GIAMBATTISTA ASTENGO. — Priest, born in Savona in 1817, died near Balaclava on 3 May 1855. Educated in the Scuole Pie, after spending some time among the Capuchins in Genoa, he was obliged, for reasons of health, to enter the secular clergy. His strong patriotic feeling and his priestly vocation alike led him to become a military chaplain, and to attend the dying and wounded on the battlefields of Peschiera and Novara (1848–49). Though in poor health, he embarked to take part in the Crimean campaign, and died of cholera, a victim of his duty.
BIBL.: M. D'Ayala, I Piemontesi in Crimea, Florence 1858; E. Michel, s. V. in Dizionario del Risorgimento Nazionale, II, p. 125.