Italy and Ireland
Ireland and Italy in the Middle Ages. By Vincenzo Berardis. (Clonmore and Reynolds, Dublin. i is.)
THIS IS an interesting study by the late Italian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Ireland of jhe cultural and ecclesi- astical relations between Ireland and Italy in the early Middle Ages Most countries owe something to Rome, and Ireland no less than others. St. Patrick, a citizen of the Roman Empire, brought with him to Ireland the Latin language, and with later missionaries came Latin literature. The Irish missionary monks took an active part in the creation of the framework of the Christian Empire of the West which helped to stem the tide of barbarism. The debt of Europe to the Island of Saints and Scholars in this respect has often been handsomely acknowledged, but, as far as I know, there is no work which describes the whole movement so attractively within small compass, or deals so adequately with Irish contacts with Italy. Many Irish saints and scholars went there, the first of importance being St. Columbanus, who founded the monastery of Bobbio, the Monte Cassino of the North. No less than thirty-four Italian parish churches are dedicated to him, a tribute to the influence exercised by his foundation, which by the end Of the twelfth century was one of the richest monasteries in Europe.
At the time of the Renaissance several of the valuable manuscripts in the library of the monastery found their way to the Vatican and other libraries in Italy. Some of these, we arc told, originally came from Ireland, while others show traces of Irish calligraphy. The author shows how Irish motifs sometimes affected the art of manuscript illumination in Italy, and reminds us of how the romantic literature of the Middle Ages was enriched by the Celtic imagination The chapter dealing with Italian influences on the formation of the new monastic orders (especially that of the Franciscans) in mediaeval Ireland is of particular interest, and so are the portions of this book which refer to religious matters in connection with their political setting. Cossraarria
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