TIZZANI, VINCENZO. - Archbishop, b. in Rome on 27 June 1809, d. there on 19 Jan. 1892.
A canon regular of the Lateran in Sept. 1832, after taking his degree in theology at the Roman Athenaeum, he was auditor of the nunciature of Naples in 1838 and then professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Rome. Procurator general of his Order in 1839, abbot of St. Agnes on the Via Nomentana two years later, on 3 Apr. 1843 he was appointed bishop of Terni. After four years, he obtained a dispensation from that office on account of his precarious health: Pius IX then restored him to his university chair, assigned him the titular archdiocese of Nisibis, and a little later appointed him canon of the Lateran Basilica and chief chaplain of the pontifical army. For reasons that remained obscure, in 1850 he suffered an attack that fortunately left him unharmed. Elevated to the dignity of patriarch of Antioch of the Latins, he spent long years of his old age in blindness, devoted to his beloved historical studies and to carrying out delicate assignments entrusted to him by the Pope, who held him very dear, especially at the time of the Vatican Council.
His name is linked to the constant, special friendship that bound him to G. G. Belli, whose first collection of verse he published at his own expense. Appointed executor of the poet's will, with the task of destroying all his unpublished output - that is, almost all the Roman sonnets - he contravened Belli's wishes, preserving for posterity so distinguished a body of poetry. Among T.'s writings, worthy of mention are: I concili generali (4 vols., Rome 1867-69; the French version by J.-A. Doussot was made from the manuscript, ibid. 1867-69) and I Concili Lateranensi (ibid. 1878).
Bibliography
Renzo U. Montini