Ernesto Balducci Foundation

Fondazione Ernesto Balducci

FLORENCE

FIGURE

Ernesto Balducci

"I often wondered what would have happened to me if I had been born in a noisy and bright city, in a peaceful middle-class family. But I was born in the silence of a medieval village, on the slopes of an extinct volcano, and in a human context where it was difficult to distinguish the boundary between reality and fairy tale. I grew up enveloped in a silence that frightened me and accustomed me to contact with mystery. Was it a grace? Was it a random circumstance that conditioned my freedom forever? These questions fade into silence, which is the right place." (E. Balducci, "The Circle Closes", autobiographical interview curated by Luciano Martini, Edizioni Piemme, Casale Monferrato - 2000)"

From Amiata

Santa Fiora, a small mining town on Mount Amiata, where Balducci was born on August 6, 1922, the eldest of four children (Agnese, Maria and Beppina), has always been, as he recalled, a fundamental place for his human and religious formation. His father, Luigi, was a miner and the family lived "on the brink of poverty and misery."

To Florence

He was ordained on August 26, 1945, after attending the Scolopi schools thanks to a scholarship. Immediately sent to liberated Florence, where he taught at the Pie Florentine Schools and graduated in Literature in 1950 with a thesis on Antonio Fogazzaro. Here he frequented Florentine intellectuals and with the great push of Giorgio La Pira he founded the association "Il Cenacolo" and then the magazine "Testimonianze", still in print, from where he participated in the debate on peace.

In Badia Fiesolana

After a few years away in Frascati and Rome during the years of the Second Vatican Council, during which he was a passionate scholar and supporter of change within the Church, he returned to Fiesole in 1965. Active in dialogue with the Communist Party, for disarmament campaigns and broadened his reflection to global issues of human rights, respect for the environment, and solidarity and cooperation in a dialogue between believers and non-believers.

THE FOUNDATION

25.02.1995

On February 25, 1995, the Fondazione Ernesto Balducci was established at the Scolopi Fathers' premises in the Badia di San Domenico in Fiesole, where Balducci had spent many years of his life. The following year, in 1996, the Foundation was recognized as a legal entity by a decree from the Tuscany Region, and in 2004 it became a non-profit organization. According to its current statute, the Foundation's purpose is to continue Ernesto Balducci's pedagogical, civil, and religious mission; promote political initiatives that foster a culture of peace; contribute to a culture of transformation; and support cultural and scientific activities

The library

The books that were part of Ernesto Balducci's study room are about 4,000. Certainly his readings were much wider. But the volumes he kept in his room in some way constituted his working materials. For this reason, this catalog offers an important spectrum to understand his intellectual curiosity, interests, and the way he worked and prepared his writings. They are mostly nineteenth-century volumes, but there are also high-quality editions, such as some biblical texts and Bible editions. The collection of essays on theological, ecclesiological or themes related to renewal and religious reflection is very extensive. His interest in historiography also emerges from the books he continued to keep with him: about 300 volumes concerning both ancient and contemporary history. Other shelves contained encyclopedias of various kinds, among which the twenty-three volumes of the Encyclopédie Universalis in French stand out, and numerous dictionaries of German, French, English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Greek. A specific section was dedicated to works related to Santa Fiora and Amiata, his birthplace. A first cataloging of these volumes was made immediately after Father Balducci's death to allow them to be transferred to the larger library of Badia

The Archive of the Foundation

A precious and fundamental element of the heritage of the Ernesto Balducci Foundation is the archive: correspondence, diaries, private papers, schemes and notes for articles and essays, collections of homilies, newspaper clippings, articles in magazines and newspapers of which the "significant historical interest" has been highlighted by the Notification of the Archival Superintendence of Tuscany. Currently, the reordering and inventory of new acquisitions (in original or copy) related to the donation of Balducci's friends, in particular correspondence, interventions in meetings, typescripts and publications, is in progress. To consult the papers of the archive, a written request with an indication of the type of research to be conducted is necessary. It is possible to make photo-reproductions of documents at the archive in accordance with current privacy regulations. Opening hours: it is necessary to contact the archivist, Dr. Michela Giuranna: archivio.balducci@virgilio.it or michelagiuranna@libero.it