BATTISTINI. - Name of a missionary society of secular priests (Congregatio sacerdotum saecularium missionariorum de Sancto Ioanne Baptista), now dissolved, approved by the brief of 23 September 1755 of Benedict XIV, established in Genoa in the 18th century by the priest Domenico Francesco Olivieri at the suggestion and impetus of the Venerable Maria Antonietta Solimani. The Society, placed under the authority of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, had missions especially in Bulgaria and China. It was directed by a superior with a vicar who assumed office on the day of St John the Baptist and held it for three years. They lived in common and took a vow to persevere in the Society and to go to the missions designated by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda. Members of this society included Pope Pius VI and Cardinals Spinelli and Imperiali.
BATTISTINI
BIBL.: F. Luxardo, Vita dell'illustre servo di Dio Domenico Francesco Olivieri, fondatore della Congregazione dei missionari subbrani in Genova e della Congreg. dei B. in Roma, Genoa 1871; J. Hergenröther and F. Ph. Kaulen, s. V. in Kirchenlexikon, I, Freiburg im Br. 1886, col. 1979.