“A Faith between Two Worlds: Expressing Ethiopian Devotion and Crossing Cultural Boundaries at Santo Stefano dei Mori in Early Modern Rome”
Résumé
From the end of the 15th century, the church of Santo Stefano dei Mori hosted Ethiopian
pilgrims during their stay in Rome. Santo Stefano dei Mori or degli Abissini, sometimes
called Qeddus Esṭifānos in Ethiopian documents, had various functions. It was
both a hospice, which provided room and board for visiting Ethiopian pilgrims, and
a place of worship. Much attention has been given to this particular institution since
the early studies of Marius Chaîne, Sylvain Grébautand Mauro da Leonessa. Scholars
have underlined how papal hospitality was deeply rooted in military projects: Ethiopians
were regarded as Prester John’s subjects and precious allies in the Crusade against
the Ottoman Sultanate. Nevertheless, Santo Stefano dei Mori progressively became a
site of encounter between Europe and Ethiopia. European humanists met Ethiopian
learned monks, who taught their language and transmitted their manuscript culture.
Surprisingly, the fact that Ethiopians belonged to a non- Chalcedonian Church never
aroused Catholic antagonism in the 16thcentury. On the contrary, erudite pilgrims like
Tasfa Ṣeyon were extremely well inserted in Roman intellectual networks. The Ethiopian
community in Rome therefore had an ambiguous but privileged status. Their position,
at the fringe of confessional identities, raises several questions: how did the Ethiopians
explain the organization of their Church and describe their religious dogmas
to Roman Catholics? How did they live their faith as pilgrims outside their country? To
what extent were the pontifical circles able to grasp the specificities of the Ethiopian
faith? This essay approaches an answer these questions through an in- depth analysis
of Santo Stefano dei Mori’s ‘archives’, preserved in the form of Ethiopian manuscripts
and papal documents. This study will enable us to consider Ethiopian pilgrims of Early
Modern Europe as actors of the religious diversity in Rome.