686 paul f. grendler
Jesuits to leave Venice on 8 May and to leave the rest of the Venetian
state on 10 May 1606. the Jesuits had to abandon their college with its
professed house in Venice, their colleges without schools in padua and
Vicenza, their college with a small lower school in candia (crete), and
their colleges with thriving schools in brescia and Verona. the small Jesuit
boarding school for nobles in brescia that attracted local and Venetian
noble boys had to close as well.32
When the Jesuits were banished, the Somaschans took their place to
a limited degree. founded in 1534 by Girolamo Miani (or Emiliani, 1486–
1537), a Venetian nobleman, the Somaschans began by rescuing orphan
boys from begging in the streets. they housed the boys, teaching them
christian doctrine, reading, writing, arithmetic, and a trade. they also
founded orphanages for girls. the Venetian government entrusted the
Somaschans with the direction and teaching of the two Venetian semi-
naries in the late 16th century. there the students received a standard
humanistic education whose texts included the Apophthegmata of paolo
Manuzio, which was an expurgated version of the Apophthegmata of
Erasmus, even though the index of prohibited books had banned most
of Erasmus’ works.33
by 1600 the Somaschans had added the mission of operating boarding
schools for upper-class boys in which they taught a latin humanistic cur-
riculum modeled on the Jesuit Ratio studiorum. in 1650 the Venetian Sen-
ate authorized the Somaschans to establish a school adjacent to the church
of Santa Maria della Salute to teach noble and citizen youths. the so-
called “Salute school” was a day school teaching grammar, the humanities,
rhetoric, philosophy, and theology; it quickly became the most important
school in the city. a future doge, carlo Ruzzini (b. 1653; doge 1732–35) and
a number of other Venetian leaders and intellectuals studied there until it
closed in 1754. in addition, several Somaschan priests played prominent
roles in the intellectual life of Venice in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
32 Zanardi, “i ‘domicilia,’ ” pp. 95–96. a Jesuit college was the Society’s residence in
a town; the college and the church assigned to the Society were the center of Jesuit
ministries. if the college had a school, its classes either met in the college or in a nearby
building. by the 17th century, the majority of Jesuit colleges in italy operated free schools
open to external students. a professed house meant a residence in which Jesuits who had
taken their solemn vows dedicated themselves for a period of time to attaining a higher
level of spiritual perfection than what was possible while carrying on their normal duties.
See Zanardi, “i ‘domicilia,’ ” pp. 93–94. When the school proved not very successful, the
Jesuits in 1568 established a professed house at the Venetian college.
33 See Sangalli, Cultura, politica e religione, pp. 385–418, at pp. 398–400 for the teaching
of Erasmus’ work.