ALGRANATI, CESARE

ALGRANATI, CESARE. - Journalist, b. in Ancona in 1865, d. in 1925. A Jew, he converted to Catholicism in 1887 in Rome, on the occasion of his marriage, and began contributing to the Libertà of Naples and the Osservatore cattolico of Milan. Mons. Riccardi summoned him to Turin to edit the Italia reale, and there he subsequently also edited the Democrazia cristiana. After the disturbances of 1898 he became editor of the Patria of Ancona, and in 1902 went to Bologna to edit the Avvenire d'Italia, involving the newspaper in widely resonant controversies, especially on the occasion of the Murri trial. In 1907 he founded, alongside the Avvenire, the humorous weekly Il Mulo, setting it against the socialist-Masonic weekly l'Asino, which conducted vile, especially pornographic, campaigns against the faith and the Pope; he published it until 1915. Having left the Avvenire and militant journalism, he retired to private life. In journalism and in his numerous popular publications, among which were some decidedly anti-Semitic ones, A. adopted the pseudonym Rocca d'Adrio. Epilberto Martire