The original documents of the foundation of the Society of Jesus (some handwritten by St. Ignatius): the Spiritual Exercises, the Spiritual Diary of St. Ignatius and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus have been completely restored.
This is an important ARSI project supported by the generosity of the Fundación Gondra Barandiarán and realized thanks to the most advanced technologies and skills in the field of restoration by Dr. Melania Zanetti and the University of Padua.
As part of the Ignatian Year (20 May 2021 to 31 July 2022) the 4 restored texts were presented on 3 December 2021 in a conference at the General Curia and in live streaming on Zoom.
Here it is possible to view the videos of the two sections of the event: one with a focus on the historical nature of the documents with a reflection on how much these texts can still inspire the entire Ignatian Family today and one more technical, aimed to explain the restoration process.
It is also possible to download the restored texts in PDF at the bottom of the page.
Videos of the meeting
Download of the documents
Click on the images to see the entire document
Spiritual Exercises
This codex contains the earliest surviving text of the Spiritual Exercises, in Latin, prepared in Rome in 1541. It also contains the earliest Spanish text, prepared in Rome between 1544 and 1548, with annotations in the hand of Ignatius
Spiritual Diary
This codex contains the surviving manuscript of Ignatius’s spiritual diary, in his own hand, with entries ranging in date from 2 Feb. 1544 to 27 Feb. 1545.
Constitutions Codex A
This is the draft that was finished by 1550, supervised by Polanco; it was then revised by Ignatius, with annotations in his hand
Constitutions Codex B
This is the text considered definitive, finished by 1553; Ignatius worked on further revisions until his death in 1556
