Un ministero per il culto. Giovanni Bovara e la riforma della chiesa in età napoleonica

As Minister of religion of the Republic and then of the Kingdom of Italy (1802-1814), Giovanni Bovara inherited some authorities of ecclesiastical politics and beneficiary matter which had already been old Lombard magistratures. A Milanese priest, far from the church circles most tied up with Rome and quite close, instead, to the tradition of Habsburg jurisdictionalism, he was able to fight in the name of the rights of the Church against the claims of the Holy Seat in defense of the ancient privileges as well as Napoleon's , Eugene's and some ministers', such as Prina and Vaccari, who gave preference to the rights of the State and of the Treasury. The book on this character, so far little studied, makes it possible to re-examine the idea of a continuity between the XVIIIth and the XIXth centuries just on the basis of Napoleon's ruling class and institutions.