FRANCHI, AUSONIO (CRISTOFORO BONAVINO). — Philosopher, born at Pegli (Genoa) on 27 February 1821, died at Genoa on 12 September 1895. In 1840 he entered the Congregation of the Oblates of S. Alfonso M. de' Liguori, founded by the blessed Gianelli. But in 1844, a few months after his priestly ordination, he was expelled from it by the founder because of the intransigence with which he opposed Alfonsian probabilism.
A liberal in politics and an ardent Giobertian, he not only supplied documents for the compilation of Il gesuita moderno, but also personally took part in the struggle against the Society of Jesus with two pamphlets printed clandestinely in 1846 (I Gesuiti and Autentiche prove contro i Gesuiti). Suspended a divinis because of the errors defended in his Corso di religione alle Figlie di S. Bernardo (Genoa 1849), he laid aside the ecclesiastical habit and devoted himself to philosophical studies, to which Gioberti had urged him. His first fruit was La filosofia delle scuole italiane (Capolago 1852; in 1853, an Appendice alla filosofia delle scuole italiane was published at Genoa). Through a prolix Introduzione and twelve polemical letters to Prof. Bertini, the fundamental work of A. F. seeks to provide the doctrinal justification of his apostasy, attempting, with skilfully intermingled sophisms and vulgar blasphemies, to demonstrate the incompatibility between Catholicism and philosophy, which for him is synonymous with Kantianism.
In the work La religione del sec. XX (Lausanne 1853),
A. F. intends to emphasize the irreconcilability of religion with liberty: God is evil, and the only possible philosophy is atheistic rationalism. In chronological order there followed Studi religiose e filosofici: Dal sentimento (Turin 1854) and Il razionalismo del popolo (Geneva 1856), in which the style becomes calmer, but the poison subtler and more penetrating. Meanwhile he had moved from Genoa to Turin: first a Giobertian, he then adhered to Mazzini, but finally entered into polemics with him as well in La ragione, a bimonthly periodical he had founded in 1854. He supported Orsini and published his memoirs (F. Orsini, Memorie politiche, con un'appendice per A. F., Lugano 1860). Having settled in Milan in 1859, he directed La gente latina for some time. In 1860 T. Mamiani established for him a chair of the history of philosophy at the University of Pavia, from which he was transferred in 1863 to the Scientific Academy of Milan. The works of this period—Letture sulla storia della filosofia moderna (2 vols., Milan 1863); Saggi di critica e polemica (3 parts, ibid. 1871–72); Lettere a N. Mameli in la teoria del giudizio (2 vols., ibid. 1871)—add nothing to the Kantian rationalism of which he professes himself a follower. Indeed, his adherence to the master’s doctrine becomes less intransigent with time, and in the Lettere the disagreement is already clearly emerging.
Meanwhile materialism and positivism gained the upper hand, and A. F. fell silent; indeed, during these years he began revising his thirty years of philosophical activity. Thus, in 1879, the conception arose of Ultima critica (3 vols., Milan 1889–93), which was intended as the “refutation of all the paralogisms that had led me to rationalism, and exposition of the arguments that first led me back to Thomistic philosophy and then to the Christian faith” (Lettere intime, Belluno 1900, pp. 14–16). In the first part he attacks especially the Kantianism advocated in La filosofia delle scuole italiane; in the second, the agnosticism, symbolism, and religious evolutionism defended in the Studi filosofici e religiosi; in the third, the unbelief extensively propagated in Il razionalismo del popolo. Excellent as a recantation, Ultima critica has limited constructive value, because it is more the destruction of his previous doctrinal creed than a systematic exposition of truth.
A. F. was also an educationalist, and although a single posthumous work, Lezioni di pedagogia (Siena 1898), is enough to have him remembered in the history of education, his contribution was considerable, especially because of the sound modernity with which he viewed and resolved the didactic and moral problems pertaining to the developmental period. The intellectual and philosophical conversion of A. F., already an accomplished fact by about 1879, considerably preceded his religious conversion, which took place only in 1889. In 1892 he withdrew to Genoa, to the Convent of S. Anna of the Discalced Carmelites, and remained there until his death.
BIBLI: Of interest for knowledge of the man: D. Stern (M.C.S. de Flavigny, contesse d'Agoult), Florence et Turin, Paris 1862; A. Franchi, Lettere intime, Belluno 1900; Lettere a F. Henneguy, preserved by the Bonavino family at Pegli. Studies: A. Angelini, A. F., Rome 1897; A. Cappellazzi, L'ultima critica di A. F. brevemente esposta ed esaminata, 3 vols., Crema 1889–93; A. Franzoni, L'opera filosofica di A. F., Cremona 1899; O. Marchetti, Un grande contortito di Maria S.ma. A.F., Rome 1921; A. Colletti, A.F. e i suoi tempi, Turin 1925; V. Suraci, A. F. filosofo e pedagogista, Milan 1936; G. Alliney, I pensatori della seconda metà del sec. XIX, ibid. 1942, p. 326 ff.