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 briefly practising, he devoted himself to teaching at the Catholic secondary schools of S. Maria della Pace and Angelo Mai. In 1882 he was appointed minutante at the Secretariat of Papal Briefs.
His work in the Catholic Action of Rome stood out for intelligence and zeal. A member, from 1875, of the Circolo di S. Pietro, when in 1881 TOLOMEI (v.) resigned for health reasons from the office of general president of the Società della G.C.I., P. was unanimously called 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 teaching. His presidency was a period of delicate organizational antagonism between the Società della G. C. and the Opera dei Congressi e comitati cattolici, in defense of 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 Roman diocesan Opera dei Congressi (v.), from 1900 to 1904. Among his initiatives, mention should be made of the monument to the Redeemer on Guadagnolo in the centenary year; and, in 1901, of an imposing subscription by the people of Rome against the Zanardelli bill on divorce. In 1895 he joined the Rome municipal council with Tolli, Crispolti, and other Catholics; in 1904 he was appointed full councillor for public health and reformed that service according to modern scientific principles.
As a writer, he left valuable essays in various articles in the Rassegna italiana, as well as poems and lectures on historical, scientific, social, and religious subjects; some of these were published in full by Augusto Grossi-Gondi.