The history of the Waldensians in four volumes for the 850 years of the Movement

For the 850 years of the birth of the Waldensian movement – born in 1174 as a spiritual renewal known as the “Poor of Lyon” on the initiative of a certain Waldo who, even before Francis of Assisi, hoped for a return to a pauperist Christianity – Claudianathe leading publisher of the Protestant world in Italy, carried out the great editorial project conceived by Society of Waldensian Studies of The history of the Waldensianswhich arrives in bookstores with the first two of the four overall volumes (the other two volumes are expected by the end of March).

This is a great collective, inter-generational and inter-disciplinary scientific work, the result of the last fifty years of studies and research carried out according to a plurality of perspectives and methodological approaches by around a hundred historians and scholars ( only in the minority of Waldensian extraction) of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literature, theology and other disciplines coordinated by four curators, specialists of the different periods treated – respectively Francesca Tasca for the Middle Ages, Susanna Peyronel Rambaldi for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Gian Paolo Romagnani for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries up to the Breccia di Porta Pia e Paolo Naso from the end of the Papal State to 1990 – and organized in four volumes divided chronologically to tell 850 years of Waldensian history, from birth to accession to the Protestant Reformation, from persecutions to the granting of civil rights, up to full citizenship in democratic Italy.

As Gian Paolo Romagnani, president of the Society of Waldensian Studies and editor of the third volume of the work, explains, “this undertaking was conceived with the aim of updating the narrative, essentially stuck in the old History of the Waldensians of Amedeo Molnar, Augusto Armand Hugon, Valdo Vinay, published between 1974 and 1980, rereading the events of 850 years of Waldensian history in the light of the most up-to-date international historiography and away from any confessional or identity approach, thanks to the collaboration of almost one hundred authors, mostly external to the Waldensian world. With this work, the Waldensian Studies Society intended to provide both a contribution to the international historiographical debate and an opportunity for reflection for the Italian and European evangelical world”.

Born from the need to rethink Waldensian history, the new one History of the Waldensians it therefore stands as an important synthesis of the best studies and insights of the last fifty years and as a cultural work aimed at abandoning pre-established schemes and proposing new interpretations deriving from the exploration of new documentary sources, new themes, new historiographical currents and new sensitivities.

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President Claudiana, Eugenio Bernardini, comments: “Since its origins, the Waldensian church has attributed great importance to education and culture, indispensable tools so that anyone can read the Bible independently and form their own opinions in every field. The Claudiana publishing house, which is a point of reference for Protestant culture in our country, has the task of translating this conviction into printed paper, so it was inevitable that it would engage in this great editorial undertaking: the churches and religious movements need rigorous historical research on which to base the awareness that their own present is not born today and that one’s future cannot fail to take into account the links with the past. If they are not based on a solid historical and scientific basis, the great collective narratives that nourish cultural, political and social choices are pure ideology , biased propaganda. Taking on pre-existing historiography, this History works on the main historiographical theses of recent decades, on new areas of research and tries to move away from a sometimes somewhat complacent representation of Valdism”.