GALLIZIA, PIO ALESSANDRO. - Barnabite missionary, bishop of Selisma and second vicar apostolic of the Mission of Ava and Pegu in Burma, b. at Varallo in 1701, d. in Pegu in March 1745.

He was teaching dogmatic theology in Rome when in 1726 he set out for Pegu, arriving at Siriam on 21 January 1728, without however being able to go as far as Ava, where two months later Father Calchi, the first vicar apostolic, died. Having to sustain the mission alone, in 1737 he returned to Italy to ask for aid. Having obtained from Benedict XIV in 1740 that the whole mission should again be entrusted to the Barnabites (whereas, after the death of Father Calchi, the kingdom of Ava had been entrusted to secular priests, leaving Martapan and Pegu to the Barnabites), and having been consecrated bishop by the hands of the same Pontiff, in February 1741 he set out again with 4 other confreres: Father Nerini with his brother Angelo Capello and Fathers Alessandro Mondelli, a lecturer in theology at Milan, and Giovanni del Conte, not yet a priest: they landed at Siriam between 1742 and 1743. Having obtained ample freedom from the Pegu king Siming-To, the bishop with the last two established themselves in the ancient royal city of Pegu, building a church and a house there and beginning to preach and to officiate publicly as well. But during the war between the Barmans of Ava and the Peguans who had proclaimed themselves independent, having been caught up in an ambush laid by the suspicious Pegu king for a squad of European adventurer soldiers who had suddenly appeared in the port of Siriam, while Nerini with his brother Capello at Siriam managed to save themselves for the time being by flight, Msgr. G. with Fathers Del Conte and Mondelli, who were accompanying the Europeans, fell murdered by the Peguans in the woods between Pegu and Siriam, in March 1745.

A Compendium of Christian doctrine and reasons for embracing it, as well as the Book of daily prayers, a Catechism and a Barman dictionary by his two confreres, have been lost.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: G. Moroni, Dizionario di erud. stor.-eccles., XXXIV, p. 247; L. Gallo, Storia del cristianesimo nell'Impero birmano, I, Milan 1862, pp. 111-42; O. Premoli, Storia dei Barnabiti, III, Rome 1925, pp. 94, 143, 172 ff.; G. Boffito, Scrittori barnabiti, II, Florence 1934, p. 116; L. Lavati, Menologio dei Barnabiti, III, Genoa 1938, pp. 230-35.

Another Father PIO ALESSANDRO GALLIZIA (1735-63), also a Barnabite from Varallo, nephew of the preceding, was a most industrious missionary in the same mission of Ava from 1760, together with Father Sebastiano Donati; but he died there soon after, in 1763, at Monlà, shortly after his companion.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: L. Gallo, op. cit., I, p. 176 ff.; H. Milan 1869, p. 20 ff.; O. Premoli, op. cit., pp. 204, 236 ff.; L. Lavati, op. cit., I, Genoa 1932, pp. 207-12.

Virginio M. Colciago

@incollection{ec5_gallizia_pio_alessandro, author = {Colciago, Virginio Maria}, title = {Gallizia, pio alessandro}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {1907--1908}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gallizia-pio-alessandro} }

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Gallizia, Pio Alessandro

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