ECCLESIASTICAL COLLEGE OF TURIN. - A formative institution for the clergy of Turin and the Subalpine region, where young priests (enrollment is obligatory for those of the archdiocese), before beginning their apostolic life, devote themselves for a two-year period to the practical study of moral and pastoral theology. The idea of creating a house where young priests could be gathered — those who from 1738 onward were required for a three-year period to attend the "conferences" of practical moral theology either at the university or at the seminary — had already been broached by various archbishops of Turin, but without result; after the monarchical restoration (1814), the servant of God Pius Brunone Lanteri, in union with the theologian Luigi Guala, gave concrete form to a project in this regard, but not even he was able to bring it to completion (1816-17). Guala succeeded in his stead, and in Nov. 1817 was finally able to open the long-desired c. Its seat until 1870 was in the former convent of St. Francis of Assisi; from 1870 to the present it has been located near the sanctuary of the Consolata. The c. reached its greatest splendor under the direction of St. Joseph Cafasso. After a period of suppression it was reconstituted by the servant of God G. Allamano.
BIRL.: [A. P. Frutaz], Positio super introduzione Causa et super virtutibus... Pii Brunonis Lanteri (S. Rituum Cong. Sectio hist., 63), Città del Vaticano 1945, pp. 30-32, 199-221; G. Usaglio, Il teologo Guala e il c. e. di T., Torino (1948). The author has made use of the previous work in a strange and even incorrect manner.