Adelasius, Gholamo

ADELASIO, GHOLAMO. – Politician and priest, born in Bergamo on 16 March 1763, died there on 7 April 1828. Having completed his studies in Rome at the Nazareno College, A. was elected in 1797, following the fall of Venetian rule, to serve on the provisional municipal council of the Bergamo Republic. Representative of the Cisalpine Republic to the Swiss Confederation, Minister of Finance, and subsequently a member of the Cisalpine Directory, A. did not oppose the coup d’état carried out by Trouvé. Upon the arrival of the Austro-Russian forces, he informed against his former revolutionary comrades, so that after the Battle of Marengo he had to take refuge in Venice. After his wife’s death, he sought and found comfort and peace from his past life only in the priestly ministry, and he was ordained a priest in 1802. He appointed the diocesan seminary of Bergamo universal heir to his considerable estate.