Luigi Felice Leonardo 'Costantino' Stauder 

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) Possibly concurrent with the move to Ohio, in early 1871, he sought secularization, citing "family matters" that required "his help and presence" in Tuscany (Villani suggests it was 'perhaps because of conflict with his bishop', also perhaps over the outcomes of the Vatican Council of 1870 and the heavy handedness of episcopal oversight). (Villani 3014: 50; 2022: 158) In January 1872, secularization was granted with some difficulty. However, Stauder did not return to Italy, and within a few months, decided to leave the Catholic Church and join the American Episcopal Church. He never lost his Franciscan passion for the poor - on 29 August 1873, he 'represented Italians at a protest by several hundred sick women and children against poverty'.(Villani 2014: 50) Later that month, 'on a sweltering Sunday', he was consecrated an Episcopal minister at St. George's Church in Flushing, Long Island, Queens by Bishop Littlejohn. It was among the poor that Bishop Horatio Potter sent him to minister to Italian immigrants, on All Saints' Day in 1873, commencing Italian-language worship services at St. Ambrose Church (117 Thompson Street), a chapel of the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society. There he started a monthly periodical, Il Messagero della Verità, and oversaw a steady trickle of migrants seeking confirmation  (Villani 2014: 50)

Numbers of New York Episcopalians had Italian experience (Francis Philip Nash had been born in Florence; Theodore Lyman had served as chaplain at the American Embassy in Rome; William Chauncey Langdon, who had lived for some time in Rome and Florence), and so Stauder's advent prompted the recognition of missional opportunities.  In 1874, the New York Convention acceded to Stauder's proposal (supported by clerical members of the Anglo-Continental Society, Benjamin I. Haight and Charles R. Hale) to established a committee for the translation of the entireEpiscopal Book of Common Prayer into Italian, including Stauder, Frederic Dan Huntington (Principal of St. John's School, and Bishop of Central New York diocese), Theodore Benedict Lyman (rector of Trinity Church, San Francisco, co-founder of Saint James School, Maryland, and newly consecrated Bishop of North Carolina), Robert Jenkins Nevin (rector of the church of St. Paul, at Rome, for 37 years), and Francis Philip Nash (professor of Latin and Modern Languages at Hobart College). In the same year, to serve his congregation, 'Stauder published an abridged version of the Book of Common Prayer for his congregation, taking the text verbatim from the Italian edition of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1862.' (Villani 2022: 158) This was "L’ordine del servizio divino per la mattina e per la sera, e dell’amministrazione del sacramenti, estratto dal Libro delle Preghiere Pubbliche della Chiesa Episcopale; con salmi ed inni per le missioni italiane." In 1879 the commission sanctioned the publication of a new partial translation by Nash, whose Anglo-Catholic preferences drew heavily on the Martini translation of the Bible. Stauder's version, presented in 1880, 'was rejected in favor of the text Nash was working on. The latter concluded his project in 1886 but never published the translation for reasons that are unknown.' (Villani 2022: 159) A part of Nash's translation was published in 1879 (under the title Rituale della Chiesa Protestante Episcopale negli Stati Uniti d’America), but Stauder's congregation continued to use his L’ordine del servizio divino per la mattina e per la sera (originally published in 1873).  The core of the difference may have been over the preference of the committee for Nash's high church emphases. 

On 6 April 1875, Stauder married Elenore Lois Victoria Roux in New York. The would have six children together: Linda (1876–1880); Walter A. (1877–1894); Lizzie Corinne (1878–1880); Virginia Irving (m. 'the Palermo-born scientific illustrator' Amedeo Giovanni (or John) Engel Terzi, 1872–1955) (1886–1944); Carolina Leocadia (1891–1913; born with a spinal deformity and died aged 22 'after a life of suffering'); Alceste JULIA “AJ” (m. Roy Patten, 1892-1948) (1893–1989). In 1878, Stauder's literary work was recognized through the award of a Bachelor of Divinity from St. Stephen's College; and in the same year his Italian mission moved to Grace Chapel on East 14th Street, where it would stay until 1886. In 1883, he founded Italian sections of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in New York (14 University Place, where he also oversaw the 'Italian Christian Association Home'), with the aim of providing economic support to Italian immigrants and to assimilate them into American society. In this latter sense, Stauder played the appropriate Italian version of the Episcopal Church's establishment identity, praying for the President in Italian at public events, and attacking those who (as with the funeral of Pietro Balbo) 'disgraced' the Italian reputation before host community Americans. (The Times-Picayune, 14 Aug 1880: 6) His congregations featured, the press opined, the 'more advanced' portion of the Italian community. (The New York Times, 28 Jan 1884: 8) He also worked closely with Alberto Pace, who founded the Italian congregation in Brooklyn. In 1886, a significant donation from philanthropist Catherine Lorillard Wolfe (daughter of a New York merchant and real estate developer who was the president and a founder of the American Museum of Natural History, and a mother who was partial inheritor of the Lorillard tobacco fortune) permitted Stauder's Italian mission to purchase a dedicated church building at 309 Mulberry Street in the heart of Little Italy. 'The church was fittingly named San Salvatore' (Villani 2014: 53). Such donations were essential as regular offerings were insufficient, regardless of the fact that a special occasion (such as a confirmation service with the Bishop present) could 'well fill' Grace Protestant Episcopal Chapel with a 'mostly Italian' audience. At one such event, the proceedings were delayed as a congregant dropped a bill into the plate, and then fished around for change for some time, to the bemusement of the official party. (The New York Times, 10 May 1880: 8). In 1899 that building was resumed by the city for the Elm Street 'improvement', at which time San Salvatore Church met in a property on Bleecker Street. In 1901 the diocese announced that the Diocesan House in Lafayette Place--also a gift of Lorillard Wolfe, the building having previously been her house--would be refitted at considerable expense for the Church's use. (New-York Tribune, 23 May 1901: 7) 

