Our Notes & References

The only Russia-printed edition in Latin of the important Guide to Heaven, “a forgotten classic” (Cowley) by one of the Church censors. An unusual publication, in almost a pocket format.

Exceedingly rare, with no copies traced outside Russia at all, and only two there: one at auction and one in the St. Petersburg National Library.

Giovanni Bona (1609–1674) was an Italian cardinal, devotional author, Master General of All the Cistercians (1651-64), and a member of the Congregation of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which oversaw the infamous list of books forbidden by the Vatican. He was a close associate of Alexander VII and in the 1669 conclave was considered a serious contender for the papacy — upon the election of Clement X (1670-1676), “none was so elated as the Cardinal himself” (Cowley), who would much rather have been writing.

The text (first printed in 1658) has often been compared to Kempis’ Imitation of Christ but is, if anything, more systematic, addressing each of the sins and virtues in turn and administering practical advice. Bona also practised what he preached — his monastic order, the Feuillants, adhered to a particularly severe observance of the Cistercian rule, renouncing the use of wine, fish, eggs, butter, salt, and all seasoning. They also forswore the use of tables, eating while kneeling on the floor, and slept only four hours a day on the ground or on bare planks (Obrecht). Therefore Bona writes with some authority about “luxury: the shamefulness of it” and “gluttony… which nourishes all other vices”.

The Guide to Heaven was very popular in its day, going through fourteen Latin editions over four decades and being translated into every major European language. While the work had previously been translated into Russian in 1774 and 1782, this appears to be the first and only Latin edition printed in Russia and is of utmost rarity. It is unclear to us why such an unusual edition would see the light in Moscow, at such a relatively late date. Considering the very low levels of Latin literacy in Russia at the time (cf. Rjeoutski), it is possible that it was related to the Jesuits, who in the years leading up to their expulsion in 1820 converted many prominent Russians to Catholicism, including one of the Golitsyns.

The printer, Andrei Reshetnikov, suffered many reversals of fortune, and had been dispossessed in 1796 when all independent printing presses had been banned by order of Catherine II. Shortly thereafter he was placed in charge of the Government Press and produced a variety of pedagogical and religious texts until the French invasion of Moscow, upon which time he fled to Suzdal. His subsequent fate is unknown.

It is also interesting to note that this Moscow edition was licensed and printed in an important political year for Russia, which saw the assassination of Paul I and of the accession of his son, Alexander I.

Bibliography

Ceyssens, Lucien. 1969. ‘BONA, Giovanni – Enciclopedia’. In Treccani; Cowley, Patrick. 1936. ‘”Manuductio Ad Cœlum”—a Forgotten Classic’. Theology 33 (196): 210–18; Modzalevskii, B. 1918. ‘RBS/VT/Reshetnikov, Andrei Gordeevich (Gordianovich)’. In Russkii Bibliograficheskii Slovar’ A. A. Polovtsova, Vol. 17; Obrecht, E. 1909. ‘Feuillants’. In the Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company; Rjeoutski, Vladislav. 2018. ‘Latin in the Education of Nobility in Russia: The History of a Defeat’. In Language Choice in Enlightenment Europe: Education, Sociability, and Governance. Eds. Amsterdam University Press.