The Baháʼí Faith in Italy dates from 1899 - the earliest known date for Baháʼís in Italy. Baháʼí sources currently claim about 3,000 adherents in Italy in over 300 locations across Italy. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on projections from the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated there were some 5,000 Baháʼís in Italy in 2005.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the religion from 1892 to 1921, wrote two letters to Italian Baháʼís and mentioned Italy a few times addressing issues of war and peace as well. Though several people joined the religion before World War II by the end there may have been just one Baháʼí in the country. Soon a wave of pioneers was coordinated with the first Baháʼís to arrive were Angeline and Ugo Giachery. By Ridván 1948 the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of Rome was elected. There were six communities across Italy and Switzerland when a regional national assembly was formed in 1953. The Italian Baháʼís elected their own National Spiritual Assembly in 1962. A survey of the community in 1963 showed 14 assemblies and 18 smaller communities. Major conferences held in Italy include the Palermo Conference of 1968 to commemorate from the movement of Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the religion, from Gallipoli to the prison in Acre and the 2009 regional conference for southern Europe in Padua about the progress of the religion.
Early phase
Just before the founding of modern Italy Baháʼu'lláh addressed a message to Pope Pius IX a few years before the unification of the Kingdom of Italy. It was part of the series entitled Súriy-i-Haykal or Tablet of the Temple which was collected in English as part of the Summons of the Lord of Hosts.
As early as 1899 there were two Baháʼís in Italy - Edith Burr in Florence and Maria Forni. Burr was an American and a book of her poetry was published. Forni was of Polish extraction, lived in Ticino initially where she ran a private school for children with disabilities and presented Baháʼí teachings but soon she moved to Crevenna near Lake Como. Both had died by 1930. Burr was the recipient of two letters from ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. It was in November 1900 that Agnes Alexander learned of the religion while visiting family in Rome. While there she met Charlotte Dixon, an American Baháʼí who was just returning from a Baháʼí pilgrimage.
Links with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá
Juliet Thompson, a prominent early Baháʼí from the United States, went through Italy in 1909 on Baháʼí pilgrimage to meet ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Another, Horace Holley had set out for Europe in 1909 and met Bertha Herbert during the voyage. Herbert loaned him Myron Phelps' book about ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and Holley soon joined the religion. Herbert and Holley were married in October 1909 and settled in Italy. They then met ʻAbdu'l-Baha on both of his trips to Europe, and lived in Italy until 1912, when they moved to Paris. Maria Forni was among those who visited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá when he arrived in Switzerland in 1911 on his first trip to the West. On his second trip ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and his retinue boarded the RMS Cedric in Alexandria, Egypt bound for Naples where they arrived on March 28, 1912, though they did not disembark for fear of being confused with Turks during the ongoing Italo-Turkish War. Several Baháʼís from America and Britain boarded the ship to travel with them. A youthful Shoghi Effendi had accompanied ʻAbdu'l-Bahá from Egypt but was refused further passage by reason of a minor illness and was taken ashore, though all were not convinced of the sincerity of the diagnosis and some presumed it was ill will against the voyagers as if they were Turkish. The American Baháʼís had sent thousands of dollars for the journey, urging ʻAbdu'l-Bahá to leave the Cedric in Italy and travel to England to sail on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Instead he returned the money for charity and continued the voyage on the Cedric. Later a survivor met with him asking why he didn't go on the Titanic and he suggested "God inspires man's heart." Later in April 1912 ʻAbdu'l-Bahá is recorded addressing that war:
What a great tribulation there is in the countries of Italy and Turkey in these days! The fathers hear of the death of their sons and the sons are distressed on hearing the news of the death of their fathers. What cities are laid to ruin and what rising fortunes are thrown to the winds! The antidote for this great ill is world peace, which is the source of universal tranquillity.
While in the United States ʻAbdu'l-Bahá had dedicated the site of the North American Baháʼí House of Worship. By 1915 Italian Baháʼís were among those contributing to its construction. After his return to Egypt ʻAbdu'l-Bahá again took up mention of Italy and war. He wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916–1917; these letters were compiled together in the book Tablets of the Divine Plan. The seventh of the tablets mentioned European regions and was written on April 11, 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919—after the end of the First World War and the Spanish flu. The seventh tablet was translated and presented on April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 1919, and mentioned Italy. He says:
"In brief, this world-consuming war has set such a conflagration to the hearts that no word can describe it. In all the countries of the world the longing for universal peace is taking possession of the consciousness of men. There is not a soul who does not yearn for concord and peace. A most wonderful state of receptivity is being realized.… Therefore, O ye believers of God! Show ye an effort and after this war spread ye the synopsis of the divine teachings in the British Isles, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, Balearic Isles, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Malta, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Shetland Islands, Hebrides and Orkney Islands."
