MOLINELLI, GIOVAN BATTISTA. — Jansenist Piarist, born in Genoa on 29 January 1730, died there on 25 February 1799. NATALE (v.), whom he replaced as professor of theology at the Collegio Nazareno, he owed his Jansenist formation to the Roman milieu.
A disciple of Paolo Battista Curlo, who is believed to have been an Augustinian, he took part in the controversies against devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, thereby following Natali, who had anonymously published a Lettera istruttiva d'un teologo romano ad una religiosa sua congiunta intorno alla divozione al Cuore di Gesù (Rome 1773), in which, while the symbolism was admitted, its worship was denied. His work (mostly in manuscript and preserved in the Provincial Archives of Cornigliano, in several volumes) is generally Augustinian and Port-Royalist in inspiration, even if prudentially diplomatic and cautious. It in fact elicited reservations from the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques and sympathy from Italian and foreign Jansenists alike. While substantially accepting democratic, disciplinary, and liturgical innovations, in order not to disturb the unity of the Church he may be considered politically a conservative and religiously a reserved and hermetic dissimulator. An anti-Molinist, he took part in the doctrinal struggle against the Jesuits together with the ex-Jesuit Gian Carlo Brignole, brother of the last doge of Genoa.
He wrote several works: Selectae praepositiones de peccatis, de peccatorum meritis et remissione iuxta doctrinam ss. Augustini et Thomae Aquinatis (Genoa 1770); De fide et symbolo (there 1771); Del primato dell'Apostolo s. Pietro e dei Romani Pontefici suoi successori in confutazione di vari scritti recenti (there 1784). Because of the ambiguity of its treatment, the work pleased and displeased the Jansenists in equal measure, so that the De unitate Ecclesiae (there 1785) passed almost unnoticed; it was, however, redeemed by the Riflessioni sopra l'operetta stampata in Pavia nel 1784 che ha per titolo: Vera Idea della Santa Sede (there 1787), which astonished his friends but must be considered within the prudential and opportunistic sphere of the polemical literature of early Jansenism. A theologian of no mean stature, M. deserves careful examination not only because he prepared the climate and ground for Eustachio Degola, his devoted disciple, and for all the Ligurian Jansenists, having taught theology for many years in the schools of Genoa, but also because he treated properly dogmatic themes and theses, which were later decisively developed through the work of Tamburini in the « Portico Teologico » of Pavia.