ANSALDI. — The following belonged to this family: 1) CASTO INNOCENZO — Dominican theologian, exegete, and historian, one of the foremost scholars of his time, born in Piacenza on 7 May 1710, died in Turin in early May 1780.
Having entered the Dominican Order at Brescia in 1726, he studied in Milan, Bosco (Alessandria), Bologna, Genoa, and Rome. After becoming a priest (1734), he taught philosophy, theology, biblical exegesis, and Hebrew throughout his life in the schools of the Order (Naples, Brescia), and above all at the Universities of Naples (1735–38), Ferrara (1750–56), and Turin for more than twenty years (from 1757 until his death). Opposed to scholasticism, he was at odds with his Order, with which he was reconciled in 1744 through the efforts of Cardinal A. M. Querini and Benedict XIV. He was associated with Roman ecclesiastics sympathetic to Jansenism; of particular interest for understanding the reformist tendencies of the period is his extensive correspondence with Mons. G. G. Bottari from 1754 onward (unpublished: collection of the Corsiniana Library, Rome).
A.’s literary production is vast and rich in erudition; it aimed to refute contemporary philosophism through sound historical and archaeological criticism.
Among his works on the Old Testament, the foremost are: Patriarchae Iosephi Aegypti olim Praegis religio (against J. Basnage, who in Antiquités hébraïques, 1713, accused Joseph of ambition and superstition), Naples 1738, Venice 1741 (under the title De Veteri Aegyptiorum idololatria ac moribus), Brescia 1747, in which he makes use of the Egyptology of his time; De forensi Iudaeorum buccina, Brescia 1745 (and in vol. XXVII of the Thesaurus Antiq. sacrarum of B. Ugolini, Venice 1763); De futuro sueculo ab Hebraeis ante captivitatem cogcito (against Jean Le Clerc, who denied that immortality was taught in the Old Testament), Milan 1748.
On the New Testament: Herodiani infanticidii vindiciae (against Gius. Scaligero), with the shrewd critical study De loco Iohannis (1, 13) alter atque habet Volgata a nonnullis Patribus lecto, Brescia 1746, in which he asserts the necessity of positive theology; he followed it (against the Brescian priest Pietro Barzani, who denied authority to the biblical citations of the Fathers) with the learned De authenticis SS. Scripturarum apud SS. Patres lectionibus II. duo, Verona 1747, Brescia 1749; De baptismate in Spiritu S. et igni commentarius sacri filologico-criticus, Milan 1752.
On the history of the early Church: De causis inopia veterum monumentorum pro copia martyrum dignosceuda, Milan 1740, and De martyribus sine sanguine, ibid. 1744; responses to Henry Dodwell, who argued for the small number of martyrs and discredited the martyrologies; Multitudo maxima eorum qui prioribus Ecclesiae saeculis christianam religionem professi sunt (against the work of David Clarkson, London 1688), Turin 1772.
On ethics: De principiorum legis naturalis traditione II. tres (he was the first to advocate the thesis of traditionalism), Milan 1742; Vindiciae Maupertuisianae, Venice 1754, in which, together with Maupertuis, he maintains that Stoicism did not possess a coherent moral system, and which occasioned a lengthy controversy with Fr. M. Zanotti and others; Saggio intorno alle immaginazioni e alle rappresentazioni della felicità somma, Turin 1775; Riflessioni sopra i mezzi di perfezionare la filosofia morale, ibid. 1778.
On theology: Della necessità e verità della religione naturale e rivelata, Venice 1755; Della speranza e della consolazione di rivedere i cari nostri nell'altra vita, Turin 1772, Bassano 1778; Praelectiones theologicae de re sacramentaria, Venice 1792 (reprinted in the Praelect. theol. of P. M. Gazzaniga, XI–XII, Venice 1797).
A. was also a precursor in the study of ancient religions (De diis multarum gentium Roman evocatis, Brescia 1743, Venice 1753, 1761, Oxford 1765; De sacro et publico apud ethnicos tabularum pictarum cultu, Venice 1753, enlarged edition Turin 1768), particularly of pagan mysteries (De Theurgia deque theurgicis ethnicorum mysteriis a divo Paulo memoratis, Milan 1761).
2) CARLO AGOSTINO — Brother of the preceding, born in Piacenza on 23 September 1711, died after 1762; also a Dominican, he distinguished himself as a preacher. He published several discourses and panegyrics, as well as Italian verse translations of the poem De ingratis by St. Prospero of Aquitaine (Venice 1753; another translation by F. Anfossi, ibid. 1802) and of Prudence’s Contra Symmachum (ibid. 1754).
3) PIETRO TOMMASO — A contemporary of the two brothers mentioned above, provost of the cathedral of S. Miniato, he deserves mention for his learned apologetic work De Divinitate D. N. I. Christi, Florence 1754.