Viliam Štefan Dóci OP and Riccardo Parmeggiani (eds.), Domenico di Caleruega, il suo Ordine e la sua memoria da Bologna all’Occidente (Dissertationes Historicae 43), Viella 2025, pp. 584, ill. ISBN: 979-12-5469-700-9. Price: € 75,-.

The eighth centenary of the death of Saint Dominic of Caleruega, celebrated in 2021 with the conference “Dominic and Bologna: Genesis and Development of the Order of Preachers,” has recently been “sealed” with the publication of the volume Domenico di Caleruega, il suo Ordine e la sua memoria da Bologna all’Occidente (Dominic of Caleruega, His Order and His Memory from Bologna to the West), edited by Brother Viliam Štefan Dóci OP and Professor Riccardo Parmeggiani, with the collaboration of Fabio Simonelli. The book was published by Viella as volume 43 of the Dissertationes Historicae series of the Historical Institute of the Order of Preachers.

It contains twenty contributions by various historians and art historians in Italian, French and English, which examine the figure of the saint and his religious family from various perspectives. The articles are organised into five sections. The first is dedicated to Dominic as a preacher and founder of the Order and his relations with the popes and the Roman Curia. The second section sheds light on Dominic’s Bolognese context, examining the first General Chapter of the Order of Preachers in 1220, the figure of Reginald of Orléans and the university. The development of the Order on the Bologna-Paris axis in the first decades after Dominic is the subject of the third part: some characteristic aspects of the young Order are illustrated through the examples of Jordan of Saxony, Diana of Andalò, Roland of Cremona and Hugh of Saint-Cher. The fourth section is devoted to the intellectual profile of the Order: the contributions included here examine the establishment of the first Dominican studia generalia in the thirteenth century, with particular attention to the development of the conventual school in Bologna into a studium generale, as well as the study of medicine, which was rather unusual for Dominicans. The fifth and final part deals with the memory of St Dominic cultivated through writing and art; it also examines the factors that determined his various representations. Several contributions in the volume are accompanied by colour illustrations.

The volume thus commemorates the great figure of Saint Dominic and the historical, ecclesiastical and cultural significance of his work. However, this collection of historical reflections also invites readers to critically re-examine some well-known narratives and to pursue the questions raised by the authors of the individual contributions in further research. Finally, it is intended as a tool for all those who wish to ground their efforts to make the rich message of the saint relevant today on a solid foundation of historical truth.

The volume can be requested from the Viella publishing house.

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