Beltrame, Giovanni

BELTRAME, GIOVANNI. - Missionary, explorer, educator, b. 11 Nov. 1824 at Valeggio sul Mincio and d. 8 Apr. 1906 at Verona. A pupil of the Mazza institute of Verona, he was accepted into what was then called the "Mission of Central Africa" (v. KHARTUM) by that apostolic pro-vicar Dr. Knobelcher, who assigned to the disciples of Mazza a region on the Blue Nile, and then the peninsula of Sennar along the rivers Jal and Sobat. B., who had been ordained a priest in 1849, set out with his companion don Antonio Castagnaro in Oct. 1853, arriving at Khartum on 29 Dec., where he began his missionary apprenticeship with a college of black boys. A year later, going back up the Blue Nile beyond the Egyptian border, he ventured into the country of the Shilluk to study there the possibilities of a missionary foundation, in agreement with his pro-vicar. Having crossed the province of Sennar, he reached Beni Shangul on 7 Feb. 1854, studying the whole country; the fruit of this exploration was his book Il Sennar e lo Sciangelle, published later at Verona in 1879. In '56 he returned to Italy, and at the beginning of '57 he was at Vienna, at the invitation of Archbishop Mescutar, president of the Viennese Committee for Central Africa, who entrusted him with a new exploration. In Sept. 1857 B. set out again, at the head of a new band of missionaries of Mazza, among them Comboni (v.), and having gone back up the White Nile, he reached the station of S. Croce (14 Feb. 1858). B.'s principal task was to study the Denka language, and he succeeded in it amid no small difficulties and continual fevers. But that whole zone proved barren: whence, given also the death of several young confreres and of the pro-vicar himself, and the orders of the new pro-vicar Kirchner, came the decision to return and the waiting, at Shellal near Aswan (Nubia), for definitive orders from Rome, which indeed came with the transfer of the mission to the Franciscans of Styria.

Having returned to his homeland in 1862, B. remained always at his institute of Verona, which he then directed from 1899 until his death. He displayed vigorous pastoral, educational and cultural activity, always taking part in all the manifestations of a geographical-colonial character in Italy. Other works of his of a missionary-colonial character are Fiume Bianco e i Denka (1881), In Nubia presso File, Siena ed Elefantina (1893).

Giovanni B. Tragella