AUGUSTO PERSICHETTI. — Organizer of Catholic associations, b. in Rome on 2 Aug. 1854, d. there on 8 June 1922.
In 1877 he graduated in medicine; but after briefly practising, he devoted himself to teaching in the Catholic lyceums of S. Maria della Pace and Angelo Mai. In 1882 he was appointed usher to the Secretariat of Papal Briefs.
His work stood out, for its intelligence and zeal, in the Roman Catholic Action. A member since 1875 of the Circolo di S. Pietro, when in 1881 Filippo Tolli (q.v.) resigned from the office of general president of the Società della G.C.I. for reasons of health, P. was unanimously called to succeed him. After the first three-year term, he was re-elected in 1884, and on the expiry of the second he returned to his studies and teaching. That period of his presidency was marked by a delicate organizational rivalry between the Società della G.C. and the Opera dei Congressi e comitati cattolici to uphold the specific character of the great youth institution. In 1897 P. was appointed general president of the Federazione Piana among the Catholic societies of Rome and president of the diocesan committee of Rome of the Opera dei Congressi (q.v.), from 1900 to 1904. Among his initiatives should be recalled the monument to the Redeemer on the Guadagnolo in the centenary year; and in 1901 a massive subscription by the Romans against Zanardelli’s divorce bill. In 1895 he became a member of the Rome city council with Tolli, Crispolti and other Catholics; in 1904 he was appointed effective assessor for hygiene and reformed that service along modern scientific lines.
As a writer, he left valuable essays in various articles for the *Rassegna italiana*, poems and lectures on historical, scientific, social and religious topics; some of which were published in full by Augusto Grossi-Gondi.