Developments after World War I
Well known early Japanese Baháʼí Saichiro Fujita took a steamer to Italy about 1919–20, where he awaited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's wire for him to proceed to Haifa. There was communication noted with Baháʼís in Italy in 1923. Imogene Hoagg was noted as present in Florence in 1925. Marion Jack sailed for Italy during January, 1926. Anne Lynch fled Russia at the end of the first World War to settle in England and she accepted the Baháʼí Faith immediately upon first hearing of it in Italy in 1926 and then settled in Switzerland. A 1925 list of "leading local Baháʼí Centres" of Europe listed one in Italy. In 1930 a Baháʼí from Baghdad, a Mr. Toeg, was said to have moved to Milan. The first formal vote of international sanctions against aggression, taken in 1936 by the League of Nations, when Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia causing the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was hailed by Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion from 1921 to 1957, as: "an event without parallel in human history". On May 25, 1940, Shoghi Effendi and Rúhíyyih Khanum obtained passports for Britain while in Rome - a few days later Italy entered World War II.
Redevelopment after World War II
Geresina Campani of Florence may have been the only Baháʼí to remain alive and active through World War II. Starting in 1946 Shoghi Effendi drew up plans for the American Baháʼí community to send pioneers to Europe; the pioneers set up a European Teaching Committee chaired by Edna True. Possibly the first Baháʼís after WWII to enter Italy were Angeline and Ugo Giachery. They reached Naples on 20 February 1947 and sent a telegram to Shoghi Effendi from Rome. By the end of March the first Italian convert was enrolled in Genoa. He was Augnsto Salvetti who heard of the religion from a Persian believer while he was a prisoner of war in India and investigated the religion on return to Italy. Brother Rodolfo Salvetti soon followed joining the religion - and pioneers Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Marengella arrived in Italy by mid-1947. There was also one Baháʼí in Milan - perhaps a Turkish refugee. By early 1948 two more Italians had joined the religion - Verena Venturini and Luigi Peveri. By Ridván 1948 the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Rome was elected. In 1948, Marion Little pioneered to Florence from America. Well known Baháʼí Dorothy Beecher Baker who was later named as a Hand of the Cause undertook a trip from 1948 across Europe including visiting Italy. Publications in Italian began with an introductory pamphlet which was sent to prominent citizens and to four hundred public libraries. This was followed by a new edition of John Esslemont's Baháʻu'lláh and the New Era, a special copy of which, bound in tooled green leather, was sent to the archives of the Baháʼí Faith in Palestine. Until 1964 when she returned to America, she served as chairman of the Italian Publishing Committee, a field which gave scope to her artistic and administrative skills. Under her direction and guidance many of the major Writings of the Faith were translated into Italian and published. She died in 1980 and her body buried in Cap d'Ail Cemetery, near Monaco. William Sutherland Maxwell came to Italy to begin reviewing materials for the expansion of the Shrine of the Bab in 1948 which continued through 1951 with shipments to Palestine for the project. Architect Andrea Rocca, Professor Emeritus of the Beaux Arts Academy of Carrara, assisted in work with the Shrine as well as the later International Archives building. The first all-Baháʼí Italian family came to be in April 1949 followed by the conversion of 81-year-old Giuseppe Berardi by July.
Growth of the religion
Leading up to the election of the Regional Assembly
The early 1950s was a big period for development of the religion in Italy. The local assemblies of Florence and Naples were elected first in 1951. Orientalist Alessandro Bausani joined the religion before April 1951 - eventually he was Professor Emeritus and Director of the School of Oriental Studies and the Institute of Islamic Studies at the University of Rome "La Sapienza", and he was a member of the "Lincei" National Academy. He helped sustain every institution or committee, national or local, on which he was called to serve. Emily Maude Waterworth Bosio ("Maud Bosio") was 54 years of age when she joined the religion in January 1953. During her fifteen years of service, Bosio was usually a member of the assembly of Florence. And the Baháʼí community in Sicily began in 1953.
First Italo-Swiss Convention