BERARDINELLI, FRANCESCO. – Man of letters, born at Gambatesa (Campobasso) in 1816 and died in Rome on 12 December 1892. He entered the Society of Jesus at Sorrento in 1837 and taught belles-lettres in various colleges of southern Italy. In 1861 he came to Rome to join the staff of writers of La civiltà cattolica, which he followed to Florence in 1870, where he became its director, returning with it to Rome in 1887.
He earned particular praise for the two volumes: Il concetto della Divina Comedia (Naples 1859) and Il Dominio temporale de' Papi nel concetto politico di Dante Alighieri, con una appendice sul senso allegorico della Divina Comedia (Modena 1882).
BIBL.: Sommervogel, VIII, cols. 1816–19.