MINZONI, ONOFRIO. - Sacred orator and poet, born in Ferrara in 1734, where he died in 1817. He took part in the controversies against the Jansenists and delivered various Lenten sermons and preaching courses in Venice, Modena, Padua, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Bologna, and Rome.
In 1811 he published in Ferrara two orations and an exordium. Of his sacred discourses there remains the Lenten sermon cycle of 1780 (Prediche del can. O. M. ferraese, edited by G. M. Cornoldi, Ferrara 1874), delivered in Rome in the church of the Gesù and transcribed, almost stenographically, by the Jesuit Fr. Cernitoni, who seems to have been able to consult M.'s own notes. The Lenten cycle develops the themes of man, truth, the devil, the death and resurrection of Christ, the last things, and the harmony of reason with faith. M. displayed the same piety in his Poesie (Pisa 1799), classically inclined in taste and rich in imagery, especially in the lyrics to the Vergine, in Lode di s. Luigi Gonzaga, in the numerous sacred sonnets, and in those Per la morte del padre. M. also paraphrased the canticle of Habakkuk in martellian verse.