Scipione de\' Ricci

Scipione de Ricci (1741-1810) was bishop of Pistoie and Prato of 1780 to 1791. It adhered to the Jansénisme and sought to reform its diocese according to the principles of these doctrines.

Born in 1741 with Florence, in a noble family (which praised itself to have counted among her members holy Catherine de Ricci, he was educated with Rome among Jesuits. At the same time it approached the thought Jansenist.

In 1766, having obtained its license in right, it was ordered priest. Thanks to the influence of the large-duke Pierre-Léopold he was crowned bishop of Pistoie and Prato in 1780. He sought to reorganize his diocese by removing various religious orders and by reforming the structure of the parishes (many old churches of the center of Pistoie were secularized and reduced to profane uses).

He fought the worship of the Sacred Heart and supported the autonomy of the local churches. He sought to affirm his thought, inspired by the ideas of Fébronius by convening a synod, known in the history under the name of Synode of Pistoie. The hostile reception that this initiative accepted, initially near the clergy Tuscan then at the Holy See, made so that Scipione was in an increasingly isolated position.

When in 1790 the large-duke became emperor of the Germanic Roman Holy roman Empire, Scipione lost at the same time any political support, of the revolts burst which forced it with the escape and, finally, in 1791, it renonça with its load of bishop. In 1799 it had to publicly retract its ideas by an act of tender. It put its hopes in the support of Napoleon Bonaparte to reverse the situation, but the French general, who at this time sought to reach an agreement with the pope, kept away from jansénisme. Withdrawn in the private life, he died in 1810.

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