MARINONI, GIUSEPPE. – First superior of what is now the Pontifical Institute of Saints Peter and Paul and Saints Ambrose and Charles for Foreign Missions, born in Milan on 11 Oct. 1810, died there on 27 Sept. 1891. Ordained priest in 1834, after a few years of teaching in diocesan seminaries he went to Rome, where he was a disciple of Bl. Pallotti (q.v.), then vicar and later parish priest at S. Michele a Ripa. Recalled to his diocese to direct the nascent Institute of Foreign Missions, he served as its superior, intelligent and much beloved, until his death.
In 1864 he founded *L’Osservatore Cattolico*, bringing in Enrico Massara and Davide Albertario as editors, showing himself a staunch defender of the papal cause but free from the partisanship that later characterized the paper; he withdrew from it in 1872, when, together with Giacomo Scurati, he founded *Le Missioni Cattoliche*; yet he never ceased to assist *L’Osservatore Cattolico*, even by express mandate from Rome.
Dear to Pius IX and to the entire Lombard episcopate, which often availed itself of his help in drafting collective pastoral letters, he was revered and heeded by cardinals and bishops. Adviser to Ausonio Franchi at the time of his return to the Church, and to several other straying priests sent to him by their respective bishops, he was an outstanding educator and father to missionaries and a distinguished ecclesiastical writer. He left a copious correspondence, full of doctrine, wisdom, and balance. His death was mourned as that of a saint.