BONAZZI, GIUSEPPE MARIA. - Franciscan friar, missionary in Chile, born in Rome on 15 June 1814, died in Peru in 1869. He left for the missions in 1837 and was ordained a priest in December of the following year in Santiago, Chile. Assigned to the missionary college in Castro, he subsequently served as parish priest in Lemny and Tenau, president of the hospice in Ancu, procurator of the college and missions, rector of the diocesan seminary, diocesan councilor, professor of Latin, and parish priest of the cathedral. In 1850, he was sent as a missionary among the Araucanians in Tucapel. The indigenous people suspected him of being a political agent of the government, and when, in his zeal to eradicate polygamy and other abuses, he committed some imprudences, he was forced to withdraw. In 1852, he was appointed missionary in Nacimiento. After a brief stay in Valparaíso, from 1855 to 1860 he was a missionary in Osorno, where he built a church and convent. In 1864, he left the missions in Chile and departed for Peru.
B. is the author of a valuable, unpublished history of the Araucanian missions in Chile, though it was used by Fr. Marcelino da Civezza and others.