FRANSONI, LUIGI. - Archbishop of Turin, b. March 29, 1789 in Genoa, d. March 26, 1862 in Lyon. In 1797 he took refuge in Rome. Returning to Genoa in 1814, he took up the ecclesiastical habit and was ordained a priest on December 11 of the same year. He then entered the Congregation of Urban Missionaries, and was appointed bishop of Fossano by Pius VII on August 13, 1821. After the death of Msgr. Chiaverotti, in August 1831 he was sent to Turin as apostolic administrator and became archbishop there following the Consistory of February 24, 1832. He concerned himself in particular with the improvement of studies in the seminaries and with greater rigor in ecclesiastical discipline. In March 1848, because of hostile demonstrations, he had to leave Turin, where he returned in February 1850. To King Victor Emmanuel II, who had sought to dissuade him from such a return, he replied that he could not leave the diocese abandoned any longer without failing in his most imperative duties.
Having returned to his see, on the occasion of the promulgation of the Siccardi law he issued a circular on April 18 in which, having called attention to the fact that civil law could not dispense ecclesiastics from the special obligations imposed upon them by the laws of the Church, he prescribed for parish priests and ecclesiastics in general the conduct to be observed in certain cases. Having learned of these instructions of the archbishop, the Sardinian government ordered the arrest of F., who was confined in the citadel. Meanwhile the trial against him was prepared, and by the civil tribunal he was held guilty of offending the laws, and sentenced to one month's imprisonment and a fine of five hundred lire. He left prison on June 2, but shortly thereafter F. was subjected to far harsher trials. When the minister of agriculture, Pietro Santarosa, who had been one of the foremost supporters of the Siccardi law, fell gravely ill, F., having heard the opinion of a commission of canonists, consented that the last Sacraments be administered to him, but only after a public act of retraction. Having refused, the minister died deprived of religious comfort.
Two days after Santarosa's death, the archbishop was taken on August 7, 1850 from his palace by a major of the carabinieri and brought to the fortress of Fenestrelle. Having gathered the bare necessities, in the company of an ecclesiastic and a servant, the archbishop remained there until September 28 of the same year. Meanwhile the Sardinian government had sent Pier Dionigi Pinelli to Rome in the vain attempt to arrange a modus vivendi with the Holy See. To the Piedmontese envoy, who had declared that one of the principal obstacles to an agreement was constituted by the person of F. and that it was therefore necessary to transfer the archbishop, Card. Antonelli replied that F.'s conduct had been fully in conformity with what his ministry required. Then the government acted on its own initiative, and expelled the prelate from the Kingdom. F. took up residence in Lyon, and remained there, far from his diocese, until his death.
Bibliography3 works
Silvio Furlani.