The Psalter of Jesus and of Mary

by Pina Baglioni

Beato Alano della Rupe, <I>Il Salterio
di Gesù e di Maria. Genesi, storia e rivelazioni del Santissimo Rosario</I>,
edited by Don Roberto Paola,
Editrice Ancilla, Conegliano 2006, 760 pp., euro 15.00

Beato Alano della Rupe, Il Salterio di Gesù e di Maria. Genesi, storia e rivelazioni del Santissimo Rosario, edited by Don Roberto Paola, Editrice Ancilla, Conegliano 2006, 760 pp., euro 15.00

Already a year after the death of Alain de la Roche, the Chapter of the Congregation of Holland of the Dominicans of Haarlem had ordered all the friars to collect his writings and to send them in to that center. And in 1478 Adrian Van Der Meer, Superior of the Congregation, from the supply of the collected material, compiled two booklets: the Instructio psalterii, in defense of the memory and of the Marian doctrine of Alain and the Compendium psalterii beatissimae Trinitatis magistri Alani, a work published for the first time in Anversa towards the end of 1480 that summarizes all of Alain’s doctrine. In the same period some Carthusians from Marienehe near Rostock, friends and admirers of Alain, published in Lübeck a collection of Alain’s writings, among which some letters of doctrinal content and even some confidences about the revelations of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after 1463. This collection had the title De immensa dignitate et utilitate psalterii precelsae ac intemeratae Virginis Mariae. Later on also the Carthusians from Mariefred reprinted in Stockholm, in 1498 and 1506, the Lübeck edition. In the meantime German translations in Augsburg and Ulm were published. Until, in 1619, another Dominican, Giovanni Andrea Coppestein, decided to initiate a critico-philological revision of all the writings, published and not, and made possible the publication, in Freiburg, of the five most important works of the Breton theologian: collected in the B. Alanus redivivus, de Psalterio seu Rosario Christi et Mariae tractatus. An edition that provided the basis of all the following ones, including that of Imola, in Italy, in 1847.
An edition, this last one, just republished in Italy last year along with the translation in Italian. That is to say Il Salterio di Gesù e Maria. Genesi, storia e rivelazioni del Santissimo Rosario [The Psalter of Jesus and of Mary. Genesis, history and revelations of the Most Holy Rosary], edited by Don Roberto Paola, Editrice Ancilla, Conegliano 2006, 760 pp., euro 15,00
The text, that for all of the 19th century enjoyed a worldwide circulation uninterruptedly, and is, according to the researches conducted by the editor of the Italian edition, the most ancient dedicated to the Holy Rosary.