Jesuits and Sardinian Traditional Culture

When one studies the traditional culture of Sardinia, one cannot help but encounter the Jesuits, both
in terms of synchronic and diachronic approaches. Jesuits have (and have had) a crucial role in the
social life of the Island, with a great number of repercussions in various fields.
At the present moment, Sardinia is the stage for an intense and heated debate concerning the issue
of the Sardinian language. Roughly speaking, Sardinian people speak local idioms that are not
understood by Italians. More or less unanimously, linguistics claims that two different languages
are spoken on the island (Logudorese in the centre-north; Campidanese in the south) along with
several dialects. An Italian Governmental Law (482/1999) recognizes the existence of one
Sardinian language as one of the minority languages to be protected and allowed in official
administrative acts within the territory of the state. Eminent Jesuits are active protagonists in the
battle for the extension of the Sardinian language to all fields, also claiming the freedom to
celebrate the Messa in Sardo (Mass in the Sardinian language), exclusively accompanied by songs
in the same language (a position that, officially, the Islands Church does not entirely agree with).
Providing an official definition of the Sardinian language is a controversial matter, especially
with regard to the written form, since, until the XIX century, Sardinian languages were primarily
oral languages. Within this contemporary debate, Jesuit sources are cited from time to time.
On the Island, just like everywhere else, the Jesuits missionary work devoted special attention to
the use of local native languages. Some Jesuit reports and chronicles are among the oldest claims
for the autonomy of the Sardinian languages from Italian or Spanish. Furthermore, the Jesuit Padre
Matteo Madao (1723-1800) was responsible for initiating the systematic study of Sardinian.
Moreover, many of the Sardinian religious songs could be traced back to the preaching of reverend
Jesuits, starting from the very large repertoire of the gsos or gccius (devotional lyrics devoted to
Our Lady or Saints that are often performed with different music structures). Already back in 1681,
a Jesuit (Padre Innocenzo Innocenti, a popular missionary) was the author of the lyrics of the Dio ti
Salvi Maria which in 1713 was translated into Sardinian and, as the famous Deus ti salvet Maria, is
a sort of Sardinian national anthem.
On the other hand, the same sources testify the systematic action of the Jesuits against the local
traditional music. For instance, in 1563, a report by the Jesuits of Sassari states that they were
proud to have replaced the local rude, crude, and meaningless songs (cancin rstica y grosera y
de nign sentido) with songs of Christian doctrine that people would perform both day and
night, on the streets (Turtas 2010: p. 41). Also within the shared oral memories of some
Sardinian villages, there are traces of (more or less explicit) conflicts between local groups of
traditional performers and individual Jesuit fathers. Indeed, I have sometimes come across such
traces during my field research.
In Cuglieri, where a regional Jesuit seminary was active until 1970, some old singers remember that
almost every Holy Week, a number of Jesuit fathers tried to oppose the performance of the
Miserere and Stabat Mater by the traditional confraternity a cuncordu groups. Some of these
singers proudly claim the continuity of performance practice as resistance against the
interference of the Jesuits.
This ambiguous feeling of the Sardinian people regarding Jesuit work is very meaningful and
deserves further investigation, since it is extremely representative of the general problematic matter
of the relationship between the Church of Rome and local traditional (music) cultures (Macchiarella
2003).

References
Ignazio Macchiarella, 2003, Le manifestazioni musicali della devozione cristiana in Italia, in
Enciclopedia della Musica, diretta da Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Einaudi, Torino 2003, vol. III, pp. 340-
371.

Raimondo Turtas, 2010, I gesuiti in Sardegna: 450 anni di storia, Cluec, Cagliari.