Bianchi, Ugo

views updated

BIANCHI, UGO

BIANCHI, UGO . Ugo Bianchi (1922–1995) was an Italian historian of religions. Born at Cavriglia (Arezzo) of a Tuscan mother and Roman father who was a parastatal employee, he attended primary and secondary school in Rome. He then studied in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Rome, graduating in 1944 with a degree in the history of religions, under the mentorship of Raffaele Pettazzoni. Subsequently, he completed specialized studies of Roman religion (1947), ethnology (1949–1951) and ancient history (1951–1956) at the same university. After receiving the degree of libero docente (teaching qualification for university) in 1954 and a professorship in 1958, Bianchi attained the chair (professorship) of history of religions at the University of Messina (1960–1971). Subsequently, he taught at the University of Bologna (1970–1974) and the University of Rome (1974–1995). Given his deep Christian and Catholic convictions, he was logically chosen for teaching the same discipline at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan (1974–1991) and religious ethnology at the Urbanian University of Propaganda Fide in Rome (1977–1995). Because of his independence, however, he never became an official figure of the Catholic establishment (although for a short time he was a consultant of the Vatican Secretariat for the Non-Christians).

Bianchi's entire life was dedicated to his family (he married Adriana Giorgi in 1956 and had four children), to the teaching of a host of disciples, to scholarly research, to the elaboration of historically founded typologies (with the cooperation of international specialists convened in conferences), and to the promotion of the study of religions in scholarly organizations both national (he was first secretary and then president of the Società italiana di storia delle religioni for thirty-five years) and international. Elected a member of the International Committee of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) at the organization's 1965 congress at Claremont, California, he became a member of the IAHR executive board in 1975 at the Lancaster, England, Congress after the retirement of Angelo Brelich and Alessandro Bausani. In 1980 at Winnipeg, Canada, he was elected IAHR vice president, and in 1990 he became president of the IAHR at the Rome congress of which he had been the convener. In 1967 and again in 1992 he was involved in events concerning university competitions that caused serious problems in the Italian academy, hampering cooperation among scholars of religion for years to come. These circumstances, however, did not diminish his indefatigable activity. He was a tenacious man with adamantine convictions and a quasi-missionary vocation for organizing the field of religious studies.

Oeuvre

The years between the time he received his first degree in 1944 to the time when he won tenure in 1959 were marked by hectic activity. It was during these years, at the height of the Cold War, that Pettazzoni—a secular scholar who was nevertheless mindful of the autonomy of religious phenomena—left his onerous legacy as historian of religions to the Catholic Bianchi, the communist Ernesto de Martino, and the maverick leftist Angelo Brelich. Bianchi studied cult-related aspects of Roman religion (a minor but never entirely neglected interest in his subsequent activity). But most of all he dedicated himself to investigating fundamental features of theology and mythology in Greece, Iran, and the ancient Near East by pinpointing the three interconnected areas around which he would later focus his reflection: Fate, Humankind, and Godship, as indicated in the subtitle of his first monograph, Dios aisa (1953), as well as in the title of his monograph on Zoroastrianism, Zaman i Ohrmazd (Time-Fate as determined by the supreme divinity; 1958). At the same time, Bianchi, starting from—but going beyond—the analysis and the results of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and of historical ethnology (as practiced by the Vienna and Frankfurt Schools), endeavored to represent "religious dualism" as an almost universal historical typology in the work, Il dualismo religioso (1958), which was destined to become a classic in the field.

As a corollary of this wide-ranging research, he produced a type of guide to the history of religions with a title representative of his particular frame of mind, Problemi di storia delle religioni (Problems of the history of religion; 1958). The word problems is appropriate because each topic is approached in an argumentative manner, even though none is left without answers (answers that generally reflect original views that Pettazzoni regarded as "too personal" (so read the minutes of the competitive exam of 1958 for the professorship). A similar style characterizes the booklet Teogonie e cosmogonie (Theogonies and cosmogonies; 1960), which discusses in a cross-cultural key recurrent motifs of mythology (trickster, cosmogonic egg, and so on), in close debate with the views of his predecessors (i.e., Pettazzoni, Mircea Eliade, Leo Frobenius and his school), which he counteracts with proposals of his own. In the following years he had an ever-growing concern for determining a typology of religious phenomena and a methodology of the history of religions.

