Explorations in 

Italian Protestantism


This is a site dedicated to encouraging better understanding of the history of Italian Protestantism. Much of the History of Protestantism is written from a northern, particularly German or English, perspective. In terms of the weight of sources, the range of language skills among scholars, and the originating locations of the Reformation, however, it is not the whole story. This site supports the research and writing associated with formally published works, such as the forthcoming Brill Global History of Italian Protestantism (2023). It is scholarly and refereed in approach, and interdisciplinary in emphasis. 

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Luigi Felice Leonardo 

'Costantino' Stauder 

(1841-1913)

Emigrant, Franciscan professor, Episcopalian minister, church planter, littérateur in the USA, England and Italy. 

Born in Arezzo, on 2 February 1841, Luigi Felice Leonardo Stauder was the son of Giuseppe Stauder, a coppersmith of Tyrolean descent, and Carolina Borri, a seamstress. Stauder hailed from a lineage of Dutch Stadtholders on his father's side, and the Italian Soderini family on his mother's. After receiving an education at the Leopoldo College in Arezzo, he entered the seminary in Fiesole, where at eighteen, he donned the Franciscan habit among the Observant Minors. In December 1865, he took his solemn vows, changing his name to 'Costantino'. In early 1866 he departed for the United States as a Catholic missionary, where he settled in New York. He presumably remained there for the next five years, obtaining naturalization on 10 October 1870. In 1871, Stauder then moved to Ohio, where at some time in that year he served as a professor of moral theology at the St. Aloysius Seminary in Columbus, 'and in the autumn of that year, became the parish priest of St. Lawrence's Church in Ironton'. (Villani 2014: 49) He never lost his Franciscan passion for the poor... [read more]

(c) by permission, Paul J. Palma.

General Editor: 

Mark P. Hutchinson 

Professor and University Historian, Western Sydney UniversityAustralia

Advisory Committee: 

Stefano Villani

Associate Professor of History, University of MarylandUSA

Paolo Zanini

Associate Professor in History, Università degli Studi di MilanoItaly

Paul J. Palma

Adjunct Lecturer in History, Regent UniversityUSA