MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE. - Cardinal and distinguished polyglot, b. in Bologna on Sept. 19, 1774, d. in Rome on March 15, 1849. Ordained a priest in 1797, he taught Arabic at the University of Bologna, until, for having refused to swear fidelity to the Cisalpine Republic, he was deprived of his chair. Having nevertheless regained it in 1803, he held it until 1808, when it was suppressed; restored nonetheless by Pius VII in 1814, he occupied it again until 1831, when he was called to Rome, where he was a member of the Philological College of the Roman University and in 1833 prefect of the Vatican Library, as the successor of Angelo Mai. Gregory XVI raised him to the purple on Feb. 12, 1838.

MEZZOFANTI, GIUSEPPE - Portrait - Vatican Library.(from Cardinales S.R.E. Imagines ex coleographia Rev. Cameras Apostolicas)

As cardinal he exercised various important offices, among them those of prefect of the Congregations of Studies and of the Revision of the Books of the Eastern Church. His name is also linked to his status as an exceptional polyglot. "It appears that he could speak fluently about forty languages; to which must be added another thirty or so, which he had studied carefully but had almost never spoken... and many dialects. All in all one arrives at the approximate figure of one hundred and fifteen" (G. Ricciotti, art. cit. in bibl., p. 460). In life Card. M. published nothing, above all because he was too absorbed by his many occupations. Some of his manuscripts were nevertheless published subsequently by E. Teza (Saggi inediti di lingue americane, Pisa 1868) and by C. Tagliavini (La lingua degli Indii Luisenos, Bologna 1926).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: A. Manavit, Esquisse historique sur le card. M., 2nd ed., Paris 1854; C. W. Russell, The life of card. M., London 1858 (It. trans., Bologna 1859); J. Ch. Mitterrutzner, Joseph Card. M., der grosse Polglotti, Brixen 1885; M. De Camillis, Il card. G. M., principe dei poliglotti, Rome 1937; G. Ricciotti, Il cardinale poliglotta, in Ecclesia, 9 (1949), pp. 457-60.

Niccolò Del Re

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Mezzofanti, Giuseppe

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