Pianciani, Giambattista

PIANCIANI, GIAMBATTISTA. - Physicist and philosopher, b. at Spoleto on 17 Oct. 1784, d. at Rome on 23 March 1862. A Jesuit from 2 June 1805, from 1824 professor of physical chemistry at the Collegio Romano, he distinguished himself especially in the field of electricity and magnetism. Having gone abroad because of the revolutionary disturbances of 1848, in the years 1849-50 he was professor of dogmatics at Georgetown College in Washington. Returning in 1851, he became an assiduous contributor to the newly founded Civiltà cattolica.

Although a discoverer of particulars, his mind was more inclined toward synthesis, with a wealth of erudition open to progress. The principal study of his whole life is a concordist commentary on the Mosaic history of creation, opposing the fashion of biblical rationalism and especially the "mythicism" of D. Strauss, an undertaking of great merit at that time. Although he showed "the concord of revelation and tradition with science" (A. Secchi), explaining of creation "the phases of its development with the guidance of the Bible and with natural philosophy," today every concordism (v.) has been abandoned.

Principal works: Istituzioni fisico-chimiche (4 vols., Rome 1833-34); Elementi di fisico-chimica (2 vols., Naples 1840-41); Saggi filosofici (Rome 1855); Nuovi saggi filosofici (ibid. 1856). The greatest work is In historiam creationis Mosaicam commentarius (Naples 1851, reprinted by A. Crampon in Commentaria in Scripturam Sa-

the parish of St. George was transferred to the larger church of St. Demetrius, declared "matrice" with all the preeminences, which later Pope Pius VI, with the bull Commissa nobis divinitus of 6 Feb. 1784, by which he established a bishop of the Greek rite in Sicily, designated for episcopal functions; now it is the cathedral of the eparchy with a Chapter; it is decorated with the frescoes (1641-44) of the painter Pietro Novelli il Monrealeso, of whom there also remains a fresco painting of the Annunziata in the church of the same name and one of St. Anthony Abbot in the church of St. George.

There are 20,500 fedecram... Cornelii a Lapide, I, Paris 1861, pp. 54-135). The Cosmogonia naturale comparata col Genesi is a reprint of articles from the Civiltà Cattolica that appeared in the years 1858-62.

Pietro Nobel