BALSAMO, FERDINANDO. — Priest, born in Roziano Gravina on 7 September 1826, died in Cosenza on 7 November 1869. Under Bourbon rule, he combined pastoral zeal with a lively love of country and educated the young in patriotic ideals. In philosophy he was a follower of Gioberti and was convinced that no obstacle stood between Catholic doctrine and the sound achievements of reason.
In the Avvertenza to Il Cristiano Cittadino (1861), he declared that “they (the speeches) were an indirect apology for Christianity, aiming at nothing other than making one grasp with one’s own hands the harmony between Christian thought and whatever is true and good in civil science: Religion and Fatherland are shown to be joined by a divine bond, and the chair of the Gospel was at the same time the tribune of the peoples.”