MARGOTTI, GIACOMO. — Priest and journalist, b. at S. Remo on 11 May 1823, d. at Turin on 6 May 1887.
The life of Don M. is indissolubly linked to that of the newspaper L'armonia della religione con la civiltà, which he founded and directed from 1848 to 1863.
As the organ of Catholic opposition to Cavourian liberalism, L'Armonia defended with extreme determination the rights of the Church and of the Holy See, giving full confirmation, without hesitation, to that secularist and anti-papal jurisdictionalism with which, deliberately and at all costs, people wished to portray the advent of the national Risorgimento. The internal and foreign policy of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and more particularly its ecclesiastical policy, prompted Don M., an exceptional polemicist whom nothing could bend, to write hundreds of extremely vehement articles; he fearlessly faced the newspaper’s continual seizures and personal harassment, which more than once went so far as arrest for insulting the institutions.
A chivalrous adversary of Cavour, who personally held him in great admiration, M. dedicated a moving obituary to the minister’s premature death. Elected a deputy in 1857, he was unable to take his seat in the Chamber because he was a canon, the government having declared canons ineligible, like ecclesiastics entrusted with the care of souls. At the expressed desire of Pius IX, in 1863 he left the direction of L'Armonia, which later moved to Florence, in order to found and direct, with greater moderation, l'Unità cattolica.