Archival dust 2

Yesterday I finally got to examine some material in the archives of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. I was able to examine the hand-written documentation taken from the notes of the original "process" for the beatification of Francis de Sales in 1627. Amazing! I suspect that it is a second copy because, while the questions of the panel are writtten in Latin, as I would have suspected, the testimony in these pages is recorded in Italian rather than French. For the last hundred years at least, testimony is always recorded in the language of the person giving it. But Francis de Sales is the first saint to go through the process of beatification… it could be that the canon lawyers and bishops on the commission were trying hard to make the process work. The fact is that they were all Savoiards, and the official language of the Duchy was Italian, as was the spoken language of Rome. Perhaps this is the reason. Anyway, I was totally excited, because it means that I can understand the testimony much more easily. The archivist only gave me two hours with the documents, and I was not allowed to make photocopies, because the documents are very fragile. She did tell me that I could take digital photos, however. I'll do that next time. Today I'll try to transcribe my notes to text, and go buy a digital camera. But seeing this material written five years after Francis de Sales' death, and being able to work with it, has made the whole trip to Rome very much worth it all the effort!