SPOTORNO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Barnabite, b. in Albisola superiore on 27 Oct. 1788, d. in Genoa in 1844.
A Barnabite in 1806, he taught mathematics, jurisprudence and theology at Macerata and Rome. He refused to take the oath of loyalty to the French government that had occupied Rome, and for this he lost his chair and was confined to Chiavari, where he devoted himself to reorganizing the library of that Economic Society. After the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, he resumed teaching at Livorno and Bologna. Having returned to Genoa in 1819, he directed there the Barnabite College of S. Bartolomeo, then assumed the superintendency of the city's public schools, the prefectship of the Civic Library and the teaching of Latin eloquence at the University. S. was at the same time a publicist of clear name and directed Il Ligustico, organ of the classicist school against the romantic movement, sustaining in it long and harsh polemics. He also collaborated with the Archivio storico italiano, and having devoted himself to illustrating the city's glories, he annotated the Genoese Annals of Giustiniani, published a substantial series of Elogi di tiguri illustri, wrote four volumes of Storia letteraria della Liguria, a Storia dell'antica pittura genovese and an appreciated Storia dei Longobardi. But his favorite subject was always Christopher Columbus, whose Genoese birth he documented in a book of wide resonance. He translated, commented on and refuted in several points the life of the great navigator written by Washington Irving and finally gave to the press a weighty Codice diplomatico colombo-americano.
Bibliography3 works
Renzo U. Montini