BARSOTTINI, GEREMIA. - Born in Versilia at Levigliani, commune of Stazzema, on 8 May 1812. At the age of 18 he entered the Congregation of the Piarists (Scolopi) and had as his teachers in his studies Fr. Zucconi, Fr. Gatteschi, and Fr. Inghirami. He began his teaching of rhetoric very young, first in the college of Urbino, then in the college of Modigliana; ordained a priest in 1836, he moved to the teaching of higher humanities in Florence, succeeding Fr. Gatteschi in the rhetoric classes in '48.
B., while cultivating the study of theology, of Sacred Scripture, and of patrology, dedicated his life to literary activity. Among his school works there remain to us: the Raccolta di prese e poesie, the Collegamento di brani scelti dell'Iliade, and the Lezioni di retorica. Notable are his sermons, his moral and patriotic discourses, his funeral eulogies, his epigraphs, and his poems, among which we cite: fifteen canticles to the Virgin, poetic compositions for priests and newly ordained pastors, and some sacred dramas: Debora e Giaele, Ester, L'ultimo giorno di Carusalemme. Toward the end of '56 he left Florence, having been elected rector of the Piarist schools of Pietrasanta. He remained there for almost twenty years; having returned to Florence, he died on 1 June 1884; for his tomb Fr. Mauro Ricci, his pupil, composed the epitaph. Among his pupils he had Carducci, who remembered him in a jest (Opere, I, pp. 308-10) and in a prose piece on Rossetti's Veggente (Opere, XVIII, pp. 241-42). A person of very good taste, B. worthily represented in Florence that classicist school which had, among ecclesiastics, representatives such as Mons. Golfieri in Bologna and Abbot Missirini in Rome.