POGGI, GIUSEPPE. – Born at Piozzano (Piacenza) on 21 Aug. 1761, died at Ruebelle, near Montmorency, on 19 Feb. 1842.
Known as the director of the Annali politico-ecclesiastici of Genoa, whose actual editing was instead carried out by Degola, he received his education in Rome, where in 1785 he also received the subdiaconate. From the Roman Jansenist milieu he derived, more than a Jansenist conscience, a singular antipathy toward the Holy See. A guest and friend of Bishop Scipione de' Ricci, he collaborated with him. In 1789 he published in Florence, in three volumes, the Emende sincere di un cherico lombardo alle annotazioni pacifiche che possono servire di risposta ad altri somiglianti libelli usciti sinora alla luce e le Lettere Traspadane di fra' Colombano al ch.mo autore dell'elogio sincerissimo, which had appeared in vol. 1 of the Jansenist Biblioteca ecclesiastica of Pavia in 1790. But P., rather than drawing close to the solitaries of Port-Royal, approached Rousseau and the Encyclopédie, as demonstrated by the Republicano Evangelico e L'Estensore Cisalpino; and if he professed any faith, it seems to have been closer to that of the Vicario Savoiardo than to the theory of Jansen. If he ever adhered in his youth to the Jansenist movement, he certainly later passed to unitary Jacobinism, a transition common during the period of the French Revolution. This explains his contempt for theological discussions, his hatred of the Curia, and his sympathy for a Christianizing deism; the defense of de' Ricci was rather an opportunity to demonstrate his Enlightenment resentment against the Holy See than an expression of theological adherence.