GIAMBATTISTA FRANCESCO RAGGIO. — Abbot and scholar, born in Chiavari on 15 July 1795, died in Genoa on 6 February 1860.
Professor of Latin and Greek literature at the Scuole Pie of Càrcare (Savona) and later of rhetoric at the diocesan seminary of Noli, author of an esteemed translation of the works of Sallust, he was called in 1830 to teach rhetoric in Genoa, where in 1834 he assumed the direction of the Civic Library Berio and later the dignity of associate doctor and advisor to the faculty of letters at the University. Collaborator with numerous literary journals and periodicals of Liguria and Piedmont, on the pages of the Rivista ligure he published a rigorous critique of G. B. Niccolini’s Arnaldo da Brescia, in which he highlighted its anticlerical bias: the vigorous review had wide resonance and earned R. the hostility of liberal circles, who in 1849 induced the municipal authorities to remove him from the direction of the Library. For the same reason, it was not possible to carry out the vote of the municipal council of Noli, which in 1890 had decreed the dedication to R. of a commemorative plaque in recognition of his activity as educator and scholar. In addition to the aforementioned vernacular translation of Sallust (Genoa 1840 and 1847, two editions), he is remembered for having edited the publication of the Laws of the Consulate of Genoa of 1148, in Historiae Patriae monumenta, Leges Municipales, I, Turin 1838, cols. 234–94, and for having published several poetic works.
A tenacious defender of the rights of the Church and of the Roman pontificate, he constantly wore ecclesiastical garb even though he had received only minor orders.