GALLERANI, ALESSANDRO. — Jesuit, orator, and writer, born at Cento (Ferrara) on 9 April 1833, died in Rome on 1 December 1905. After several years of teaching literature at Sinigallia and Tivoli, he devoted himself to preaching, and from 1864 to 1892 appeared in the pulpits of the principal cities of Italy, always welcomed and followed with the liveliest sympathy. He was also rector of Florence (1877–81) and Bologna (1882–92), until he was chosen as director and rector of La civiltà cattolica.
Of his numerous writings, his spiritual and formative works remain alive, owing to their literary excellence combined with mastery of the subject and ascetic unction: Good Jesus (14th ed., Modena 1905); Holy Jesus (7th ed., there 1904); Great Jesus (8th ed., there 1900); The Religious Antidote. Letters to a Student (4th ed., there 1913); Diomára, or the Religious Woman (2nd ed., there 1903); Our Homeland. Conversations on Paradise (there 1905). His principal sermons are collected in: Our Heroes (there 1902) and The Good Mother (there 1905). Also worthy of devotional reading are: The Sermon of Our Lord Jesus Christ after the Last Supper (Naples 1891); The Proverbs of Solomon (there 1892); The Two Principal Sermons of Our Lord Jesus Christ (there 1892); The Minor Sermons of Our Lord Jesus Christ (there 1893).