FONTANA, Fulvio. – Jesuit, sacred orator, b. 1648 in Modigliana (Florence), d. 1723 in Fermo. For a decade he was, together with Pinamonti, a companion of Segneri in sacred missions, and when the latter was in Rome as apostolic preacher, F. continued his missionary work for twenty-four years in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, earning wide renown as an orator.
In Germany he introduced the missionary method, and his sermons were translated into German. He was highly esteemed by Clement XI, by princes, and by sovereigns. In his Lenten sermons (Venice 1711) he treats moral and practical subjects with great zeal and rigorous logic, without vain adornment, using apt images and observations that reveal the missionary catechist.
Bibl.: L. Bulgarelli, Vita del p. F. F., Modigliana 1909; P. Tacchi-Venturi, Un compagno e successore del p. Segneri, in Civ. Cat., 1910, 1, pp. 719-23; E. Santini, Storia dell’Elogio, 1923, pp. 126-27. Emilio Santini