CERLOGNE, JEAN-BAPTISTE. - A dialectal poet of the Aosta Valley, born at St-Nicolas on 6 March 1826, died there on 4 October 1910. He worked as a chimney-sweep and scullion in Marseilles (1837-45), a cook at the major seminary of Aosta (1851-55), a valiant soldier at Goito, S. Lucia, Valeggio, Novara (1847-50), a student and seminarian (1856-64), and a priest (22 December 1864). Owing to his unsettled nature, he exercised his pastoral ministry in a great variety of places both within and beyond the diocese of Aosta. Of cheerful disposition, he was exceptionally charitable and devoted to poverty.
His literary and theological training was modest, but he possessed an artistic temperament and was a genuine poet. His language was the dialect of the Valley, of Franco-Provençal origin, whose spelling he was the first to fix—though by empirical methods—with fine intuition and unremitting toil; he compiled its grammar and dictionary.
His refined and kindly art succeeded in capturing with rare skill the most varied states of mind and portraying lively and joyous domestic and pastoral scenes. His finest songs include: *La marenda a Tsesallet* (The afternoon snack at Chésallet) of 1855; *La bataille di vaste a Vertozan* (The cow-fight at Vertozan) of 1858; *La pastorala* (Pastoral) of 1861; *Lo stemin de fer* (The railway) of 1886. His writings in French (both prose and poetry) are not of notable literary merit.
Works: only the principal ones are cited: *Poésies en dialecte Valdôtain* (Aosta 1890); *Petite grammaire du dialecte valdôtain* (Barbanía 1893); *Les étapes de la vie* (2 vols., Aosta 1902, 1904; autobiography); *Dictionnaire du patois valdôtain* (ibid. 1907; preceded by the 2nd ed. of the *Petite grammaire*); *Le patois valdôtain. Son origine littéraire et sa graphie* (ibid. 1909). C.’s manuscripts are preserved in the town hall of his native St-Nicolas.