SALVADORI, GIULIO
Writer, poet, and critic, born at Monte S. Savino in the Val di Chiana (Arezzo) on 14 Sept. 1862, died in Rome on 7 Oct. 1928.
He soon began collaborating in Rome with prose and verse for literary periodicals; and from 1881 especially for the *Cronaca bizantina* and the *Domenica letteraria*. During his university years, from 1880 to 1884, occurred the religious deviation that led him to an open profession of naturalism, finally inducing him to proclaim an original palingenesis from the new science. An intellectual crisis, matured through the overcoming of a love affair, brought him back, in the spring of 1885, during a stay in Ascoli Piceno, to religious practice and Christian thought. Gathered into a life of retreat and meditation, he devoted himself to the education of youth in schools (Albano Laziale and Rome). In 1923 he was called to the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan for Italian and Dantean literature. He exercised an incessant, fruitful apostolate among young people and in cultured society.
In the years immediately after his conversion he composed the *Canzoniere civile* (1889), a collection of poems and prose extolling the social and civil renewing action of Christianity at its most lofty and significant moments in history; a later collection, the *Ricordi dell'umile Italia* (1918), reproduces compositions from the earlier work, reworked, and others written on occasion. The poetic work of S., though uneven, almost always contains an original lyrical core, sustained especially in the shorter compositions inspired by nature and by the author’s intimate and religious life. Among his notable works of historical-literary criticism are the essay *Sulla vita giovanile di Dante* (1901 and 1907) and studies on Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti. Long and faithful was his devotion to the Divine Comedy, which he illustrated in various readings; much material also remains of a commentary based on original research. His preference for the 19th century is summed up in *Enrichetta Manzoni Blondel e il Natale del '33* (posthumous, 1929) and in the commentary on *Le memorie poetiche di Niccolò Tommaseo* (1916), where one notes a criticism that is strongly and sometimes excessively psychological, with brilliant and exquisite intuitions but also with personal interpretations not always sufficiently grounded. He long investigated the life and work of St Francis of Assisi and the manifold connections between 13th-century Italian civilization and Franciscan spirituality. His remains rest in the Basilica of Aracoeli. He was a Franciscan tertiary and a man of profound spirituality; the process for his beatification has been initiated.
SALVATORE (R.A. [SALVATIERRE]), GIANMARIA
Jesuit, missionary, and founder of the mission in California, born in Milan on 15 Nov. 1648, died en route to Guadalajara (Mexico) on 17 July 1717.
Admitted to the Society in 1688, he set out in 1675 for Mexico, where, after several years teaching letters, he devoted himself to the evangelization of the aborigines of the Sierra Madre, Sonora, Cinaloa, and Tarahumara. Inspired for California by Fr E. Chino, who had worked there for many years but had then had to abandon the enterprise as impossible for the time being, he sailed for that mission on 10 Oct. 1697. Having landed in San Bruno Bay, the saint erected with his companions in the nearby bay of San Dionisio a rudimentary fortress and some huts and placed there an image of Our Lady of Loreto, thus creating the first centre that he called Loreto. He had received from the Spanish government full powers (as in the Paraguayan Reductions) and the task of bringing those regions under the Crown. His labours were crowned with success; when in 1704 he had to return to Mexico as provincial, he had founded six missions, deeply learned the various languages, and traversed the country in various directions. He returned in 1707 to continue his work; ten years later, during the journey to Guadalajara to deal with the future of the mission, death overtook him and he was buried in the beloved mission of Loreto.
He wrote many letters and numerous important reports, some of which are preserved by Fr E. Chino in his *Favores celestiales* and by Fr M. Venegas in his *Noticia de la California*.