'Bene, hora piglio ardire a nome d’Idio'. una lettera inedita di Tommaso Bozio al Duca di Nevers, a seguito del bando dei Gesuiti dalla Francia (1595)
- Autores: Gennaro Cassiani
- Localización: Nuova rivista storica, ISSN 0029-6236, Vol. 104, Nº. 1, 2020, págs. 265-280
- Idioma: italiano
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
On 27 December 1594, Henri IV returned from Picardy to Paris and was visiting his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, in the Hôtel Schomberg. The Jesuit-educated son of a wealthy Parisian clothier Jean Chastel, aged nineteen, managed to gain entry to the King’s chamber. As Henri bowed to greet a courtesan, the young man struck him in the neck. The blade, which should have pierced the throat, was turned aside by the King’s neckpiece and Henri suffered only a cut lip and a broken tooth. Chastel was at once arrested and, as the law prescribed, condemned for the crime of lèse majesté by dismemberment.
The hasty investigation launched by the Paris Parlement ended with also the banishment of the Jesuits from the kingdom. This essay focuses on a unpublished letter (dated to 27 January 1595) by the oratorian theologian Tommaso Bozio (1548-1610) to Ludovico Gonzaga Duke of Nevers (1539-1595) discovered at Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris). The document, published in the Appendix of this article, shows Bozio’s immediate reaction to the Jesuits’ expulsion. According to father Tommaso, such a measure was profoundly unfair and unworthy of the King. Nevers, who was a fan and a supporter of Jesuits, could not disagree. In Bozio’s view, the banishment of the Society of Jesus from France sounds like the prelude of the end of Henri IV’s negotiation with pope Clement VIII in order to obtain his absolution from Sixtus V’s excommunication (1585). This diplomatic break was not supposed to happen. Bozio, who feared a schism in France, asked the duke to do his best to avoid it.
