Antonio Bresciani (writer)

Antonio Bresciani
Born	Antonio Bresciani Borsa (1798-07-24)24 July 1798 Ala, Trentino
Died	Rome

Antonio Bresciani Borsa SJ (24 July 1798 – 14 March 1862) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and man of letters. Antonio Gramsci, the founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, used the terms "Brescianism" and "Father Bresciani's progeny" to describe literature of a conservative and populist bent. He was called "the last of Italian classic writers."

Biography

He was born in Ala, in the then Italian Tyrol, on July 24, 1798. His parents were Leonardo Bresciani Borsa and Countess Vittoria Alberti, daughter of Cornelia Fregoso, descendant of the family that gave twelve doges to the Republic of Genoa. First-born son, he had a Christian education by the priest Filippo Bernardi who initiated him to literary studies. In 1814, he went to Verona where he studied rhetoric. There he had the opportunity to meet and make friends with the writer Father Antonio Cesari, with the physicist Giuseppe Zamboni and with Don Giuseppe Monterossi. Thanks to his maturity and reliability, as soon as he finished his high school studies, he became professor of letters at the high school of Verona.

Still in Verona in 1815, he took orders and in 1824 to follow his impulse to become a Jesuit he secretly fled to the Papal States, where he was admitted as a novice in the Jesuit college of Sant'Andrea del Quirinale. Wanted for this escape in 1826 he took refuge in Florence, at Pietro Leopoldo Ricasoli. In 1827, he took solemn vows as a Jesuit.

By order of the Society of Jesus, from 1828 to 1848, he devoted himself to the education of children. During this twenty years he moved to different cities in Italy as rector of colleges: Turin, Genoa, Modena and that of Propaganda in Rome. He visited Sardinia from 1844 to 1846, travelling through Trexenta and Ogliastra, Barbagia and the western part, driven by the desire to know the traditions of the "ancient nations". His view of Sardinia is based on a series of doctrines subject to various criticisms, according to which many customs of the island derived from the peoples of the East.

In 1846, he returned to Rome to attend the election of Pope Pius IX. A short time later, Bresciani was praised and encouraged in his mission as a writer. In 1850, he was called to Naples to form part of the first community of writers of La Civiltà Cattolica, the magazine founded by Father Carlo Maria Curci. For the Civiltà Cattolica he had the assignment to write the tales, with which he entertained the readers until 1862.

On May, 1851, Bresciani wrote for the Civiltà the story of Pius IX flight to Gaeta, which had been corrected by Pius IX himself before publication. Later on Bresciano included this story as a chapter in his The Jew of Verona in which the Pope figures largely.

Death and legacy

He died in Rome on March 14, 1862. His remains resting in the Church of Jesus, next to the ashes of St. Ignatius.

John Henry Newman, while in Rome preparing for the priesthood, published a treatise in Latin, entitled Dissertiunculae, and dedicated to "Reverendo Patri Antonio Bresciani e Societate Jesu, Collegii Urbani Rectori."

Works

Fiction

• Vita del giovane egiziano Abulcher Bisciarah (1838)
• Lorenzo, o il coscritto - racconto ligure (1856)
• Della Repubblica romana (1858)
• Ubaldo e Irene - racconti (1858)
• La contessa Matilde di Canossa e Isabella di Groniga (1858)
• La casa di ghiaccio o il cacciatore di Vincennes (1861)
• Olderico, ovvero Il zuavo pontificio, racconto del 1860 (1862)
• L'Ebreo di Verona (1872)
• Lionello o delle Società Segrete
• L'assedio di Ancona

Non-fiction

• Ammonimenti di Tionide al giovine Conte di Leone (1839)
• Dei costumi dell'isola di Sardegna comparati con gli antichissimi popoli orientali (1850)
• Del romanticismo italiano (1855)
• L'armeria antica del Re Carlo Alberto (1856)
• Sopra il tirolo tedesco: lettere (1856)
• Don Giovanni, ossia il benefattore occulto (1859)
• Lettere familiari, erudite e descrittive (1869)
• Edmondo, o Dei costumi del popolo romano (1872)
• Avvertimenti a chi vuol pigliar moglie (1874)
• Viaggio nella Savoja, nel Fossigny e nella Svizzera

Translated into English

• The Jew of Verona (1854)
• The Life of Abulcher Bisciarah (1856)
• Lionello: A Sequel to the Jew of Verona (1860)
• Mathilda of Canossa, and Yoland of Groningen (1875)
• Edmondo (1876)
• Ubaldo and Irene (1878)

References

• Anon., Della Vita e delle Opere del padre Antonio Bresciani della Compagnia di Gesù. Roma: Ufficio della Civiltà Cattolica, 1869.
• Antonellis, Gianandrea de (2013). "La Risposta Cattolica alla Letteratura Risorgimentale: Il Caso di Antonio Bresciani." In: I Cattolici tra Risorgimento e Antirisorgimento. Centocinquant’anni di Unità Politica Italiana. Firenze: Le Lettere.
• Bazzoli, Gaetano (1962). "P. Antonio Bresciani: La figura." In: Nel centenario di padre Antonio Bresciani. Ala: Biblioteca Comunale di Ala, pp. 5–13.
• Coviello Leuzzi, Anna (1972). "Bresciani Borsa, Antonio." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 14. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Fornaciari, Luigi (1839). Intorno Alcune Opere del p. Antonio Bresciani della Compagnia di Gesù. Lucca: Tipografia Bertini.
• Orvieto, Paolo (2011). Buoni e cattivi del Risorgimento. I romanzi di Garibaldi e Bresciani a confronto. Roma: Salerno Editrice.
• Picchiorri, Emiliano (2008). La lingua dei romanzi di Antonio Bresciani. Roma: Aracne.
• Testore, Celestino (1962). "Il Padre Antonio Bresciani a cent'anni dalla morte." In: La Civiltà Cattolica. Roma: La Civiltà Cattolica, pp. 521–34.

External links

• Works by Antonio Bresciani at Hathi Trust
• Works by Antonio Bresciani at Gallica