Freeing souls from Purgatory: Unrecorded 1623 broadside.

[Ephemera] / [Indulgences]. Privileggio perpetuo concesso dalla Santità di N. S. Papa Gregorio Decimo quinto all’ Altare della Santissima Pietà Eretta nella Chiesa della Santissima Vergine Maria Incoronata di Lodi per l’anime de’ deffonti. In Lodi, Per Carlo Pitti Episcopale, s.a. [1623]. [43.0 x 30,8 cm], [1] f. large letterpress broadside, with woodcut of Virgin & Child and woodcut initial. Folds, two holes in right margin from posting or filing. Well preserved.

Unrecorded large broadside reproducing a papal brief—in the Latin original and in Italian translation—issued in 1623 by Gregory XV. It concerns an indulgence granted to the Altar of the Most Holy Pietà in the church of the Santissima Vergine Maria Incoronata in Lodi (a.k.a., the Tempio Civico della Beata Vergine Incoronata or Santuario dell’Incoronata).

The papal brief extends an indulgence issued by the previous pope, Paul V, which stated “that whenever any priest of the said Church celebrated a mass for the dead at the said Altar of the Most Holy Pietà on the day of commemoration of the deceased and every day within the octave of the same, and on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week for the soul of any faithful who had joined themselves to God in charity and had passed from this life, the same soul would obtain from the treasury of the Holy Church an indulgence by way of suffrage, so that by the merits of Our Lord Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and of all the Saints, it would be freed from the pains of the Purgatory.”

Paul V had granted the indulgence for two years, but Gregory XV extended it in perpetuity and made it valid on additional days of the week.

The broadside is headed by a woodcut of the Santissima Vergine Maria Incoronata holding the Christ Child.

This broadside is not recorded by OPAC/SBN/ICCU, OCLC, or KVK.