JANNI, UGO. - Religious writer and agitator, b. in 1869 at L'Aquila in the Abruzzi, d. at San 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 afterwards reconciled with the Church. In 1902 he joined the Waldensian Church and settled at San Remo, where, with few and sporadic absences, he remained until his death. He was the director and principal writer of the monthly review Fede e vita, which ceased publication in 1937. Regarded as an Old Catholic, he not only assisted Campello's schismatic movement (v.), but in his writings the doctrines of Herzog and of his professor Michaud of Bern manifest themselves from time to time. He took a notable part in 1937 in the meeting of the "Italian Evangelical League for the Elevation of Worship," and wrote numerous liturgical pamphlets on Baptism, on the Supper, and on public worship.
A Waldensian by free choice and deliberate will (cf. Il rinnovamento cattolico dell'Italia e la missione del valdismo, Pinerolo 1932), he worked much for that church; together with Ernesto Comba he edited the Manuale-compendio delle verità fondamentali del cristianesimo (Torre Felice 1931), and to him too, as already to Beckwith, there smiled the idea of bringing the Waldensians back to the doctrines anterior to the Synod of Cianforan (v.), more liturgical and less exclusivist than those professed after that Synod. But what made J. famous was his having been the principal and tireless promoter of the pan-Christian movement (v.) in Italy, to which he remained faithful until his death.
Of J.'s writings, besides those already cited, the following are to be remembered: Il problema dell'evangelizzazione in Italia (Florence 1905); Catechismo filosofico sulle fondamentali dottrine del cristianesimo (ibid. 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 (Turin 1932); Corpus Domini (Modena 1938).