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tione 9 &c . The plans presented to Leopold , on the contrary , had for their object how to effect the greatest good of the majority * with the least injury to the few . Yet such was the universal apprehension of the Court of Rome and its interested supporters , from whom they well knew that the personal favour of the Prince could afford them little protection , that the proposers of these plans had seldom the courage to subscribe their names to
them . The plans of Ricci were , however , always publicly proposed , and he now submitted a second time a plan which , while yet only Vicar of the diocese of Florence , he had shewn to the Grand Duke , for the foundation of a Theological College , in which the evils of Roman or monastic studies should be remedied , and patriotic subjects and learned and liberal divines should be trained up . Ricci ' s scheme was approved by the Grand Duke , but being shewn to his inveterate enemy , Martini , Archbishop of
Florence , it was treated by him as wholly unfeasable , on account of its great expense to the government . By seeming to be the advocate of a wise economy . Martini knew that he was ensuring an attentive hearing from Leo * pold . He himself , he added , would undertake to establish an academy for the same purposes , which should pay its own expenses , if provided with a suitable building by the government . Leopold , more credulous than usual , abandoning the project of Ricci , closed with the offer of Martini , and bestowed on him the Abbey of Fiesole for the prosecution of his plan .
Being situated on a charming hill , within a tempting distance of three miles from Florence , the Archbishop converted the monastery into a villa for his own use , and the Tuscan clergy continued to be educated upon the ancient system ! Although completely foiled in the more extensive plan he had formed , yet by persevering instances with the Grand Duke , Ricci was enabled in the year 1783 to open a Theological College for his own diocese , in the suppressed convent of Olivetans at Pistoia . Knowing
no one amongst his countrymen to whom he could trust so important an office , he appointed the learned and liberal J . B . Zanzi , of Padua , President of the College . Beloved by the pupils , and witnessing with delight the progress they made in knowledge on the more enlarged and liberal system he had marked out , Ricci found consolation here when vexed and disappointed in his schemes of public usefulness , persecuted by the interested supporters of corruption , and meanly deserted by the pretended friends of
reform . And so fully did his eleves correspond to his benevolent and en- » lightened views , that when a few years after he undertook the delicate and difficult task of reforming the Missal , of which we shall hereafter have to speak , he acknowledges that he received considerable assistance from the suggestions of these youths . Where , indeed , can he who treads the thorny patbof reform seek consolation under the selfishness and unconquerable prejudices of the mature in age , if not in the ingenuous sentiments and tnoFe pliable . minds of youth ? GEORGE KENRICK , [ To be continued . ]
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Memoir of Scipio de Ricci . 461
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 451, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/19/
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