BENIGNI, UMBERTO

BENIGNI, UMBERTO. – Priest, born on 30 March 1862 in Perugia, died in 1934 in Rome. A scholar of some renown in historical and social studies, he devoted himself to teaching and held several ecclesiastical offices. It nevertheless remains premature and difficult to offer an impartial and definitive judgment on several aspects of his life and on his multifaceted, and at times unclear, activity. Besides founding the Rassegna sociale, the first Catholic periodical of its kind, B. was responsible for the Storia sociale della Chiesa, begun in 1907 and carried on in several volumes (the last of which appeared in 1933) up to the 11th century; Die Getreidepolitik der Päpste (Berlin 1868); Historiae ecclesiasticae prolegomena (2nd ed., ibid. 1900); Historiae ecclesiasticae repertorium (Siena 1902); and the Manuale di stile diplomatico, specialmente ad uso del servizio ecclesiastico (Florence 1920).