GALANO, Clemente. — Missionary of the Theatine Order. Born in Sorrento, he professed in the convent of the SS. Apostoli in Naples on 25 February 1628. After completing his studies, in 1636 he was sent, together with Fr. Francesco Maggio (to whom the first Georgian grammar is owed), on the missions to Georgia, arriving in Gori, the seat of the Theatine mission, in March 1637. From Georgia he moved to Colchis, where he worked for three years. Though conversant in Turkish, Georgian, and Colchidian, he devoted himself to the care of Armenians, of whose language and liturgy he was a scholar, converting many of them.
To better advance this mission, in 1640 Galano was sent by his superiors to Constantinople, where he opened a college for Armenians, composing for them the first Armenian grammar and a Logic. Patriarch Cyril of Erivan, an admirer of Galano’s learning and zeal, negotiated with him the union of the Armenians with the Roman Church and would have brought it to fruition had death not intervened. Owing to intrigues and persecutions by the usurper of the patriarchal see, David, and his followers, Galano left Constantinople in early 1644 for Rome, accompanied by a good number of disciples and several dignitaries of the Greek and Armenian Churches, among them the Greek Cyril, Archbishop of Trebizond, who had converted to union with the Catholic Church. Urban VIII received Galano and his companions with paternal kindness. Retiring to the convent of S. Silvestro al Quirinale, Galano served as master of novices and, by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, as professor of Armenians at the new Urban College. In 1663 the same Congregation sent him, together with Fr. Luigi Pidon (1657–1717), his pupil, to Poland to negotiate the union of the Armenians of that kingdom with Rome. Arriving in May 1664, he immediately founded an Armenian college in Lviv, but on 14 May 1666 death cut short his zealous labors. The college continued under Pidon, who resumed and successfully completed the work of union there.