CERETTI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO. - B. at Alice Vercellese on 15 Feb. 1793, d. at Turin on 29 Dec. 1855 and buried in the cathedral of S. Giovanni. He made his profession among the Oblates of the Virgin Mary on 19 March 1835. Consecrated in Rome bishop of Antinopolis on 31 July 1842, he was the first apostolic vicar of the mission in Ava and Pegu (Burma), entrusted to the same Oblates.
He gave strong impetus to the missionary works, but soon had to leave the mission (26 Dec. 1845) for reasons of health. He withdrew first to Rome (1846), then to Turin (1850), where he discharged the episcopal functions of the exiled archbishop, mons. Fransoni. In the few years that remained to him, he also gained a reputation as a vigorous Catholic polemicist through his volumes Della vera e falsa libertà; Libertà d'istruzione ed educazione della gioventù; Libertà della Chiesa, all three published anonymously in Turin in 1850.