Giovanni Bona

Giovanni Bona (born the October 19th 1609 (according to some the October 10th) with Mondovi, Piedmont - died the October 28th 1674 with Rome) was a man of the church and a Italian writer, which was named cardinal in 1669 by the pope Alexandre VII.

Biography

Giovanni Bona was born in an old French family with Mondovi, with the Piedmont, Although his/her father had preferred for him a military career, after a few last years in a college of Jésuite S close, it entered to the Monastère Cistercien of Pignerol, where, like later with Rome, it continued his studies with an exceptional success. He worked during fifteen years with Turin before becoming prior with Asti then abbot with Mondovi, and in 1651 was called to chair the Congrégation of Breaking into leaf the very whole. During its seven years of official life in Rome, it declined by humility all the additional honors, going until refusing évêché of Silk. It accommodated the expiry of its third mandate with the hope worthy of the scholar who it was that one would allow him to carry out from now on a life of retirement and study, but his/her close friend, the Pape Alexandre VII, which wanted to pay homage to its knowledge and its piety, did it consultor with the Congrégation of the Index and the Holy Office . In 1669 it was created cardinal and at this point in time the beauty of its character appeared completely; it did not make any change in its extremely simple lifestyle and each year it gave its income in surplus to the poor priests of the Collège Missionary of Rome.

Its most known work on the asceticism is: Via Compendii AD Deum (1657); Principia and documented vitæ Christinæ (1673); Manuductio At cælum (1658) and Horologium Asceticum (Paris, 1676).

The Manuductio is often compared with the Imitation of Jesus-Christ because of the simplicity of the style in which solid doctrines are taught. It was always extremely popular. In addition to fourteen Latin editions in four decades, it was translated into Italian, French, German, Armenian and Spanish.

Little time after its ordination it collected some of the most beautiful passages of the Fathers on the Saint-Sacrifice of the Mass and published them later in a booklet, which with certain additions became its De Sacrificio Missæ , a useful book of mass. In more it composed several still new, known work under the name of Ascetici , for the instruction of the members of its kind.

But its glory does not rest only on its devotional books. He was a deep expert of the Antiquité and had such an amount of success by studying the use of the Psautier in the Christian Church ( De Divinā Psalmodiā , Paris, 1663) that the cardinal Pallavicini advised to him to undertake the history of the Sacrifice of the mass . Realizing of extended from the task it started by refusing, but finally it was put at the work and, after a work of more than seven years, finished its work today celebrates and familiar with all those which study the liturgy: Of Rebus Liturgicis (Rome, 1671). It is a true encyclopedia of historical information on all the subjects concerning the mass, like the sacerdotal rites, churches, clothes, etc the character which is not the least remarkable in these volumes, in addition to the richness of the matter gathered, it is the traditional purity, virile energy and the charming simplicity of its Latin style. The best edition is that of Robert Sala (Turin, 1747 - 53), which in 1755 also published a very interesting volume of the letters of Bona. The first edition of its complete works (there were well others of it) was published in Antwerp in 1677.

Publications

Its works were collected with Turin, 1747, 4 folio volumes.

Manuductio AD coelum , translated by Pierre Lombert and Nicolas the Duke;
Horologium asceticum ;
Of principiis vitae christianae translates by the president Louis Cousin and the Abbé Claude-Pierre Goujet;
the Phoenix or the Restoration of the heart by the retirement , translated into 1858 by Julien Through;
the principles of the Christian life and the Way of the sky were reproduced in the mystical Écrivains of the literary Pantheon , Paris, 1835.

Partial sources

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