POGGI, GIUSEPPE. - Born at Piozzano (Piacenza) on 21 Aug. 1761, died at Ruebelle, near Montmorency, on 19 Febr. 1842.
Known as the director of the Annali politico-ecclesiastici of Genoa, the actual editing of which, however, belonged to Degola, he received his education in Rome, where in 1785 he also received the subdiaconate. From the Roman Jansenist milieu he derived, rather 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 3 volumes, the Emende sincere di un cherico lombardo alle annotazioni pacifiche che possono servire di risposta ad altri somiglianti libelli usciti sinora alla luce and the Lettere Traspadane di fra' Colombano al ch.mo autore dell'elogio sincerissimo, which appeared in the 1st vol. of the Jansenist Biblioteca ecclesiastica of Pavia in 1790. But P. is closer to Rousseau and the Encyclopédie than to the solitaries of Port-Royal, as the Republicano Evangelico and L'Estensore Cisalpino demonstrate, and if he professed any faith, it seems more akin to that of the Vicaire Savoyard than to the theory of Jansenius. If ever in his youth he adhered to the Jansenist movement, he certainly later passed over to unitary Jacobinism, a transition common in the period of the French Revolution. Thus is explained his contempt for theological discussions, his hatred toward the Curia and his sympathy toward a Christianizing deism; the defense of de' Ricci was rather an occasion for demonstrating his Enlightenment resentment against the Holy See than a theological adherence.