FRANCHI, AUSONIO (CRISTOFORO BONAVINO). — Philosopher, born at Pegli (Genoa) on 27 Feb. 1821, died at Genoa on 12 Sept. 1895. In 1840 he entered the Congregation of the Oblates of St. Alphonsus founded by the Blessed Gianelli on 4 June of that year. But in 1844, a few months after his priestly ordination, he was expelled by the founder for the intransigence with which he fought against Alfonsian probabilism.
A liberal in politics and a fervent follower of Gioberti, he not only supplied documents for the compilation of *Il gesuita moderno*, but personally intervened 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. The first fruit was *La filosofia delle scuole italiane* (Capolago 1852; in 1853 there appeared in Genoa an *Appendice alla filosofia delle scuole italiane*). Through a prolix Introduction and 12 polemical letters to Prof. Bertini, the fundamental work of A. F. aims to be the doctrinal justification of his apostasy, while with skilful sophisms mixed with vulgar blasphemies he seeks to demonstrate the incompatibility between Catholicism and philosophy, which for him is synonymous with Kantianism.
In the work *La religione del sec. XX* (Lussana 1853),
A. F. intends to emphasize the irreconcilability of religion with freedom: God is evil, the only possible philosophy is atheistic rationalism. This is followed in chronological order by *Studi religiosi e filosofici: Del sentimento* (Turin 1854) and *Il razionalismo del popolo* (Geneva 1855), in which his style becomes calmer, but the venom more subtle and penetrating. Meanwhile he had moved from Genoa to Turin: first a Giobertian, he then adhered to Mazzini but finally entered into controversy with him also in *La ragione*, a bi-monthly which 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 for some time *La gente latina*. In 1860 T. Mamiani secured 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: *Lettere sulla storia della filosofia moderna* (2 vols., Milan 1863); *Saggi di critica e polemica* (3 parts, 1871-72); *Lettere a N. Mameli su la teoria del giudizio* (2 vols., 1871); add nothing to the Kantian rationalism of which he professes himself a follower, indeed adherence to the master’s doctrine becomes with time less intransigent and in the *Lettere* the conflict already clearly emerges.
Meanwhile materialism and positivism gained the ascendancy and A. F. fell silent; indeed in these years he began a revision of his thirty years of philosophical activity. Thus in 1879 arose the plan for *Ultima critica* (3 vols., Milan 1889-93), which aims to be a refutation of all the paralogisms that had led him to rationalism, and an exposition of the arguments that have brought him back first to Thomistic philosophy and then to Christian faith (*Lettere ultime*, Belluno 1900, pp. 14-16). In the first part he combats especially the Kantianism propounded in *Filosofia delle scuole italiane*; in the second, agnosticism, symbolism and religious evolutionism defended in the *Studi filosofici e religiosi*; in the third, the unbelief widely propagated in *Il razionalismo del popolo*. Excellent as a recantation, *Ultima critica* has limited constructive value, for more than a systematic exposition of truth it is a destruction of his previous doctrinal creed.
A. F. was also an educationalist, and if a single posthumous work, *Lezioni di pedagogia* (Siena 1898), keeps him in memory in the history of education, his contribution was considerable especially for the healthy 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., which was already an accomplished fact by about 1879, long preceded the religious one which took place only in 1889. In 1892 he retired to Genoa in the Convent of St. Anne of the Discalced Carmelites and remained there until his death.