VENETIAN BOARDING SCHOOL
[VENICE.]
Juventus cesareo-regii gymnasii urbis Venetiarum ad Sanctam Catharinam e moribus et progressu in literis censa, exeunte anno scholastico MDCCCXXVIII.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Francesco Andreola,] 1828.
4to, ff. 8; title within woodcut border; small wormtrack at head touching a few characters, sporadic light foxing; else a very good copy in contemporary pink paste-paper boards, gilt frame; edges of front board lightly soiled.
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Juventus cesareo-regii gymnasii urbis Venetiarum ad Sanctam Catharinam e moribus et progressu in literis censa, exeunte anno scholastico MDCCCXXVIII.
A seemingly unrecorded annual report for the boys’ boarding school of S. Caterina, the first liceo to be established in Venice under Napoleonic rule and one of the oldest in Italy.
The church of S. Caterina was founded in Venice in the thirteenth century by the Frati del Sacco, but the order was suppressed before building was completed; it was then donated by a wealthy merchant to Augustinian nuns, who established a convent and devotional school. Under Napoleon the twenty-eight nuns were moved to the convent of Sant’Alvise in 1806, and the following year it was turned into a boarding school by decree of Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy and Napoleon’s adoptive son. It was renamed Regio Liceo Marco Foscarini in 1867 and exists to this day. Divided by year group, the present report lists prize winners and runners-up for each cohort, as well as the name of each pupil and his marks in morals, religious doctrine, Greek, Latin, geography and history, and mathematics.
The 161 pupils, divided into six classes (four years of ‘grammar’ and two years of ‘humanities’), largely come from Venice and the Veneto, and several others hail from present-day Croatia (Istria, Dalmatia, Split, Brač), Bologna, Ravenna, Udine, or Forlì. Six of the boys are from Venetian noble families (Marcello, Morosini, Cappello, Bembo, and Gradenigo). Interestingly, four Jewish pupils and one Greek Orthodox pupil are listed (and are thus exempt from being assessed on their knowledge of Catholic doctrine).
According to OPAC SBN, the publisher of the school’s annual reports was Santini from 1842; OPAC SBN records ‘Venetiarum ad divae Catharinae’ as a variant title.
OPAC SBN finds a single copy of any of S. Caterina’s annual reports (1822), at the Marciana. We find no copies of reports for any year on OCLC or Library Hub.
