PERSICHETTI, AUGUSTO. - 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 practicing briefly, he devoted himself to teaching in the Catholic secondary schools of S. Maria della Pace and Angelo Mai. In 1882 he was appointed minutante at the Secretariat of Pontifical Briefs.
His work stood out, for intelligence and zeal, in the Catholic Action of Rome. A member, from 1875, of the Circolo di S. Pietro, when in 1881 Filippo Tolli (v.) resigned for reasons of health from the office of general president of the Società della G.C.I., P. was called by unanimous vote to succeed him. After the first three-year term, he was re-elected in 1884, and at the end of the second he returned to his studies and to teaching. That period of his presidency was one of delicate organizational antagonism between the Società della G. C. and the Opera dei Congressi e comitati cattolici, in order 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 (v.), from 1900 to 1904. Among his initiatives, mention should be made of the monument to the Redeemer on the Guadagnolo in the centenary year; and in 1901 an imposing subscription by the Romans against the Zanardelli bill on divorce. In 1895 he became a member of the Municipal Council of Rome along 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 in the Rassegna italiana, poems and lectures on subjects historical, scientific, social and religious; some of which were published in full by Augusto Grossi-Gondi.
Bibliography
Agostino Vian