Antonio Cardinal Bacci

The name of Antonio Bacci will never be forgotten by those who love what he called the Catholic language. He put his learning to use in the service of the Popes, whose Latin expert he was for three decades. All the Papal encyclicals that were issued in Latin during the period 1931 to 1960 were written under his supervision. In skill of Latin composition he had no rival. Among the most learned cardinals of the last century, he must be numbered with Giovanni Mercati (1866-1957) and Eugène Tisserant (1884-1972). For a brief autobiographical account of his own life up to 1964, see Bacci's memoirs With Latin in the Service of the Popes, published by Arouca Press in 2020.


The present volume is the translation of a small book published in memory of Cardinal Bacci by the Archives of the Archdiocese of Florence in cooperation with the Banca del Mugello Credito Cooperativo, a bank in the Mugello region of Tuscany that had its origins in a savings and loan association that Antonio Bacci helped found as a young priest. There are three contributors to the volume:


Msgr. Nello Lascialfari (1923-2021) was secretary to four cardinal-archbishops of Florence, Giovanni Benelli (1921-1982, archbishop of Florence 1977-1982), Silvano Piovanelli (1924- 2016, archbishop of Florence 1983-2001), Ennio Antonelli (1936-2008, archbishop of Florence 2001-2008), and Giuseppe Betori (b. 1947, current archbishop of Florence since 2008).


Carlo Nardi (b. 1951) is Professor of Patristics on the Faculty of Theology of the University of Central Italy (Florence). Pier Carlo Tagliaferri (b. 1938) is a professor, author and editor, particularly prolific in matters of local Tuscan interest.


The preliminary matter by Paolo Ruffini, Pier Carlo Tagliaferri, and Archbishop Capovilla, as well as Tagliaferri's contribution entitled The Works of Antonio Cardinal Bacci, were written especially for this volume. - From the foreword