DENGOLLA, EUSTACHIO. — Priest, the last and most original figure of Italian Jansenism, born in Genoa on 20 Sept. 1761, died there on 17 Jan. 1826. Educated in the school of Molinelli, in him converged the anti-Roman aversion of Fra Paolo Sarpi (to whom he dedicated an apologetic work: *Justification de fra' Paolo Sarpi ou Lettres d'un prêtre italien à un magistrat français sur le caractère et les sentiments de cet homme célèbre*, Paris 1811; placed on the Index, decree of 22 Dec. 1817) and the spirituality of Port-Royal (on whose ruins he held in 1809 the centenary commemoration of its destruction).
With his anti-Roman principles and Jansenist convictions, he was soon influenced by the democratic ideals of the French Revolution and an ecclesiastical policy that led him to establish friendly contacts with B.-H. Grégoire and O. Mouton. He indeed held an authoritative position in the ecclesiastical politics of the Ligurian Republic (1797-98), publishing the *Annali politico-ecclesiastici* (1797-99), and participated in the second national council of the French constitutional clergy, in defense of which he compiled a compendium of Solari’s work: *L'ancien clergé constitutionnel jugé par un évêque d'Italie* (Lausanne 1844; placed on the Index, decree of 26 Aug. 1822). He only entered into relations with Scipione de’ Ricci, bishop of Pistoia, from 1791 onwards and thus took no part in the celebrated synod he presided over; he maintained friendly relations with the Tuscan Jansenists and with the theologians of the University Circle of Pavia. And when, with the bull *Auctorem Fidei* of 1794, the tendencies of which all these men were supporters were condemned, he kept alive their mutual relations by traveling in Italy and abroad.
He lived in communion with the schismatic Church of Utrecht (1794-96), which he professed to love with a most tender affection. He always regarded France as a second homeland, and his religious thought was akin to that of the French appellants and Gallicans, repeating the ambiguities of P. Quesnel, the Gallicanism of Grégoire, and, as already mentioned, the anti-curialism of Paolo Sarpi. He began his Jansenist activity in 1792 by translating, under the pseudonym Irenco Filarete, Guibaud’s work: *Gemiti di un'anima penitente ricavati dalla S. Scrittura e dai SS. Padri*, collaborated with Grégoire in the *Annales de la Religion*, and, with the latter, in Paris (1819-22) in the *Chronique religieuse*, finally publishing in Leipzig (1820) the *Catechismo dei Gesuiti*. He compiled various other pamphlets, some still in manuscript (Vatican Library, codd. Vat. lat. 13136) on millenarianism, papal infallibility, etc., which confirm his opposition to Church doctrine.
Among his various friendships was that with Alessandro Manzoni. As an apostle for the conversion of Calvinists, after that of the Geymüller family (1805-1808), he contributed to the conversion of Enrichetta Manzoni Blondel (1810) and Adele Sellon, marquise of Cour. A man of singular spiritual gifts, distinguished by culture and purity of life, in 1820 he founded in Genoa, together with the Assoluti, the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. He left behind a copious correspondence, a true mine of information on the ecclesiastical controversies of his time, and a decisive document of his doctrinal aberrations.