FRANCESCO NARDI. Prelate, canonist, and publicist, born in Vazzola (Veneto) on 18 June 1808, died in Rome on 22 March 1877. Having embraced the ecclesiastical career, he taught biblical exegesis in the diocesan seminary of Ceneda. He then taught at the Imperial Royal Gymnasium in Venice, later becoming professor of ecclesiastical law and philosophy at the University of Padua, of which he was also magnificent rector.
He published in three volumes *Elementi di diritto ecclesiastico* (2nd ed., enlarged and corrected, Padua 1854) and a work on *Diritto matrimoniale cattolico* (ibid. 1857). On account of his expertise in canon law, he became auditor of the Sacred Roman Rota for the Austrian Empire and settled in Rome in 1859, where he subsequently served as secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. He also carried out a very extensive publicistic activity, begun in 1848 with the *Lettera a Giuseppe Mazzini* in reply to his letter to Pius IX (Venice 1848), and continued in the decade 1860–70 in defence of the temporal power of the popes (*Osservazioni sul dispaccio del 27 ott. 1860 di Lord Giovanni Russell ministro degli Esteri di Gran Bretagna*, Rome 1860; *Roma e i suoi nemici. Al signor De la Gueronnère*, ibid. 1862; *S. Bernardo, s. Caterina da Siena e Carlo Magno sul potere temporale del papa: Al signor Bojean senatore*, Turin 1862, etc.). He also engaged in geographical studies and was an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of the New Lincei.