BRESCIANI (Borsa), Antonio. — Jesuit, writer, born in Ala in Trentino on 24 July 1798, died in Rome on 14 March 1862. Of noble family, he studied under Abbot Monterossi. Ordained priest, he taught rhetoric at the lyceum in Verona, and by deep-rooted vocation wished to belong to the Society [of Jesus], in which he soon became a prominent figure, showing himself a good educator and pedagogue. Above all, he was a man of letters, a follower of the purists under the guidance of Cesari. His vast and notable work is distinguished by a rich choice of vocabulary, elegant phrasing, original expository and descriptive gifts, though somewhat weighed down by a certain archaic prolixity. At first he published mainly translations, biographical sketches, critical, descriptive and moral essays. With his polished chapters on Romanticism he took his place among the classicists; as a good philologist he revealed himself in the Saggio di alcune voci toscane, and as a good archaeologist and ethnographer in delineating the customs of the island of Sardinia.
Known among literati and legitimists, he was brought, at the wish of Pius IX, onto the editorial staff of La Civiltà Cattolica with the task of upholding, through the illusion of events woven into the fabric of the century’s happenings, traditional principles and institutions. He succeeded in this by firmly placing himself at the head of reactionary writers, arousing wide echo with a series of tales which surprised by their boldness, their uninhibited treatment of sometimes delicate themes, and which constitute a too-neglected historical source of symptomatic consistency. Manzoni called him the foremost pen of Italy. Pius IX corrected with his own hand passages in the proofs concerning his own pontificate.
He had made his debut in the new genre as early as 1846, on the occasion of the famous amnesty, with Il trionfo della clemenza; he continued, among other works, with Ubaldo ed Irene, set against the background of the revolution and the empire; with Don Giovanni ossia il Benefattore occulto, which also contains interesting material on the end of Ciro Menotti and the Barnabite Ugo Bassi; with the trilogy comprising L’Ebreo di Verona, the best of all, La Repubblica Romana and Il Lionello, centred on the conflicts of 1846-49. The Austro-Franco-Sardinian conflict of 1859 inspired him to write Giulio o il Cacciatore delle Alpi, and in 1860 the magnanimous coming and fall of volunteers from every land in defence of the rights of the Holy See, Olderico ovvero il Nunzio pontificio. Death overtook him as he was beginning work on L’Assedio di Ancona.
He also left a rich and polished correspondence. Among his varied compositions may be listed: Edmondo o dei costumi del popolo Romano, which is a precious folkloristic repertory; La Contessa Matilde di Canossa and Iolanda di Groninga, a brilliant glorification of Gregory VII; La Cata di ghiaccio, containing attractive glimpses of missions in the northern lands; Lorenzo o il Castricato, a delicate and gentle idyll of love and faith. He also wrote a keen examination of L’Armeria antica del Re Carlo Alberto, the funeral eulogy of Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Savoy-Este, and an initial note on the virtues of the Venerable Queen Maria Cristina of Savoy-Bourbon.