Besides research on specialized topics, he produces three general surveys that summarize his experience in his respective fields: Storia dell'etnologia (History of ethnology; 1964; 2d ed., 1971); La religione greca (Greek religion; 1962; 2d ed., 1971); and The History of Religions (1975). He dedicated the latter years of his life mainly to promoting conferences on the themes for which he cared most: Gnosticism (1966); Mithraism (1978); the soteriology of Oriental cults in the Roman Empire (1979); asceticism in early Christianity (1982); and the concept of religion (1990). Bianchi had a clear-cut scholarly agenda in mind: he sought papers that avoided both pointless erudition and theoretical verbiage that was not supported by hard evidence. As a result, all of these conferences marked a milestone in their respective fields of scholarly research.

Legacy

Bianchi applied to the study of religious phenomena the historical-comparative method inherited from his mentor, Pettazzoni, a method that was only partially equivalent to that adopted by his fellow disciples Angelo Brelich (1913–1977), Vittorio Lanternari (1918–), and Dario Sabbatucci (1923–2003). He opposed this method to radical historicism (with its entailed form of reductionism) and phenomenology, both of which have, said Bianchi, "a univocal conception of religion located within a preconceived frame of reference" (1987, vol. 6, p. 400). Instead, according to Bianchi, the frame of reference inside which religious phenomena should be placed and studied is that of a "historical typology of religions," "a multidimensional map of the actual religious terrain" (1987, vol. 6, p. 402). Such a map, if well structured and used with due caution, will prevent the scholar from falling into the double trap set by the a priori constructions of phenomenology on the one hand and the no less a priori reductionism of historicism on the other. What is needed to avoid these opposing traps when approaching religious subjects is recourse to two opposing "holisms." For one thing, the historian of religions must advocate cultural holism; that is, he must, as Bianchi wrote, study all phenomena "within the specific contexts that give them their full meaning" (1987, vol. 6, p. 402). For another, Bianchi continued, he must also take note of religious holism, that is, of "those partial (analogical, not properly univocal) 'religious' continuities which cross, not always in the same direction, the limits of the different cultures" (1991, p. 260).

In practice, Bianchi's method, when applied to an idiographic analysis of historico-religious phenomena, pursued the typically nomothetic aim of providing a very accurate definition of the different kinds of religious experience to be tackled. The first definition at which he worked unceasingly is precisely the definition of religion itself. On the one hand, when his epistemological interest prevails, he defines religion in a merely operative way: religion in itself is an "analogon," not an univocal concept. In other words, Bianchi conceives religion as a "concrete (i.e., historical) universal, studied by history, rather than as a generic universal resulting from a theoretic option" (Bianchi, History of Religions, 1975, p. 200; cf. pp. 6 and 214–215). On the other hand, when his existentialist animus emerges, he recurs to an Eliadean formula, religion as "rupture de niveau," (break of level) which he explains as a relationship "with a supra and a prius" (above and before) (Problemi di storia delle religioni, 1958, pp. 116–117) or as a concern "with the widespread human tendency to identify a 'beyond'" (1994, p. 920). It is, therefore, tangibly clear that Bianchi's historicist empiricism adjusted itself to a certain amount of a priori hermeneutics, despite his explicit denials.

All the multifarious subjects investigated by Bianchi essentially converged on a single problem: the problem of destiny, evil, and salvation—in other words, the problem of humanity's relationship with God, or theodicy, to which Bianchi dedicated his last course of lectures at Rome University in 1991 and 1992. In his painstaking handling of all the themes connected with this triadic concern, he practically turned his attention to all the religious words of the ancient Mediterranean region, offering meticulous contributions to very specific subjects a synthesis of which is given in his Prometeo, Orfeo e Adamo (1976). Most influential was his definition of the category of dualism as a widespread phenomenon with ethnic roots all over the world. Dualism means the doctrine of the two principles that, coeternal or not, cause the existence of that which exists or seems to exist in the world. Despite all the criticisms it has drawn, his typology is still valid in historical research. Also notable, notwithstanding a certain rigidity, is the three-pronged typology that he applied to some conspicuous religious phenomena of antiquity. The triad comprises mysticism, mystery cults, and mysteriosophy, where the last two types are alternative specifications of the first one, which is more inclusive. Last, but not least, the investigation of the origin and definition of Gnosticism is perhaps the topic that, more than any other, made Bianchi famous in the academic world. At the same time, however, it garnered him his harshest criticism.

Bianchi's system for testing and ultimately perfecting his definitions and typologies was gathering around itself senior and junior scholars who might contribute fresh materials and discussions on subjects whose scope Bianchi firmly delimited. During his life he managed to organize as many as thirteen conferences, and he succeeded in having the proceedings of all of them published. In sum, apart from the importance of his personal contribution to the study of Mesopotamian, Iranian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Christian religions, Bianchi has represented in the history of twentieth-century religious studies the figure who advances science using both dialogue and steadfastness as his weapons.

