TONELLO, MICHELANGELO. - Politician, b. at S. Secondo on 29 May 1800, d. at Turin on 2 Dec. 1879. Professor of canon law, and then of Roman law at the University of Turin, he was a deputy in the Subalpine and Italian Parliament and a senator from 1868.
His name acquired wide renown in 1866 when he was entrusted with a special mission to Rome to negotiate with the Holy See the problem of the numerous episcopal sees in the territory of the Kingdom. In carrying out the task assigned to him, T. achieved particularly notable results, succeeding where, a few months earlier, an analogous mission by the Hon. Vegezzi had failed. While the latter had framed the negotiations around a global solution to the problem, thereby shifting it into the political sphere, T. preferred to leave every question of principle unprejudiced and to discuss each individual diocese, so as to reach agreement in the greater part of the cases treated. The conversations concerning the archdioceses of Milan and Turin were of special importance: for Milan the Holy See consented to the appointment of Msgr. Nazari di Calabiana, putting an end to a vacancy that had lasted since 1859, and for Turin the promotion of Msgr. Riccardi di Netro, bishop of Biella, was agreed upon. T. obtained equally positive results with regard to the no less important question of the property of the religious communities.
His mission failed, however, with regard to the spontaneous renunciation by the Pontiff of temporal power, which he had been instructed by Ricasoli to request confidentially of Pius IX.
The tact and expertise with which he had discharged his mandate earned T., besides the gratitude of Victor Emmanuel II, the personal sympathy of the Pope.
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...canon. He then taught exegesis in the diocesan Seminary of Reggio Emilia until his death, being at the same time a zealous parish priest of Bibbiano (1920), then archpriest of the Cathedral (from 1930). Consultor of the Biblical Commission (1935), he had been a domestic prelate since 1936.
He published: Odi di Salomone (Rome 1914); Matilda di Canossa (for the centenary of the death of the great Countess, Reggio Emilia 1915); Gesù nella storia (Milan 1925); Il pensiero di s. Paolo (ibid. 1928, Turin 1947); Il mandeismo e le origini cristiane