Giovanni Giuseppe Franco

Giovanni Giuseppe Franco SJ (22 January 1824 – 15 January 1908) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, writer and consultant at the First Vatican Council. Noted for his contributions to the Civiltà Cattolica (1863–1908), he was also a preacher and author of historical fiction, both short stories and novels.

Biography

Giovanni Giuseppe Franco was born in Turin, the son of Giovanni Giuseppe and his wife Maria (née Turletti). Together with his elder brother Secondo (1817–1893), he attended the Carmine boarding school run by the Jesuits, and was then accepted into the Company on 9 August 1838. Having completed his studies and theological apprenticeship at the diocesan seminary of Chieri and his studies in philosophy at the regional seminary of Turin, he was transferred in October 1845 to the college of Novara to teach literature and philosophy there; he practised, during this period, with good results, in sermons and essays that he began to publish locally, soon acquiring fame as a talented man of letters.

He travelled in France and Belgium, having spent a long time at the University of Louvain studying theology. He returned home in 1852 and taught literature and science in various Jesuit colleges. In 1863 he was called to replace Father Antonio Bresciani at La Civiltà Cattolica. The pages of the magazine, during the many years that Father Franco worked there, are full of his essays and articles, as well as numerous minor editorial interventions: notes, reviews, clarifications, often without a title or signature.

He was the most prolific of La Civiltà Cattolica's novelists. Father Franco wrote some twenty novels, including Don Ciccio's Bell (1868), The Crusaders of St. Peter (1869), The African Twins (1878), The Bride of Sila (1880) and The Spirits of Darkness (1882).

Father Franco attended the First Vatican Council as a consultant. Like his colleagues of the habit Jacopo Bernardi and Henri-Joseph Icard, he kept a diary of the Council's day-to-day activities.

Works

• Tre racconti (1862)
  • Trois nouvelles (1863; translated by Alfred de Bellerive)
• Beniamina (1863)
  • Benjamina (1867; translated by José Fernandez)
• Le cospiratrici: racconto (1863)
• Le trecce di Aurora: racconto (1864)
• Sei racconti (1866)
  • Seis novelas (1871–1872)
• Tigranate: racconto storico dei tempi di Giuliano Apostata (1867)
  • Tigranate, ou l'Eglise sous Julien l'Apostat (1868)
  • Tigranes: a tale of the days of Julian the Apostate (1874)
  • Tigranate relato histórico de los tiempos de Juliano el Apóstata (1926)
• La campana di Don Ciccio (1868)
• Biografia di Antonio Goldoni modenese crociato diciottenne morto il giorno dell'Assunzione di Maria (1868)
• Simon Pietro e Simon Mago (1868)
  • Simon Pierre et Simon-le-Magicien: légende (1868; translated by Charles Buet)
  • Simon Peter and Simon Magus: A Legend of the Early Days of Christianity in Rome (1871)
• I crociati di San Pietro: storia e scene storiche della guerra di Roma l'anno 1867 (1869–1870)
  • Los cruzados de San Pedro: historia y escenas históricas de la guerra de Roma del año 1867 (1870; translated by José María Carulla)
  • Les Croisés de Saint Pierre: histoire et scènes historiques de la guerre de Rome en 1867 (1870; translated by Auguste Onclair)
• La savia e la pazza: racconto storico del principio di questo secolo (1872)
  • Die kluge und die thörichte Jungfrau (1878)
  • La discreta y la loca: relato histórico del comienzo de este siglo (1878; translated by José María Carulla)
• Le vie del cuore: racconto di ieri (1875)
  • Las vías del corazón: relato de ayer (1874–1876; translated by José María Carulla)
• Le gemelle africane, ossia, L'Africa interna descritta dal vero (1878)
  • Les jumelles africaines ou description exacte du centre de l'Afrique (1880)
• La sposa della Sila e la gente ammodernata (1880)
• Gli spiriti delle tenebre: racconto storico delle pratiche dell'odierno spiritismo (1882)
  • Los espíritus de las tinieblas: novela histórica sobre las prácticas del moderno espiritismo (1888)
• Idea chiara dello spiritismo (1885)
• L'ipnotismo tornato di moda: storia e disquisizione scientifica (1886)
  • El hipnotismo puesto en moda (1887; translated by Joaquín de Font y de Boter)
  • L'Hypnotisme revenu à la mode (1888; translated by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam)
• La contessa internazionale, ossia, Dei fatti e costumi settarii: racconto (1886)
• Massone e Massona descritti dai documenti autentici dei settarii: racconto storico (1889)
  • Masón y masona (1891; translated by José María Carulla)
• Le diavolerie del secolo passato (1891)
• Lo spiritismo: manuale scientifico e popolare (1893)
  • Le spiritisme: manuel scientifique & populaire (1893; translated by Auguste Onclair)
  • El espiritismo: manual científico popular (1893; translated by Luis Carlos Viada y Lluch)
• Al domani del diluvio: racconto preistorico (1893)
• Presentimenti e telepatie: disquisizione scientifica e popolare (1900)
• Appunti storici sopra il Concilio Vaticano (1972; edited by Giacomo Martina)

References

• Anon. (1908). "Il P. Giovanni Giuseppe Franco, S.I.," La Civiltà cattolica, Anno 59, Vol. I, pp. 350–55.
• Bonavita Riccardo (2003). "Grammatica e storia di un'alterità: stereotipi antiebraici cristiani nella narrativa italiana 1827-1938". In: Les racines chrétiennes de l'antisémitisme politique (fin XIXe-XXe siècle). Rome: École Française de Rome, pp. 89–119.
• Du Velay, Jacques (1893). "Les Jésuites Romanciers," L Avant-garde, No. 27, pp. 6–8.
• Gubernatis, Angelo de (1888–1891). "Franco (Père Jean-Joseph).." In: Dictionnaire international des écrivains du jour, Vol. 2. Florence: Louis Niccolai, pp. 985–86.
• O'Malley, John W. (2018). Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Trinchese, Stefano (1998). "Franco, Giovanni Giuseppe." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 50. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

External links

• Works by Giovanni Giuseppe Franco at Gallica
• Works by Giovanni Giuseppe Franco at Open Library
• Works by Giovanni Giuseppe Franco at Hathi Trust
• Works by Giovanni Giuseppe Franco at National Library of Spain