PIANCIANI, GIAMBATTISTA. — Physicist and philosopher, born in Spoleto on 17 October 1784, died in Rome on 23 March 1862. A Jesuit from 2 June 1805, from 1824 he was professor of physics and chemistry at the Collegio Romano, distinguishing himself especially in the fields of electricity and magnetism. Having gone abroad because of the revolutionary disturbances of 1848, in the years 1849–50 he was professor of dogmatic theology at Georgetown College in Washington. On his return in 1851, he became a regular contributor to the newly founded Civiltà cattolica.
Although a discoverer of particulars, his mind was more inclined toward synthesis, with an abundance of erudition open to progress. The principal study of his entire life is a concordist commentary on the Mosaic history of creation, opposing the vogue of biblical rationalism and especially the “mythism” of D. Strauss—an undertaking of great merit at the time. Although he demonstrated “the concord of revelation and tradition with science” (A. Secchi), explaining the creation’s “stages of development with the aid of the biblical account and natural philosophy,” concordism (v.) has been abandoned.
The principal works are: Istituzioni fisico-chimiche (4 vols., Rome 1833–34); Elementi di fisico-chimica (2 vols., Naples 1840–41); Saggi filosofici (Rome 1855); Nuovi saggi filosofici (there 1856). His greatest work is In historiam creationis Mosaicam commentarius (Naples 1851, reprinted by A. Crampon in Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram... Cornelii a Lapide, I, Paris 1861, pp. 54–135). La Cosmogonia naturale comparata col Genesi is a reprint of articles from Civiltà Cattolica published in the years 1858–62.
The parish of S. Giorgio was transferred to the larger church of S. Demetrio, declared the “mother church” with all the prerogatives; Pope Pius VI, in the bull Commissa nobis divinitus of 6 February 1784, by which he established a Greek-rite bishop in Sicily, subsequently designated it for episcopal functions. It is now the cathedral of the eparchy, with a Chapter; it is decorated with frescoes (1641–44) by the painter Pietro Novelli il Monrealeso, of whom a fresco of the Annunciation also remains in the church of the same name, as well as one of S. Antonio abate in the church of S. Giorgio.
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