L'arcivescovo Antonio Codronchi. Beni ecclesiastici e politiche culturali a Ravenna tra Settecento e Ottocento

In focusing on the cultural policy of Imola-born Antonio Codronchi (1748-1826), who was archbishop of Ravenna between 1785 and 1826, Father Paweł Szczepaniak provides us with a careful and detailed study, supported by remarkable archival research that allows us to investigate the prelate's activities in the field of the protection of Ravenna's artistic heritage and as a patron of important decorative works in the city's cathedral and in the Archbishop's Palace.

After a historical introduction that reconstructs, through the chronicles of the time and the specialised bibliography, the dramatic events linked to the arrival of the French army in the city in 1796, the text dwells on the prelate's biography, from his election as archbishop of Ravenna to the initiatives he promoted after his arrival in the city. A critical historical junction of great interest is represented by the relationship, much discussed by historiography, with Napoleon Bonaparte, which is re-examined here in the light of a largely unpublished correspondence that Father Pawel found in the private archives of the Pasolini Dall'Onda family, heirs to the Codronchi estate. The careful re-reading of this exchange of letters was an opportunity to focus on the actions taken by Codronchi, an outstanding theologian and far-sighted politician, in defence of the city and for the protection of its ecclesiastical heritage. These very important events refute the more or less veiled accusations made by part of traditional historiography, which considered him a pawn in the French plundering policy. Alongside the correspondence between Codronchi and Napoleon, the heart of the work is represented by a large number of unpublished archival testimonies that have proved to be of great interest in focusing on the artistic history of Ravenna at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (Barbara Ghelfi).

The publication presented here is the result of a doctoral thesis in Cultural Heritage of the Church, conducted by Don Paweł Szczepaniak at the Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church of the Pontifical Gregorian University, moderated by Prof. Lydia Salviucci