GUSMINI, GIORGIO. - Cardinal, born at Gazzaniga (Bergamo) on 9 Dec. 1855, died at Bologna on 24 Aug. 1921. He studied at the Roman Seminary and at the University of Padua, where he obtained a degree in letters. After serving as archpriest of Clusone and of S. Alessandro in Colonna at Bergamo, carrying on an intense religious and social activity, he was elected by Pius X in 1910 bishop of Foligno, where he completely renewed the diocese, displaying ardent pastoral zeal. Benedict XV, on 8 Sept. 1914, two days after his election to the pontificate, chose him as his successor in the archiepiscopal see of Bologna, and in the Consistory of 9 Dec. 1915 created him cardinal of the title of S. Susanna. During the war of 1915–18 and in the immediate post-war period, G. carried on untiring activity, exhorting and consoling, and contributing above all to spiritual revival and to the solution of the most serious problems.
Besides highly esteemed pastorals, he left numerous publications, among which the following should be noted: Sommario storico della letteratura italiana (Bergamo 1893); La vita spirituale (ascetical conferences in four volumes; ibid. 1900); Vertova e la sua insigne Parrocchiale (ibid. 1904); La perfezione sacerdotale (very brief meditations for every day of the year, Turin 1917); Mons. Giuseppe Piazza (on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, Bologna 1918); Metodo per preparare i fanciulli ai SS. Sacramenti della Confessione e della Comunione (ibid. 1919); La parrocchia e la vita parrocchiale dei nostri giorni (ibid. 1920).
Mario De Camillis