Content area
Full text
David Maria Turoldo. La vita, la testimonianza (1916-1992). By Mariangela Maraviglia. [Storia, vol. 74.] (Brescia: Morcelliana. 2016. Pp. 464. €30,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-372-2956-6.)
David Maria Turoldo was one of the most influential Italian Catholics of the twentieth century, and Mariangela Maraviglia has written an incredibly detailed and complete biography that covers his whole life. A priest of the Order of Friar Servants of Mary (Servites), Turoldo lived the most important moments of Italian church history, in the most important places in Italy. He is a key figure for those who try to understand the complex relations between religion, culture, and politics in the last century in Italy.
The first chapter discusses the origins of Giuseppe (David Maria was his monastic name), born into a poor family of sharecroppers in northeastern Italy during World War I, not far from the frontline with Austria. His first experiences of clerical formation (beginning in 1929-30) in the institute of the Servite order were shaped by the legacy of the anti-Modernist purge of 1907 and an environment suspicious of intellectualism that Turoldo would have to deal with his whole life. Maraviglia delves also into Turoldo's early fascination, that he shared with many Italian catholics, with the Fascist regime. The second chapter sees Turoldo as one of the members of the catholic resistance against Fascism during World War II, after his arrival at the...