From the Priesthood to Anticlericalism: Several Key Figures in Nineteenth-Century Italy

The article is divided into two parts. In the first part it focuses on the characterizing aspects of secularism in nineteenth-century Italy. And it highlights how secularism, during the age of the Risorgimento, was intertwined with the patriotic movement and with the struggles for national independence. After national unification, anti-clericalism became a kind of legitimizing tool for the new state, while the Catholic religion was perceived as an element of division. In the second part, the lecture briefly reconstructs the life of three figures of nineteenth-century Italian secularism, who were characterized by being both priests who abandoned the priesthood: Atto Vannucci, Gaetano Trezza and Ausonio Franchi. They also played an important part in the patriotic movement and in the Italian intellectual world. Unlike Vannucci and Trezza, however, Ausonio Franchi in the last years of his life renounced his own rationalist and materialistic choice and returned to wear the priestly habit.