GALVANI, CESARE. - Priest and journalist, b. at Modena on 1 Nov. 1801, d. at Prague on 14 Apr. 1863. Of a patrician family, having taken his degree in jurisprudence and been received at a very young age into the ranks of the noble guard of Duke Francis IV, G. began a brilliant administrative career, which he nevertheless interrupted in 1825, when he was appointed assistant librarian of the Estense and later director of the Lapidary Museum of Modena. Having then assumed the direction of the court archives, he collaborated extensively on the important collection of the Memorie di religione, di morale e di letteratura.
A priest in 1837, he was tutor to certain princes of the house of Este and of Bourbon, a meticulous biographer of Francis IV (Memoria storiche intorno la vita dell'arciduca Francesco IV, 4 vols., Modena 1846-54), and faithful to the sovereign even after the annexation of the duchy to the Kingdom of Sardinia, he followed him into exile in Prague. But the name of G. is particularly linked to the legitimist periodical La voce della verità, which he founded in 1831 after the insurrection of Ciro Menotti and directed for five years. At first a biweekly and then a triweekly, the periodical retained a thoroughly combative stamp, against liberal ideologies. It energetically opposed Italian unity, the doctrines of Mazzini, the July monarchy, the "cristino" party of Spain, and the liberal orientation of Great Britain, arousing a wide echo in European journalism, as is proved by the extremely violent polemics that G. carried on with periodicals of various countries.
In 1836, when England protested at Modena over certain writings by G. concerning British support for Isabella II against the Carlists, he asked to be relieved of the direction of the newspaper, which was assumed by Marco Antonio Parenti. G.'s activity did not cease on this account, with his very numerous articles and pamphlets in defense of legitimism.