MOLINELLI, GIOVAN BATTISTA. - Scolopian Jansenist, born in Genoa on 29 January 1730, died there on 25 February 1799. NATALE (v.), whom he succeeded as professor of theology at the Collegio Nazareno, he owed his Jansenist formation to the Roman environment.
A disciple of Paolo Battista Curlo, who is believed to have been an Augustinian, he took part in the controversies against the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in this remaining consistent with Natali, who had anonymously published a *Lettera intitolata d'un teologo romano ad una religiosa sua congiunta intorno alla divisione al Cuore di Gesù* (Rome 1773), in which, while admitting its symbolism, he denied its cult. His work (mostly in manuscript and preserved in the provincial archive of Cornigliano in several volumes) is generally of Augustinian and probabilist inspiration, though prudently diplomatic and cautious. Indeed, he earned at once the reservations of the *Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques* and the sympathy of Italian and foreign Jansenists. While substantially adhering to the democratic, disciplinary, and liturgical novelties, he may be considered a conservative in politics and a reserved and hermetic dissembler in religion so as not to disturb the unity of the Church. Antimolinist, he took part in the doctrinal struggle against the Jesuits with the former 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* (ibid. 1771); *Del primato dell'Apostolo s. Pietro dei Romani Pontefici suoi successori in confutazione di vari scritti recenti* (ibid. 1784). Because of the ambiguity of his treatment, he pleased and displeased the Jansenists, so that the *De unitate Ecclesiae* (ibid. 1785) went almost unnoticed, redeemed however by the *Riflessioni sopra l'operetta stampata in Pavia nel 1784 che ha per titolo: Vera Idea della Santa Sede* (ibid. 1787), which astonished his friends but must be considered within the prudential and opportunistic scope of the polemical literature of early Jansenism. A figure not lacking in theological substance, Molinelli deserves careful study not only because he prepared the climate and ground for Eustachio Degola, his devoted disciple, and for all the Ligurian Jansenists—having been for many years a teacher of theology in the Genoese schools—but also because he dealt with properly dogmatic themes and theses that later had decisive development through the work of Tamburini in the *Portico Teologico* of Pavia.