various parts of Catholic Europe. Numerous representatives of the Sacred College appointed trusted men to keep them exhaustively up to date about the developments of the proceedings. This is the context in which, during the last stage of the Council, the Bishop of Modena, the Dominican Egidio Foscarari (1512-1564), kept up a correspondence with Milanese cardinal Giovanni Morone (1509-1580), his precursor in the Emilian diocese and President of the Assembly since 1563. Born in Bologna in 1512, Foscarari entered the city's convent of San Domenico at fourteen years of age. He was appointed Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace in 1547. Having moved to Rome, he attended the sessions of the Holy Office and was promoted Bishop of Modena. Here he embarked upon a strict reform of ecclesiastical practice: he saw to the renewal of liturgical worship, preached personally in many parishes, made a pastoral visit, supported the poor with charitable works and led a rigorous, ascetic life. He took part in all phases of the Council's work, first as a theologian and then in his capacity as bishop. After the works had concluded, Pius IV called him to Rome to draw up the List of Prohibited Books, the Catechism, the Breviary and the Missal. Exhausted by his labours and by the complications of an infection, he died on December 22, 1564. His relationship with Morone was close and confidential, as evidenced by the fact that when Morone was tried for heresy by Paul IV, Foscarari was imprisoned due to having received documents for the defence. Because of this relationship, the letters that the two men of the Church exchanged during the last phase of the Council (from Foscarari's departure for Trent in April 1561, to March 1563 when Morone reached the assembly) testify to an intense exchange of views and information. Among the many subjects discussed in the letters, the three most important ones concerned the debate as to which definition the new Council session should be given, participation of Protestants in the assembly and the violent clash over the bishops' obligation of residence. With regard to the first point, which aimed at defining whether the works should be considered a continuation of the previous ones (Spain's position) or a new assembly (opinion of the Imperial party and the French), Foscarari appears to have opted for a third solution. In his opinion, rather than waste time in terminological disputes, it would have been better for the Council to continue the action undertaken with a certain degree of flexibility in order to reach a rapprochement with the Protestants. The Dominican's position was partly the same as that of Ercole Gonzaga, his principal contact in the Council, and of Giovanni Morone, testifying to a substantial agreement with the opinions of the Imperial party. To re-establish the relations with the reformed factions it would have been necessary to interpret some of the decisions that had already been taken in a non-restrictive way – first of all, the de iustificatione decrees of January 1547 – and, for example, to revise the overly severe List of Prohibited Books promulgated by Paul IV in 1558/59. This was the context, where certain fathers and representatives of the Sacred College meditated on how to “rehabilitate” the Council, in which another operation was put into effect when the meeting resumed, i.e. the edition of the manuscripts by English cardinal Reginald Pole, especially the De concilio treatise. According to Foscarari, release of that text would have persuaded the Lutherans to join the assembly. However, after it had been published, the Dominican discovered several discrepancies between the manuscript and the volume printed by Paolo Manuzio. It seems reasonable to suppose that the very supporters of the operation – first and foremost Morone, a very close friend of Pole and, with him, member of the so-called “Spirituali”, or Spiritual circle – were the ones who suggested changes to the text to suit the decisions of the Council (thus an attempt to correct, in the Orthodox sense, certain doubtful or problematical passages). The aforementioned issues led to the second point that emerges from the correspondence, that of the participation of heretics in the Council. Foscarari promoted an open-minded position. His attitude became clear during discussions about granting safe conduct to the Protestants, in which he took part so that an agreement might be reached. But most especially it was the chance to admit, to the Council, heretics who wished to reconcile themselves to the Church that aroused in him the greatest hope. The Dominican would have preferred those who had repented to be absolved by the assembly, thereby avoiding the Inquisitorial court. By making a stand for his beliefs, the then bishop of Modena had in mind the many dissidents in his diocese who, in some cases, had fled to avoid being sentenced by the Inquisition. A similar desire to meditate and settle the religious rifts concerned the Petition for the Concession of the Chalice. In accordance with Morone and, again, with the Imperial party, Foscarari repeatedly declared that he was in favour of the provision, pointing out how further splits in the Germanic area were to be avoided. However, the close relationship between Foscarari and Morone deteriorated over another issue, which threatened to jeopardize the Council: proclamation of the bishops' obligation of residence de iure divino. Despite the fact that many fathers strongly clamoured for the bishops' duty of residence, the Pope and the Roman Curia opposed vigorous resistance. According to its supporters, ius divinum would have reduced absenteeism and the number of dispensations from the Pope or the Roman courts, while in moral terms, it would have obligated the bishops, under penalty of mortal sin. As mentioned previously, the Curia took a different view: it saw, in that proclamation, a serious threat to its power and an excessive degree of autonomy for the bishops with respect to papal primacy. Through Ludovico Simonetta, papal legate to the Council, the upper echelons of the Curia rallied the various fathers (the majority of whom were Italian), exhorting them to oppose that ruling. During the dispute, Giovanni Morone also sided against ius divinum in favour of the pontifical reasons. This necessarily led to a serious clash with Foscarari who, on the contrary, stoutly defended a stricter definition of the bishops' duty of residence. As the Dominican explained in various letters, he was compelled to make that choice by reasons of conscience leading him to believe that it was a fundamental measure which could not be put off if the reform of the Church was to be effective and a rapprochement with the Protestants was to be achieved. Such was Foscarari's disappointment when Morone sided against him that he preferred to ask for permission to abandon the Council and return to his diocese. Halted by the legates when he was already wearing his boots and about to set off for Modena, the Dominican remained in the assembly until its conclusion, progressively softening his position and assisting Morone when the cardinal was called upon to superintend the works first-hand. Owing to the importance of its protagonists and the matters discussed, the letters published here provide significant insight into the conciliar events while allowing new conjectures to be advanced as to the strategies adopted by one of its authoritative protagonists and by he who was to bring about a positive conclusion. This edition comprises 133 letters: of these, only three are by Giovanni Morone, while the remaining ones belong to Egidio Foscarari. The structure of Foscarari's letters – the majority of which archived in their originals – was affected by having been updated almost daily: the accounts are marked by the progress of the days of the week which, usually from the farthest to the nearest, divide the chronicle of events. Documents were often attached to the missives (draft decrees, compositions of assembly commissions, votes of the fathers, etc.) but very few of them have been conserved. Unpublished until now, the originals of Morone's letters published here have not been traced. Their evident asymmetry is partly compensated by their help in piecing together Morone's point of view from the replies he received.

The correspondence between the military engineer Pietro Conti (1827-1878) and Quintino Sella (1827-1884) covers four years. The main topic is Conti's works Studi sull'attrito and Sulla resistenza alla flessione della pietra serena that he presented to the Accademia dei Lincei in 1874 and 1875 to be published. In the first paper he tried to invalidate Coulomb's friction's law; in the second one he studied the deformation of a specific type of stone in function of the weight put on it. The correspondence shows how much Conti was unable to follow the proper process for a publication causing difficulties to the review board. His scarce knowledge of mathematics prevents him to create a proper theory for his results.

This contribution proposes the critical edition of the correspondence between the abbot and poet Giacomo Zanella and the Venetian statesman and economist Luigi Luzzatti, who was his pupil and disciple. The 40 letters, some of which are unpublished, are introduced by a historical-biographical presentation concerning the two protagonists and the subjects dealt with in the epistolary documentation.