CERLOGNE, JEAN-BAPTISTE. — A Valdostan dialect poet, born at St-Nicolas on 6 March 1826, died there on 4 October 1910. He worked as a chimney sweep and kitchen boy in Marseille (1837–45), as a cook at the major seminary of Aosta (1851–55), and was a valiant combatant at Goito, S. Lucia, Valeggio, and Novara (1847–50); he was a student and seminarian (1856–64), and became a priest (22 December 1864). Owing to his instability, he exercised his pastoral ministry in very diverse places within and outside the diocese of Aosta. Of a cheerful character, he was exceedingly charitable and fond of poverty.
His literary and theological education was modest, but he had an artistic temperament and was an authentic poet. His language was the dialect of the Valley, of Franco-Provençal origin, whose orthography he was the first to establish, albeit by an empirical method, but with keen insight and sustained effort; he also compiled its grammar and dictionary.
His refined and good-natured art succeeded, with rare skill, in capturing the most varied states of mind and portraying delightful, cheerful domestic and pastoral scenes. His finest poems are: La marenda a Tisvallet (The snack at Chésallet) of 1855;
La bataille di vats a Vertozan (The cow-fighting at Vertozan) of 1858; La pastorala (Pastoral) of 1861; La tsemin de fer (The railway) of 1886. His writings in French (prose and poetry) are not of literary significance.
Works: only the principal ones are cited: Poésies en dialecte Valdôtain (Aosta 1890); Petite grammaire du dialecte valdôtain (Barbania 1893); Les étapes de la vie (2 vols., Aosta 1902, 1904: autobiography); Dictionnaire du patois valdôtain (there 1907; preceded by the 2nd ed. of the Petite grammaire); Le patois valdôtain. Son origine littéraire et sa graphie (there 1909). The manuscripts of C. are preserved in the municipal offices of his native town of St-Nicolas.