In spite of the hostile attitude of the great majority of the bishops, Bishop de’ Ricci issued on the 31st of July a summons to a diocesan synod, which was solemnly opened on the 18th of September. It was attended by 233 beneficed secular and 13 regular priests, and decided with practical unanimity on a series of decrees which, had it been possible to carry them into effect, would have involved a drastic reform of the Church on the lines advocated by “Febronius” (see Febronianism).
The first decree (Decretum de fide et ecclesia) declared that the Catholic Church has no right to introduce new dogmas, but only to preserve in its original purity the faith once delivered by Christ to His apostles, and is infallible only so far as it conforms to Holy Scripture and true tradition; the Church, moreover is a purely spiritual body and has no authority in things secular. Other decrees denounced the abuse of indulgences, of festivals of saints, and of processions and suggested reforms; others again enjoined the closing of shops on Sunday during divine service, the issue of service-books with parallel translations in the vernacular, and recommended the abolition of all monastic orders except that of St Benedict, the rules of which were to be brought into harmony with modern ideas; nuns were to be forbidden to take the vows before the age of 40. The last decree proposed the convocation of a national council.
These decrees were issued together with a pastoral letter of Bishop de’ Ricci, and were warmly approved by the grand-duke, at whose instance a national synod of the Tuscan bishops met at Florence on the 23rd of April 1787. The temper of this assembly was, however, wholly different. The bishops refused to allow a voice to any not of their own order, and in the end the decrees of Pistoia were supported by a minority of only three. They were finally condemned at Rome by the bull Auctorem fidei of the 28th of August 1794. De’ Ricci, deprived of the personal support of the grand-duke (now the emperor Leopold I.), exposed to pressure from Rome, and threatened with mob violence as a suspected destroyer of holy relics, resigned his see in 1791, and lived in Florence as a private gentleman until his death in 1810 In May 1805, on the return of Pope Pius VII. from Paris, he had signed an act of submission to the papal decision of 1794.
De’ Ricci’s own memoirs, Memorie di Scipzone de’ Ricci, vescovo di Prato e Pistoia, edited by Antonio Galli, were published at Florence in 2 vols in 1865 Besides this his letters to Antonio Marini were published by Cesare Guastl at Prato in 1857; these were promptly put on the Index. See also De Potter, Vie de Scipion de’ Ricci (3 vols., Brussels, 1825), based on a MS. life and a MS account of the synod placed on the Index in 1823. There are many documents in Zobi, Storia civile della Toscana, vols ii. and iii. (Florence, 1856). The acts of the synod of Pistoia were published in Italian and Latin at Pavia in 1788.
PISTOL, a small fire-arm designed for quick work and personal
protection at close quarters, and for use in one hand. It was
originally made as a single and also double-barrelled smooth
bore muzzle-loader, involving no departure in principle from the
ordinary fire-arms of the day. With the introduction of revolvers and breech-loading pistols and the application of “rifling” to musket barrels, came also, in the early half of the 19th century, the rifling of pistol-barrels.
History.—Pistols are understood to have been made for the first time at Pistoia in Italy, whence they receive their name. Caminelleo Vitelli, who nourished in 1540, is the accredited inventor. The first pistols, in the 16th century, had short single barrels and heavy butts, nearly at right angles to the barrel. Shortly afterwards the pattern changed, the butts being lengthened out almost in a line with the barrels. These early pistols[1] were usually fitted with the wheel-lock (see Gun). Short, heavy pistols, called “daggs,” were in common use about the middle of the 17th century, with butts of ivory, bone, hard wood or metal. A chiselled Italian dagg of 1650, for example, had a slightly bell-nosed barrel of about 8 in. in length and 14 bore. The German wheel-lock military pistols used by the Reiters, and those made for nobles and gentlemen, were profusely and beautifully ornamented. Pistols with metal hafts were common in the 16th and 17th centuries, many beautiful specimens of which, silver-mounted, were made in Edinburgh and used by Highlanders. Duelling, when in vogue, caused the production of specially accurate and well-made single-barrelled pistols, reliable at twenty paces. The pattern of this pistol seldom varied, its accuracy at short range equalling that of more modern ones, the principle of a heavy bullet and light charge of powder being employed. The first double barrelled pistols were very bulky weapons made with the barrels laid alongside one another, necessitating two locks and two hammers. There was also the “over and under” pistol, one barrel being laid over the other. This was a more portable weapon, only requiring one lock and hammer, the second barrel being turned round by hand, after the first had been fired, or, as an alternative, the flash-hole being adjusted to the second barrel by a key. These pistols were first made with flint and steel locks and subsequently for percussion caps. Double “over and under” pistols were also made with a trigger mechanism that served to discharge both barrels in turn.
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Fig. 1.—Dagg (Royal United Service Institution). |
Revolvers.—A revolver is a single-barrelled pistol with a revolving breech containing several chambers for the cartridges, thus enabling successive shots to be rapidly fired from the same weapon without reloading. The ordinary pistol is now, and has been for many years past, superseded by the revolver. The first revolver, fired with the percussion cap, was made with the whole of the barrels, six, seven or eight, revolving in one piece, and was known as the “pepper-box.” It was “single action,” i.e. the hammer was raised and the barrels revolved by the pull of the trigger. This weapon was cumbrous and no accurate aim could be taken with it owing chiefly to the strength and resistance of the main-spring and the consequent strong pull required on the trigger. The principle of a revolving breech to one barrel, which superseded the “pepper-box,” is an old one in the history of fire-arms, dating from the 16th century. At first the breech cylinder was revolved by hand, as in the revolving arquebus or matchlock, a specimen of which is now in the
