LIVERANI, FRANCESCO. - Writer and polemicist, b. at Castel Bolognese on 22 Feb. 1823, d. at Cortona on 28 Feb. 1894. Author of works of sacred and profane erudition, published in 5 vols. in 1858-59, L. had pursued a brilliant career in the Roman prelature when he published a vigorously polemical book: Il Papato, l'Impero e il Regno d'Italia (Florence 1861), maintaining that the Pope ought to renounce temporal power and come to an agreement with the Italian State.
That volume appeared at the same time as the well-known mission of Fr. C. Passaglia, whom Count Cavour had sent to Rome in the hope of resolving the Roman question peacefully. Once the attempt had failed and Passaglia had incurred ecclesiastical censures for his anti-temporalist writings, L. undertook his defense with another volume, La dottrina cattolica e la rivoluzione italiana (ibid. 1862), boldly asserting that the Pontiff had no right to impose canonical sanctions in political matters. Having at first refused to recant, which he later did to a great extent, he was deposed from all his offices and dignities and withdrew into private life, devoting himself to historical studies, among which worthy of mention are a Spicilegium Liberianum (ibid. 1863) and above all an erudite volume on Il ducato e le antichità longobarde e zaliche di Chiusi (Siena 1872). He is also owed a massive collection of Reminescenze inedite, of great historical value, preserved in the municipal library of Imola.