Bibliography

The following books of Bianchi can be mentioned: Dios aisa. Destino, uomini e divinità nel'epos, nelle teogonie e nel culto dei Greci (Rome, 1953); Zaman i Ohramzd. Lo zoroastrismo nelle sue origini e nella sua essenza (Turin, 1958); Il dualismo religioso. Saggio storico ed etnologico (Rome, 1958); Problemi di storia delle religioni (Rome, 1958; German transl. Göttingen, 1964); Teogonie e cosmogonie (Rome, 1960); Storia dell'etnologia (Rome, 1964; 2d ed. 1971); La religione greca (Turin, 1975); The History of Religions (Leiden, 1975); The Greek Mysteries (Leiden, 1976); Prometeo, Orfeo e Adamo. Tematiche religiose sul destino, il male, la salvezza (Rome, 1976); Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriosophy (Leiden, 1978); Saggi di metodologia della storia delle religioni (Rome, 1979). He has been the main editor of twelve collectaneous works. To be cited: Le origini dello gnosticismo (Leiden, 1967); Storia delle religioni (5 vol.; Turin, 1971; still one of the best handbooks of history of religions); Problems and Methods of the History of Religions (Leiden, 1972); Mysteria Mithrae (Leiden and Rome, 1979); La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell'impero romano (Leiden, 1981); La tradizione dell'enkrateia (Rome, 1985); Transition Rites: Cosmic, Social and Individual Order (Rome, 1986); The Notion of "Religion" in Comparative Research (Rome, 1994); Orientalia sacra urbis Romae. Dolichena et Heliopolitana (Rome, 1996). See also two articles which are important from the methodological point of view: "History of Religions," in this Encyclopedia of Religion ; "Between Positivism and Historicism: The Position of R. Pettazzoni," in Religionswissenschaft und Kulturkritik, ed. by H. G. Kippenberg and B. Luchesi, Marburg, 1991, pp. 259–263. A complete and well-organized bibliography was compiled by his son Lorenzo Bianchi, "Bibliografia di Ugo Bianchi," in Ugo Bianchi. Una vita per la storia delle religioni, edited by Giovanni Casadio (Rome, 2002), pp. 469–496.

In the above-mentioned volume, topics of the history of ancient religions and methodological issues to which Bianchi dedicated his attention are analyzed critically by specialists, disciples and colleagues (e.g., Sanzi, Giuffré, Casadio, Chiodi, Antes, Mander, Panaino, Albanese, Aronen, Pachis, Gasaparro, Ciattini, Cerutti, Brezzi, Terrin, Giusti, Spineto, Gothoni). The aim is to contribute to the methodological debate on the study of religion by pointing out the interrelation between the historical data and the motivations behind the interpretive discourse. There are other critical evaluations of aspects of his work and methodology, and more general profiles (especially in the form of obituaries). The following are worth mentioning. Franco Bolgiani, Il dualismo in storia delle religioni (Turin, 1974), points out the difficult balance between history and phenomenology in Bianchi's interpretation of dualism. Ursula King, "Historical and Phenomenological Approaches," in F. Whaling (ed.), Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, vol. 1, The Humanities (Berlin, New York, and Amsterdam, 1984), pp. 83–85 and 97–98, is superficial in her criticism. Aldo Natale Terrin, "Ugo Bianchi," in P. Poupard (ed.), Grande dizionario delle religioni (Assisi and Turin, 1988), pp. 215–216, writes from the point of view of phenomenology. Julien Ries, "Un régard sur la méthode historico-comparative en histoire des religions," in G. Sfameni Gasparro (ed.), Agathe Elpis. Studi storico-religiosi in onore di Ugo Bianchi (Rome, 1994), pp. 121–148, describes accurately Bianchi's method and sympathizes with it. Likewise, Kurt Rudolph, "In memoriam Ugo Bianchi," Numen 42 (1995): 225–227, is unanimous in his approach. Giovanni Filoramo, "In memoria di Ugo Bianchi," Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 32 (1996): 487–489, is appreciative but with some nuance (see also in Filoramo and Carlo Prandi, Le scienze delle religioni, Brescia, 1997, pp. 57–59 and 305–306). Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, "Ricordo di Ugo Bianchi: tappe di un percorso scientifico," in Destino e salvezza. Itinerari storico-religiosi sulle orme di Ugo Bianchi, edited by Gasparro (Cosenza, 1998), pp. 15–36 (see also "Ugo Bianchi and the History of Religions," in Themes and Problems of the History of Religions in Contemporary Europe, edited by Gasparro, Cosenza, 2003, pp. 19–30) gives an exhaustive presentation from the viewpoint of a faithful disciple.