Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/342

 30 6 ITALY.

bered 8,229 persons, comprised in the above mentioned total. A project of law, brought in by the Government, for the entire suppres- sion of all religious houses throughout the kingdom, was adopted by the Chamber of Kepresentatives in the session of 1866. Art. 1 of this law provides that all religious corporations shall cease to exist from the moment of the promulgation of the law, and their property devolve to the State. Art. 2 grants civil and political rights to all the members of the corporations thus dissolved. By Art. 3, all monks and nuns having taken regular vows before the 18th of Janu- ary 1864, are entitled to a pension of 500 lire, or 20/. each ; lay brethren and sisters to 250 lire, or 10/. each ; and servants 60 years old and upwards, having served at least 10 years in a monastery, may receive a pension of 120 lire, or a little less than 5/. By Art. 5, several monasteries are set aside for the reception of such monks or nuns as may wish to continue their monastic life ; but there must not be fewer than six in one monastery. Mendicant friars may continue to ask alms under certain restrictions. By Art. 6, all chapters of collegiate churches, abbeys, ecclesiastical benefices not attached to parishes, lay benefices, and all brotherhoods and founda- tions to which an ecclesiastical service is annexed, are suppressed. Arts. 7 and 8 regulate the interests of present holders of such bene- fices. Art. 9 regulates the transfer of ecclesiastical property to the State. Art. 10 excepts from this transfer all property liable to re- version to third parties ; also that of lay or ecclesiastical benefices in the gift of lay patrons, the property of which reverts to the patron on condition of his paving the holder of the benefice the annual revenue of the property, leaving one-third of the revenue for the execution of the ecclesiastical duties attached to the benefice on the holder's demise. The other articles of the law of 1866 are of local or minor importance.

When the monastic orders were partially suppressed in the former kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in February 1861, the number of reli- gious establishments for men was found to be 1,020, containing 13,611 inmates, of which number 8,899 lived entirely upon alms. The remaining 4,712 monks possessed an annual revenue of 4,555,968 lire, or 967 lire, equal to 39/. per head. Of nunneries there were 272, with 8,001 inmates, possessing an income of 4,772,794 lire, or 24/. per head. A previous return, of the year 1834, °howed that there were in the kingdom of Naples 14 arch- bishops, 66 bishops, 26,800 ordained priests, 11,730 monks, and 9,520 nuns.

Under the new Italian Government, a great part of the property confiscated from the monastic establishments has been devoted to the cause of public education, for which, besides, an annual credit of 15,000,000 lire, or 600,000/., is voted by the Parliament. Since