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At the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the aftermath of the war of Spanish succession, Sardinia passed into the hands of the House of Savoy. Yet it was not until the 1750s that the new Italian rulers began to understand the necessity to mark a strong discontinuity with the old Spanish administration. A broad set of reforms were therefore adopted and implemented touching nearly all aspects of political, social and economic life. Particular attention was devoted to the reshaping of ecclesiastical institutions, both at a diocesan and a parochial level, with considerable measures directed against the parasitism of the religious orders, and a full-blown program distinctively advanced to improve the education of the secular clergy. Like many of its counterparts in catholic Europe, the Piedmontese government wanted to curtail the immunities and privileges traditionally granted to the clerics and to several other people no matter how loosely connected to the clerical estate. At the same time the government was well aware that no reforming strategy could be pursued without the active co-operation of the local Church, quartering the island into a few hundred parishes and impinging on the daily concerns of the great majority of the population. Persuading the secular clergy to attend the reformed seminaries, and then to understand their role as also including delicate political responsibilities, was thus a fundamental step toward the construction of the new absolutist state. This study concentrates on the ecclesiastical policies of the House of Savoy in Sardinia with special reference to the period between 1759 and 1773. During those fourteen years the «affari sardi» were entrusted to Giovanni Battista Lorenzo Bogino, who created a number of ad hoc committees with a task to collect baseline information and to elaborate plans of action for every area of intervention. From such point of view Bogino also maintained huge correspondence (extensively analysed here) with the highest prelates and with other officials residing in the island. As a result, before his dismissal in 1773 (when his detractor Victor Amedeus III ascended to the throne), the House of Savoy made significant progress in the management of Church-state relations: not only did the Pope accept to issue instructions for the limitation of the some important privileges of the Sardinian clergy, but most diocesan seminaries were restructured according to the wishes of the crown, which succeded in the attempt at turning them into a major channel for the propagation of a new religious culture pervaded by strong regalist ideals. New light has been thrown on the cultural background of the ecclesiastical policies prompted by the Savoy within the context of the absolutist consolidation in eighteenth century Sardinia. The contribution given by the Sardinian clergy, particularly by those court-oriented prelates who kept in close touch with the minister Bogino, has been considered in fullest detail. This study warns us not to accept passively the old historiographical interpretation that would depict moderm regalism as a simple blind attack on religion itself. Church-state relations may well have been tumultuous in the age of the lumières, as many religious orders did experience. Yet, it was also thanks to the ecclesiastical hierarchies that the catholic monarchs were able to adopt and effectively implement such wide range, although not always triumphant, reforming strategies.

Mastino, B. (2009). Le politiche ecclesiastiche sabaude in Sardegna durante il governo del ministro Bogino.

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