ORIANI, ALFREDO. — Writer and historian, born on 22 August 1852 at Faenza, died on 18 October 1909 at Casola Valsenio. From birth, his family environment, which was not lavish with affection toward him, helped to form his taciturn character and to impress upon him a bitter pessimism toward life. At the Collegio di S. Luigi in Bologna, where he spent his childhood years, religious practices constituted a torment for him; they were superstructures that had no hold on his distrustful and sceptical soul.
Deprived of affection, which he was incapable of receiving or giving, he withdrew into himself and attempted the path of letters. His early works bear witness to a profound spiritual emptiness. According to O., feelings do not exist, and conventionalism and conformism lie at the basis of every human act. This cynicism toward life appears in the novels and stories from 1876 (Memorie inutili) to 1883 (Quartetto), through Al di là, Monotonie, Gramigne, and No. O. counterposes the past to the reality of life, with polemical intent. In the world contemporary to him he perceives an open contradiction with history, the study of which increasingly convinces him of the falsity and aberrations of the present. His first historical work, Matrimonio e divorzio (1886), is a refutation of theories supporting divorce, based on the assertion of monogamy throughout the ages. The three volumes of Lotta politica in Italia (Turin 1892) constitute a history from the fall of the Roman Empire to 1887, presenting the vicissitudes of the Italian nation over the centuries and determining the factors that obstructed its unifying development; among these, according to O., the Catholic Church holds first place. Among his later works—historical essays, dramas, short stories, and novels (Gelosio; Vortice; Olocausto; Oro, incenso e mirra)—La rivolta ideale (1908) deserves mention. It presents a picture of Italy’s social and political conditions and detects in them the symptoms of a profound future crisis, to which it counterposes the necessity of a strong state, the principle of authority, and the morality of Christ.
As death approached, he wished to be reconciled with the Catholic Church: «died well, like an ancient Christian who transmits his faith to his son and, provided with the Sacraments, passes into the reality of his hopes» (A. Leanza, in Civ. Catt., 1909, IV, p. 371). All his works were placed on the Index (decree of 24 April 1940) for their violent offences against religion and its divine laws and for their exasperating verismo, which was, moreover, acknowledged by the author himself (cf. M. Cordovani, in L'Osserv. rom., 28 April 1940).
bibl.), Florence 1921; P. Zama, O., Milan 1928; M. Missiroli, O. nelle memorie del suo confessore, in Illustraz. it., 61 (1934), pp. 473–74; G. Lipparini, O., Turin 1935. Silvio Furlani