DISMA DELLA TORRE. — Journalist, born in Genoa on 12 September 1820 from the noble house of the Counts of Lavagna, died there on 17 November 1891. He began his studies at the seminary in Genoa and completed them with the Fathers of the Oratory of Santa Maria in Aquiro in Rome. He was ordained priest around 1848. Upon returning to Genoa, he served in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena and later became primicerius of the archiconfraternity of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini at the Pammatone Hospital.
In 1860 he founded the weekly La Liguria and in 1862 the daily La Specola. In opposition to the prevailing liberalism, he championed the most rigid Catholic thought, sometimes erring on the side of conservatism. In those perilous times, he expended not only his learning and labors but also his considerable fortune, to the point of reducing himself almost to poverty. In the final years of his life, he served as rector of the small rural parish of Le Nasche near Genoa.