CRISPOLTI, FILIPPO. - Born in Rieti on 25 April 1857, died in Rome on 3 March 1942. Journalist, man of letters, senator of the Kingdom. Having graduated in Rome (1878), he practiced 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; in this way he found the opportunity to establish himself as a writer, lecturer, valiant polemicist, and militant of Catholic Action.
A municipal councillor of Rome (1893-99), as director of the Avvenire d'Italia of Bologna (1896-1902) he made of it one of the foremost Catholic dailies. A contributor to many periodicals, he had wide personal and literary relations with men of every school. His journalistic work culminates in the activity he devoted (1910-29) alongside Count Grosoli (v.) on the five Catholic dailies of the Editrice romana. A municipal councillor in Turin (1906-1908), where he had taken up residence, he took part in the national Catholic congresses and in the founding of the Partito popolare, which elected him deputy in 1919: his constant tendency, expressed with nobility of thought and speech, was to favor the reconciliation of Church and State, avoiding the extremists of the right and of the left. He was encouraged in this line by the pontiffs, especially by Benedict XV and by Card. P. Gasparri. In 1922 he was appointed senator.
A man of letters of refined temperament, he attempted the novel (Un duello [1900]) and poetry (Poesie [1900]). He excelled, however, in criticism, in religious and social polemic (Il Inicato cattolico [1890]; Questioni vitali [1908]; Rinnovamento dell'educazione [1919]) and above all in the evocation of men and times in his century; two sacred biographies (Don Bosco [1916]; and S. Luigi Gonzaga [1923]); several volumes of personal recollections, highly effective biographical and autobiographical pages (I miei quattro Papi [1930]; Corone e porpora [1937]; Politici, guerrieri, poeti [1941]); a volume of commemorations (Grandi anime [1925]). He gave particular activity to the anti-dueling movement, presiding over the Italian section of the International League against Dueling (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 devoted, besides innumerable articles, the Minuzie manzoniane (1919) and the Indagini sopra il Manzoni (1940). From A. Fogazzaro, to whom he was bound by an friendship as devoted as it was loyal, he gathered Le più belle pagine in the Treves collection (1925).
Bibliography3 works
Egilberto Martire