CRISPOLTI, FILIPPO. — Born in Rieti on 25 April 1857, died in Rome on 3 March 1942. Journalist, man of letters, senator of the Kingdom. After graduating in Rome (1878), he practised law and journalism there until (1883) he was called to Turin as an editor of the Corriere nazionale. He returned to Rome (1886) as an editor of the Osservatore romano; he thus had the opportunity to establish himself as a writer, lecturer, and a vigorous polemicist, active in Catholic Action.
A municipal councillor of Rome (1893–99), director of the Avvenire d’Italia of Bologna (1896–1902), he made it one of the foremost Catholic daily newspapers. A contributor to many periodicals, he maintained extensive personal and literary relations with men of every school of thought. His journalistic work reached its culmination in the activity he devoted (1910–29), Grosoli (v.), to the five Catholic daily newspapers of the Roman publishing house. A municipal councillor in Turin (1906–1908), where he had taken up residence, he participated in the national Catholic congresses and in the formation of the Partito popolare, which elected him a deputy in 1919: his constant aim, expressed with nobility of thought and language, was to promote reconciliation between Church and State, shunning extremists of both the right and the left. In this direction he was encouraged by the pontiffs, especially Benedict XV and Cardinal P. Gasparri. In 1922 he was appointed senator.
With the refined temperament of a man of letters, he attempted the novel (Un duello [1900]) and poetry (Poesie [1900]). He excelled, however, in criticism and religious and social polemics (Il Inicato cattolico [1890]; Questioni vitali [1908]; Rinnovamento dell’educazione [1919]), and above all in evoking the men and times of his century; two sacred biographies (Don Bosco [1916] and S. Luigi Gonzaga [1923]); several volumes of personal memories, highly effective biographical and autobiographical pages (I miei quattro Papi [1930]; Corone e porpora [1937]; Politici, guerrieri, poeti [1941]); and a volume of commemorative essays (Grandi anime [1925]). He devoted particular activity to the anti-duelling movement, presiding over the Italian section of the International League against Duelling (1900–14), and to the renewal of religious art, presiding over the Society of Friends of Christian Art (1912–42). To his ideal master, Manzoni, he dedicated, besides innumerable articles, Minuzie manzoniane (1919) and Indagini sopra il Manzoni (1940). Of A. Fogazzaro, to whom he was bound by a friendship as devoted as it was loyal, he compiled Le più belle pagine for the Treves collection (1925).