Alberto Melloni

Alberto Melloni (born 1959) is a church historian known especially for his work on the Second Vatican Council.

Melloni studied in Bologna, Cornell and Fribourg. He has taught at the University of Bologna, the University of Rome III and is now Professor of History of Christianity at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, holder of the Unesco Chair for Religious Pluralism and Peace, and Director of the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII for Religious Studies in Bologna (fscire.it). He is also a columnist for Il Corriere della Sera, and he provides commentary for RAI TV.

Professor Melloni has been a member of the Foundation since 1982, Vicesecretary since 2002 and General Secretary since 2007. Founded in 1953, the Foundation is one of the most important centers of historical research in Europe.

Through the Foundation Professor Melloni has been involved in various international research projects. For example:

• the history of the Second Vatican Council (with a hundred scholars from different countries, 14 international conferences held in Barcelona, Bologna, Houston, Jerusalem, Leuven, Lyon, Moscow, Paris, Québec, São Paulo, Rome, Sofia, Washington, Würzburg) and a final work in five volumes, 2,500 pages, published in seven languages (English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish);
• the research group on Religious Reform, which helds its seminars in Amman, Bose, Tunis, Bologna;
• the research on John XXIII which has resulted in the publication of books and proceedings for some 15,000 pages in seven languages; and
• the work on the Ecumenical Councils, which has produced a first book on the first Seven Ecumenical Councils in a critical edition offered to Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican on February 7, 2007, and to Patriarch Alexij II in the Kremlin on May 22, 2007.

His extensive publication record includes books (author and editor), essays, reviews, and newspaper columns.

According to an Italian journalist Melloni's historical work has been criticized by former peritus Joseph Ratzinger, who is known for his promotion of a hermeneutic of continuity and who has denounced what he calls a hermeneutic of rupture. In America a theologian did explain that the idea of Benedict XVI on the hermeneutic of "continuity and reform" endorses the historical work oin Vatican II as council of aggiornamento.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Le cinque perle di Giovanni Paolo II, Milano, Mondadori 2011
• Papa Giovanni. Un cristiano e il suo concilio, Torino, Einaudi 2009
• La storia che giudica la storia che assolve, saggi di O. Marquard e A. Melloni, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2008
• L'inizio di papa Ratzinger. Lezioni sul conclave del 2005 e sull'incipit del pontificato di Benedetto XVI, Torino 2006
• Chiesa madre, chiesa matrigna. Un discorso storico sul cristianesimo che cambia, Torino 2004
• Il conclave. Storia di una istituzione, Bologna 2001, 298 pp.; tr.ted. Freiburg a.M. 2002; tr.sp. Madrid 2002; tr.port. Rio de Janeiro 2002; tr.fr. Paris 2003; tr.pol. Warszawa 2004; (ried. Il conclave. Storia dell'elezione del papa, Bologna 2005)
• L'altra Roma. Politica e S. Sede durante il concilio Vaticano II (1959–1965), Bologna 2000
• Il Giornale dell'Anima di Giovanni XXIII, Milano 2000
• Tra Istanbul, Atene e la guerra. A.G. Roncalli vicario e delegato apostolico (1935–1944), Genova (Marietti) 1993, 325 pp.
• Innocenzo IV. La concezione e l'esperienza della cristianità come regimen unius personæ, prefazione di B. Tierney, Genova, Marietti 1990

Critical Editions

• Corpus Christianorum - Conciliorum œcumenicorum generaliumqe decreta, ed. G. Alberigo et A. Melloni, Turnhout 2007 vol. 1; 2010 vol. 3; 2011 vol. 2, 2013 vol. 4-5
• Cronache sociali, 1947-1951, edizione anastatica integrale e introduzione a cura di Alberto Melloni , Bologna (Istituto per le scienze religiose) 2007, 1893 pp. con DVD
• Angelo G. Roncalli-Giovanni XXIII, «Il Giornale dell'Anima», Edizione critica ed annotazione a cura di Alberto Melloni , Bologna (Istituto per le scienze religiose) 2002m 545 pp. (I ed. 1987, 802 pp.)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Poesie , a cura di A. Melloni, Bose 1999
• M.-D. Chenu, Notes quotidiennes au Concile , Paris 1995, pp. 7–54; [tr.it. Bologna 1996]
• Angelo G. Roncalli-Giovanni XXIII, La predicazione ad Istanbul. Omelie, discorsi e note pastorali (1935-1944), a cura di Alberto Melloni, Firenze (L.S. Olschki) 1993, 420 pp.
• Giuseppe Dossetti, La ricerca costituente. Interventi 1945-1952 , Bologna 1994

See also

• Giuseppe Dossetti
• Giuseppe Alberigo
• Giovanni XXIII
• Giovanni Paolo II
• Innocenzo IV
• Cronache sociali
• Marie-Dominique Chenu
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer

External links

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