ALEXIS NARBONE. - Jesuit, historian, and scholar, born in Caltagirone (Catania) on 9 August 1789, died in Palermo on 13 December 1860. He entered the Society of Jesus on 3 October 1806 and for more than 40 years taught literature, theology, and ecclesiastical history in the Order’s schools and, from 1848, in the Palermo Seminary. In 1860, following the expulsion of the Jesuits, he took refuge in the Hospital for Priests, where he died shortly thereafter.
Together with other distinguished scholars, he represented the Sicilian culture of the 19th century. He undertook to compile an inventory of all that had been written and accomplished in Sicily across various fields of knowledge since the invention of printing: this resulted in the *Bibliografia sicula sistematica* (4 vols., Palermo 1850–55), a remarkable monument of scholarship and ingenuity. Also noteworthy is his *Storia letteraria della Sicilia dall’antichità al secolo XV* (12 vols., 11½–64). Following in the footsteps of his confrere G. Andres, in 1838 he began publishing, in Palermo, the 10 volumes of *Storia d’ogni poesia, d’ogni eloquenza, filologia, matematica fisica, filosofia, teologia*, a work of immense erudition that earned him membership in the Accademia del Buon Gusto and the position of secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts in the same city.
Among his numerous writings of ethical and religious interest, mention should be made of *La Compagnia di Gesù in Sicilia* (Palermo 1850) and, above all, the 6 volumes of the *Annali siculi della Compagnia di Gesù* (1804–59), published in Palermo by his confrere G. Filiti in 1906–1908.