FRACASSINI, UMBERTO. - Historian and biblical scholar, born at Cortona on 28 Jan. 1862, died at Perugia on 30 July 1950. A student at the Pius Seminary, he obtained degrees in theology and in Utroque Iure at the Apollinare.
His outstanding intellectual and pedagogical gifts were greatly appreciated at the Seminary of Perugia, where he held the office of rector and professor of Holy Scripture. At the time of the Modernist crisis (1907), he withdrew into private life, assisting his brother in the care of the parish of Prepo (a suburb of Perugia) and continuing, with increasing passion, his studies, of which he offered a sample in the widely discussed work: Che cos'è la Bibbia? (Rome 1909). Urged by his friend Alessandro Bonucci, he applied for and obtained qualification as a lecturer in History of Christianity at the University of Rome, where he developed the work: L'impero romano e il cristianesimo (Perugia 1913). Having moved to the University of Florence as lecturer in the history of religions, he published the well-known volume: Il misticismo greco e il cristianesimo (Città di Castello 1922). Subsequently he gave several lectures at the University for Foreigners in Perugia and collaborated on the Enciclopedia Italiana.
Archbishop Msgr. Rosa nominated him to the Holy See for appointment as archdeacon of Perugia Cathedral.
His sincere faith resounds in the words he uttered on his deathbed: “I understand and wish to die in the bosom of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, an intention and will of which no one must entertain any doubt.”