AUDISIO, GUGLIELMO ANDREA. — Priest, educator, scholar, and professor of ecclesiastical disciplines, b. at Bra in 1802, d. at Rome on 28 September 1882. Having completed his elementary studies in the local seminary and his studies at Turin with degrees in philosophy and theology, he taught sacred eloquence for some time at the same seminary of Bra, until Carlo Alberto appointed him professor and president of the R. Ecclesiastical Academy of Superga (1839). Endowed with a broad and multifaceted culture, although not always fully assimilated and critically examined, he succumbed to the fascination of the new currents of the century and became a propagandist and champion of the neo-Guelph ideal, reacting against the Enlightenment and jurisdictionalist tendencies of too many supporters of the Risorgimento; that is, he sought to reconcile the movement for the peninsula’s independence and political and cultural renewal with Catholic and national traditions, and with the religious and temporal rights of the papacy. Hence, amid fervent passions, the incomprehension or criticism of both innovating and conservative factions, and the bitter struggles and painful conflicts in which, at various times, A. found himself involved. Thus, the prominent part he had taken in founding and editing the militant Catholic newspaper L’Armonia made him first so unpopular with the royal censorship and then with the interference of the Piedmontese government that it led to the dissolution of the Academy of Superga in 1853 and forced him to seek refuge in Rome. Received there by Pius IX, he soon taught natural and international law at the Sapienza and became a canon of St Peter’s and a consultor of the Holy Congregation of the Index. But here too, by frequenting gatherings of liberal-minded priests, including Liverani, and continuing to support ideas of political reform—often audacious, sometimes erroneous—he eventually discredited himself and found himself in difficulties, especially when the line of conduct he followed during the First Vatican Council gave rise to accusations of Gallicanism, and when one of his writings was placed on the Index by a decree to which A. commendably submitted. Thus even his indisputable merits remained obscured.
Among his works we recall: Lessons in Sacred Eloquence (3 vols., Turin 1839–58, final ed. in 1 vol. there 1882); On Representative Government in Piedmont and the First Achievements of Pius IX (there 1848); Introduction to Ecclesiastical Studies in Accordance with Religious and Civil Needs... (1 vol., Prato 1851), translated several times and also published without authorization; Iuris naturae et gentium privati et publici fundamenta (Rome 1852); Moral and Physical Education of the Clergy (1 vol., Naples 1853), in which appropriate and relevant pedagogical concepts appear; Political Questions (there 1854); The Last Days of the Academy of Superga and Its Last President... (Turin 1854); Public Law of the Church and of the Christian Nations (3 vols., Rome 1863), rebutted by Parocchi, Nardi, and others; Historical and Rational Idea of Ecclesiastical Diplomacy (there 1863); Political and Religious System of Frederick II and Pietro della Vigna (there 1866); Religious and Civil History of the Popes (5 vols., there 1865–68), which reaches through the entire pontificate of Gregory XVI; On Political and Religious Society with Regard to the Nineteenth Century (Florence 1876), condemned on 18 April 1877. In addition to a Life of Pius IX and an essay on The Roman Republic of 1849 and Its Trial (1st ed. Turin, 7th ed. Naples), as well as the didactic tale of a moral and social nature The Good Parish Priest (Rome 1858), he also wrote several historical and cultural articles, such as: The Pontificate of Clement XIII (Rivista contemporanea, 1 [1853–54]); The Pontificate of Pius IX (Riv. Universale, 24–26 [1877]); The Encyclical of 4 August [1879, of Leo XIII] (La Rass. Nazionale, 1 [1879]); The First Years of the Pontificate of Pius IX (ibid., 2–3 [1880]); 8–9 [1882]).