ROBERTI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. – Jesuit, polymath, b. at Bassano on 4 March 1719, d. there on 29 July 1786.
He entered the Order in 1736 and taught in the colleges of Piacenza, Brescia, Parma (Academician of the Collegio dei Nobili), and Bologna, where he was professor of philosophy at the Collegio di S. Lucia, while at the same time devoting himself to preaching and to biblical lectures in the church, and participating in academic gatherings with various discourses. With the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773), he returned to his paternal home and occupied himself with his numerous works.
Among these, leaving aside his many poems, mostly occasional pieces, and a few slight dramatic attempts, his didactic poems are worth recalling: Della Moda (Venice 1746), certainly known to Parini when he wrote Il Giorno, Le fragole (there 1752); Le perle (Bologna 1756); Le favole esopiane (there 1773), increased in number in subsequent editions (11th, Bassano 1782). He was even more interested in moral questions, treating them in essays and short treatises in epistolary form. Notable among these are: Del leggere libri di metafisica e di divertimento (1769), in which he was among the first to rise up against the now fashionable reading of ultramontane literary and philosophical books, pernicious to the Church and to education; the four pamphlets on luxury: Discorso critico contro il lusso, Dialogo filosofico contro il lusso, Elogio dell'economia regolatrice del lusso; Lettera critica su le qualità del lusso presente in Italia (Bologna 1778); Annotazioni sopra l'umanità del sec. XVIII (there 1781), in which, against vain and hypocritical displays of humanity, he demonstrates what true Christian charity actually is; Dell'amore verso la patria (there 1786), in which, after refuting the various forms of false and selfish patriotism, he explains the qualities of true patriotism, the duties of the citizen, and the heroism sometimes imposed by circumstances. Among his academic discourses, L'orazione a gli studiosi di pittura, scultura e architettura dell'Accad. Clementina (there 1758), in defense of Italian artistic greatness, should not be forgotten; nor, in the ascetical field, the Trattatello sopra le virtù piccole (1778), reprinted many times and always of present value.
A neat writer, somewhat polished and affected, fond of small things, but always closely attached to reality and full of common sense, he can still be read with pleasure and profit.