Il soldato cristiano. Religione e valore militare in un manuale veneziano del 1848

This paper, through the analysis of the manual entitled Il soldato cristiano written by the patriarch of Venice Jacopo Monico in November 1848, contributes to fill the cognitive gap, corresponding to the period included between the Restoration and the unification of Italy, in relation to the history of the literary genre constituted of religious tracts for the army. Firstly, the author demonstrates, through archival sources, the paternity of the tract, which was published anonymous. Then he contextualizes it, paying particular attention to the patriarch’s conduct during the risings of 1848 and to the organization of military chaplaincy. Finally, through a philological analysis, he compares the tract with its model, composed by the Jesuit Giovanni Regoli in 1819, drawing attention to both analogies and semantic drifts. The survey of this tract, which after all represents the patriarch’s attempt to reaffirm the rights of the Church in particularly troubled times, constitutes a case study which is useful to better comprehend extensive historiographic problems, such as the relation between catholic Church and revolution, the Venetian risings of 1848, the catholic press in the nineteenth century.