DIONIGI da PIACENZA. - Capuchin missionary of the Carli family; at the age of fifteen he assumed the habit of the Order at Cesena on 25 Apr. 1652. With Fr. Michelangelo Guattini da Reggio he arrived in the Congo in 1668, and carried out missionary work in the province of Bambu for one year.
Having fallen ill, he returned to Italy in 1671; in that year his Viaggio nel regno del Congo was published at Reggio Emilia, containing also the letters of his companion Fr. Michelangelo, who had died on 9 Apr. 1668; the work went through many editions and was included in Italian, French, and English collections of travels; Fr. Samuele Cultrera, Un morto che cammina (Parma 1926 and 1937), presents it in a modernized rendition. In Nov. 1678 he departed again as vice-prefect of the mission in Georgia, arriving at Tiflis in Feb. 1680. He worked at Gori, whence he set out for Italy in May 1684. At Bassano, in 1687, his work Il Moro trasportato nell'inclita città di Venetia, ovvero curioso racconto de' costumi, riti e religione de' popoli dell'Africa, America, Asia ed Europa was published; its first book reproduces the Viaggio nel Congo; German version, Augsburg 1693. In 1687 he is found in the mission of California; according to an archival note, he is said to have died in Lorea di Levante in 1694.