In 1890, the Italian Reform Association (founded in 1886 by New York-based promoters of the Anglo-Continental Society, with the aim of supporting episcopalian missions and break-away ex-Catholic groups such as Campello's Old Catholic Church) requested Stauder to take over a proposed new seminary in Arrone, in Umbria.  As an interim step, he took up a post in London as chaplain to the Italian mission at St. John’s Clerkenwell, replacing the Italian former Catholic priest, Giulio Cesare Mola, who had suddenly passed away. The next year, Stauder and his wife became involved in a charity initiative for the Italian Benevolent Fund (established in 1861 by the Italian government to assist poor Italians in London). This, however, was almost the last thing Stauder would do in Anglican orders. 

Why he left the ministry is not entirely clear - Villani suggests he was having problems with orthodox faith ('he... moved to generally deist and pantheist positions' and show 'sign[s] of his intolerance of any hierarchical structure'), and his experiences of trying to keep a growing family fed and clothed on lower-clerical salaried remuneration was no doubt difficult. Stauder supplemented his income with his pen, and by teaching Latin and Italian. Around 1895, Stauder's wife started a workshop for sewing medical materials (bandages, braces, orthopedic pillows). This small family business flourished so as to become the Stauder Institute of Surgical Needlework, opening premises in Gower Street in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum. 'The Institute, employing many workers, mostly of Italian origin, provided the family with a certain level of prosperity for the first time.' (Villani 2014: 58) This change in circumstances meant that Stauder could reinvent himself as a man of letters, producing works like A Friday Night Horror; or, The Doom of Judas: "Ode and epode in 22 Tableaux" (1902), and writing for journals such as Pietro Rava's liberal Londra-Roma. He was active in social and cultural circles through, for example, the Polyglot Club. Over time he became, in a small way, something of an ambassador for Italian culture in England, sitting on the committee to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the birth of his fellow citizen of Arezzo, Petrarch, and championing Italian colonial aspirations in Ethiopia through both poetry, public addresses and apologetic letters to the press.  He played a prominent role in funding the statue of Petrarch in Arezzo, and unveiling a plaque to celebrate "first house where Giuseppe Mazzini lived in London" (5 Hatton Garden) on 14 December 1912.

Stauder did not attend the inauguration. Suffering from arteriosclerosis and angina, he fell ill a few days earlier and never recovered, passing away at the age of seventy-three on 23 February 1913. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, and the eulogy at his funeral was delivered by the "secretary of the committee of veterans and Garibaldians," which had counted Stauder in London among its honorary members since January 1910. His wife Elenore died at the Women's Hospital in New York, on Sunday 6 May 1921. (The New York Times 7 Mar 1921: 11)

References:

Cristelli, F., 'STAUDER, COSTANTINO (Arezzo, 2 febbr. 1841 - Londra, febbr. 1913). Teologo, scrittore.', https://www.academia.edu/9507310/Stefano_Villani_Le_tre_vite_di_Costantino_Stauder_1841_1913_la_chiesa_episcopale_italiana_di_New_York_e_la_comunit%C3%A0_italiana_di_Londra_tra_la_fine_dell_Ottocento_e_i_primi_del_Novecento_

Massetani, F.A., "Dizionario Bibliografico degli Aretini Ricordevoli nelle Lettere, Scienze, Arti, Armi e Religione," Arezzo, typescript, 1936-1942.

"La Provincia di Arezzo," multiple issues from 1904 and 1913.

"L’Appennino," issues from 1912 and 1913.

"L'artista moderno," Year XII, No. 12, 25 June 1913, p. 200.

Villani, Stefano, 'Le tre vite di Costantino Stauder (1841-1913), la chiesa episcopale italiana di New York e la comunita italiana di Londra tra la fine dell’Ottocento e i primi del Novecento', Altreitalie July-Dec 2014: 48-79.

Villani, Stefano, Making Italy Anglican: Why the Book of Common Prayer was translated into Italian (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2022)