Barnabites

BARNABITES (Clerici regulares S. Barnabæ): A congregation of regular clerics founded in the city and diocese of Milan in 1530 by a nobleman of Cremona, Antonio Maria Zaccaria (b. 1502; 488 educated at Padua and a physician by profession; ordained priest, 1528; d. 1539), with the help of his friends, Giacomo Antonio Morigia and Bartolomeo Ferrari, and two priests, Francesco Lucco and Giacomo Caseo. The region was then suffering severely from the wars between Charles V and Francis I, and the purpose was stated in the constitution to be the promotion of a love of divine service and the true Christian life by means of preaching and the frequent administration of the sacraments. The original and official name was Clerici regulares S. Pauli decolotti, which is found in the brief of Clement VII (1533) confirming the congregation as well as in the edict of Paul III (1535) which exempted the society from episcopal jurisdiction. In 1538 the grand old monastery of St. Barnabas by the city wall of Milan was given to the congregation as their main seat, and thenceforth they were known as the Regular Clerics of St. Barnabas. After the death of Zaccaria they were favored and protected by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo of Milan and later by Francis of Sales because of their successful missionary work in Upper Italy. They entered France under Henry IV in 1608, and Austria under Ferdinand II in 1626. In the last-named country they still have six monasteries, the chief being at Vienna. In Italy their houses are larger and more numerous (twenty in all), and that connected with the Church of S. Carlo a’ Catanari in Rome is the most prominent and richest. The Order can boast of eminent scholars, as Gavanti, Niceron, Gerdil, Lambruschini, and Vercellone in the past, and Savi, Semeria, and others in the present.

O. Zöckler†.

Bibliography: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iv, 100-116; KL, i, 2030-34; J. Hergenröther, Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte, iii. 276-277, Freiburg, 1886; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, i, 490, 519-520, ii, 266 sqq. On the life of the founder consult F. S. Bianchi; Breve vita A. M. Zaccaria, Bologna, 1875.