Narbone, Alessio

NARBONE, ALESSIO. - Jesuit, historiographer and scholar, b. at Caltagirone (Catania) on 9 Aug. 1789, d. at Palermo on 13 Dec. 1860. Having entered the Society of Jesus on 3 Oct. 1806, for more than 40 years he taught letters, theology and church history in the schools of the Order and, from 1848, in the Palermo Seminary. In 1860, following the expulsion of the Jesuits, he found asylum in the Hospital of the Priests, where he died shortly afterward.

Together with other distinguished scholars, he represented nineteenth-century Sicilian culture. He set out to draw up an inventory of everything that had been written and done in Sicily in the various fields of knowledge, from the invention of printing onward: from this arose the Bibliografia sicula sistematica (4 vols., Palermo 1850-55), a remarkable monument of study and ingenuity. Also noteworthy is the Storia letteraria della Sicilia dall'antichità al sec. XV (12 vols., ibid. 1852-64). Following in the footsteps of his confrere G. Andres, he had begun, in 1838, the publication, in Palermo, of the 10 vols. of the Storia d'ogni poesia, d'ogni eloquenza, filologia, matematica fisica, filosofia, teologia, a work of immense erudition, which earned him appointment as a member of the Accademia del Buon Gusto and as secretary of that of sciences, letters and arts in the same city.

Of his numerous writings of ethical-religious interest, mention is made of: La Compagnia di Gesù in Sicilia (ibid. 1850) and, above all, the 6 vols. of the Annali siculi della Compagnia di Gesù (1804-59), published there by his confrere G. Filiti in 1906-1908.

Enzo Navarra