Nicolosa Borsa, Giovanni Olini and Other Relics. Archives of the Vodnjan Rectory (8,39; 8,40; 8,41; 8,42). Transcription and Brief

Abstract

Transcribed archives are owned by the Vodnjan Rectory. The archives consists of four books containing documents created between the 15th and the 20th centuries. The books are recorded in the Inventory of the Archives and Registry of the Vodnjan Rectory prepared in 1976 by Jakov Jelinčić and Ivan Grah labelled 8,39, 8,40, 8,41 and 8,42, or: Dignan mj 1,2,3 and Dignano 4.
Archives can be divided into four units:
1. Nicolosa Borsa;
2. Giovanni Olini;
3. Discovery and veneration of the relics.
The first unit can further be divided into the life and activities of the blessed Nicolosa Borsa, then in testimonies on the miracles attributed to the relic and prayers addressed to Nicolosa Borsa and, in the end, oaths and lists of the nuns. Records of healing owing to the blessed Nicolosa Borsa, on her monastic life, and testimonies on healing events are stored in the archives labelled as Items 8,40 and 8,41. The Item labelled as 8,40 contains transcriptions and original copies, not in chronological order. Item 8,41 contains transcribed records from Item 8,40. Simon Antonio Rota found them in the Monastery of St. Anne, scattered all around; he collected them in Item 8,41 and transcribed them in 1795 in chronological order. However, the records were not transcribed literally but the transcriber interpreted the recorded text. Following is a record on the transfer of the bodies of the saints to Vodnjan and two more testimonies of the miracles attributed to Nicolosa Borsa. The time span of the records covers the period from 1473 to 1920. There are 32 oaths made by the nuns in Item 8,40 written on parchment. The dimensions indicated in the briefs should be considered as approximate as the pieces of the parchments were cut irregularly. The time span of the preserved oaths covers the period from 1473 to 1554. The list of nuns who moved in 1519 from the Monastery of St. John Lateran to the Monastery of St. Anne is located in Item 8,40, and the lists of nuns and converts from 1806 are located in Item 8,39. The latter Item also contains orders by Popes Pius VI and Pius VII dating back to the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, as well as a transcription of Pope Boniface’s deeds dated October 1400. The second unit entitled Ivan Olini comprises a testimony of a healing of the girl Antonia Maria Teresa Suman in 1795. The third unit entitled Discovery and Veneration of the Relics consists of a bundle of records labelled by the reference code 8,39. The bundle contains records on the discovery of the bodies of St. Candida, St. John and St. Leon from the Churches of St. Lawrence and St. Paul in Venice. The records are mostly written in the Italian language with somewhat less in Latin. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning frequent cases (particularly in the testimonial records contained in Item 8,40) of the appearance of the Venetian idiom, even though not always and not everywhere, not even in the same text. The records feature sentences without punctuation and, compared to the modern Italian standard, irregular spelling (use of the vernacular, irregular use of upper and lower case letters), accentuation and abbreviation, which was almost never corrected. All documents come handwritten, in the Latin script, mostly on paper and a small number on parchment. Archives are equally bound in soft and semi-hard covers. Items 8,41 and 8,42 have soft covers, and Item 8,39 has a semi-hard cover lined in fabric with visible mechanical damages. Also, Item 8,40 has semi-hard cover lined in parchment with visible mechanical damages and damages caused by dampness. Records are fully preserved and legible. The archives are dirty. Part of the archives show visible mechanical damage such as eroded edges of sheets, loose binding and damaged covers. Also visible is damage caused by biological agents (insects and rodents). Archives contained in Items 8,41 and 8,42 are originally paginated, while the archives in the remaining two items are not. Documents from Item 8,39 are labelled by numbers in red pencil of a more recent date. Only the sheets/pages where records are found are numbered. Item 8,40 features two labels on each document. It is supposed that one set of labels was placed by Simon Antonio Rota during the organisation of the documents, but prior to the transcription. The second set was placed in pencil, in the same way as in Item 8,39. Apart from the documents, each bundle also carries a double label for each item. Used here are the labels – 8,39; 8,40; 8,41 and 8,42 – allocated by Jakov Jelinčić and Ivan Grah during the cataloguing of the Vodnjan Rectory Archives in 1976, when the finding aid Inventory of the Archives and Registry of the Vodnjan Rectory was created. However, older labels for each Item can be found, these being: Item 8,39 – Dignano 4; Item 8,40 – Dignano mj 2; Item 8,41 – Dignan mj 1; and Item 8,42 – Dignan mj 3.