FRANCO, Giovanni Giuseppe. - Jesuit, brother and confrere of Fr. Secondo, a very well-known preacher, born in Turin on 26 January 1824, died in Rome on 15 January 1908. He entered the Society of Jesus in the Campagna on 9 August 1838 and was ordained priest in Vercelli on 4 June 1848.
The dispersion of the Jesuits following the events of that year gave him the opportunity, during his travels throughout France and Belgium, to perfect his theological training at Louvain and his botanical studies in Paris, thereby acquiring a solid culture in various fields. He returned to Italy in 1851 and between 1867 and 1877 he preached missions in Tuscany and spent a long time in Corsica, while his reputation as a refined and effective writer grew, thanks to appreciated narrative essays of a historical, pedagogical, and moral character.
On 2 November 1863 he joined the editorial staff of *La Civiltà Cattolica*, to which, alongside his priestly ministry, he devoted the best of himself not only through numerous articles and reviews but also through novels and stories, mostly drawn from historical events. These works featured an engaging plot, subtle analysis, and instructive information, though sometimes prolix and digressive: *Tigraute* (2 vols., Rome 1883); *Le vie del cuore* (2 vols., Modena 1889); *Le gemelle africane* (2 vols., 1882); *Gli spiriti delle tenebre* (2 vols., 1882); *La sposa della Sila* (2 vols., 1883). Particularly noteworthy are *I Crociati di S. Pietro* (1868), which later appeared in three volumes (Rome 1869–70) and were widely translated and published abroad. The work constitutes a valuable historical source for the events of October–November 1867. The author, in fact, made use not only of an abundant bibliographic apparatus of every kind but also had free and scrupulously objective access to the correspondence of the papal government, made available to him by Pius IX. At the latter’s request, moreover, Fr. Franco carried out delicate tasks during the Vatican Council and contributed to the publication of the *Summa Conciliorum brevissima* by the Council’s secretary, Mons. Pessler.