GUADAGNINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. – Archpriest of Cividate in Valcamonica, a Jansenist of the Pavia group, TAMBURINI, PIETRO (v.) and a learned man, born in 1723, died in 1807. Gioberti, in Gesuita moderno, speaks of him as a student of ecclesiastical history.
In chronological order, his principal works are: De antiqua paroeciarum origine (Brescia 1782), in which he demonstrates the venerable antiquity of parish priests, maintaining their divine origin, their succession from the seventy-two disciples, and the power given to them directly by the Redeemer; Difficoltà sopra il pio esercizio della Via Crucis (Venice 1786), which he dedicated to Monsignor Scipione De' Ricci, bishop of Pistoia, proposing the reasons that should exclude its liturgical practice and denying the doctrines then current in the Church concerning indulgences; Nuovo esame di alcuni testi del Concilio di Trento relativi all'assoluzione... (Pavia 1787), in which he defended the opinion that absolution from reserved sins by a priest who lacks the faculty to grant it is indeed illicit but valid; Rhiposta al libro dello stato dei bambini dell'ab. G. Bolgini (ibid. 1788); De tollenda ecclesiastici calendarii perenni stabilitate (ibid. 1788); Apologia di Arnaldo da Brescia libri due (ibid. 1790). Through these and other historical, critical, and polemical publications—many of them placed on the Index—and especially through his apology of Arnaldo da Brescia, G. gave voice to his authority as a scholar not only in advancing the Jansenist program of ecclesiastical reform, but also in denying the pope and bishops divine rights and governing power in the Church, preferring, in the administration of the patrimonial goods of the Church, lay magistrates dependent on the princes.