JANNI, UGO. — Writer and religious agitator, born in 1869 at L'Aquila in the Abruzzi, died at S. Remo on 30 July 1938. Ordained a priest at Bern in 1893 by the Old Catholic bishop Herzog, he later began his work in Italy with the two apostates Savarese and Campello, who were subsequently reconciled with the Church. In 1902 he joined the Waldensian Church and settled in San Remo, where, apart from a few and occasional absences, he remained until his death. He was the director and principal writer of the monthly journal Fede e vita, which ceased publication in 1937. Regarded as an Old Catholic, he not only assisted Campello’s schismatic movement (v.), but his writings also occasionally reveal the doctrines of Herzog and of his professor Michaud of Bern. In 1937 he played a notable part in the meeting of the « Italian Evangelical League for the Elevation of Worship »; he wrote numerous liturgical pamphlets on Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and public worship.
Waldensian by free choice and deliberate will (cf. Il rinnovamento cattolico dell'Italia e la missione del valdismo, Pinerolo 1932), he worked extensively for that church; together with Ernesto Comba he compiled the Manuale-compendio delle verità fondamentali del cristianesimo (Torre Felice 1931), and to him, as previously to Beckwith, there also came the idea of bringing the Waldensians back to the Cianforan (v.), which were more liturgical and less exclusivist than those professed after that Synod. But what made J. famous was his having been the principal and pan-Christian movement (v.) in Italy, to which he remained faithful until his death.
Among J.’s writings, besides those already cited, the following should be mentioned: Il problema dell'evangelizzazione in Italia (Firenze 1905); Catechismo filosofico sulle fondamentali dottrine del cristianesimo (ivi 1906); I valori cristiani e la cultura moderna (Mendrisio 1913); La S. Chiesa cattolica e i suoi rapporti con la verità evangelica nella realtà e nella visione pancristiana (Pinerolo 1929); Teosofia (Torino 1932); Corpus Domini (Modena 1938).