Zacchi, Angelo

ZACCHI, ANGELO. - Dominican theologian and philosopher, b. 23 Nov. 1874 at Raggiolo in the Casentino, d. in Rome on 17 Oct. 1927.

Ordained priest in 1897, two years later he began teaching philosophy in the convent of S. Maria del Sasso near Bibbiena, which he continued (from 1903) with success at the Minerva and in the Angelicum Athenaeum. A member of the Arcadia, he delivered learned dissertations there (La morale scientifica di Spencer, Del pessimismo, Del progresso umano, Benedetto XI); as a lecturer at the Catholic university circle of Rome, he carried on an effective intellectual apostolate, which had its continuation in works of religious philosophy, in which, with limpid diction and vigor of thought, he touched on the liveliest topics of the modern age: Il problema del dolore (Rome 1920); L'uomo (2 vols., ibid. 1921); Il miracolo (ibid. 1922); Lo spiritismo (ibid. 1922); Dio (2 vols., Rome 1925); Il neoidealismo di Croce e di Gentile (2nd ed., ibid. 1925). Weakened by intense work, he wrote during the days spent in the clinic a spiritual diary, which reveals his profound interior life (Il diario di p. A. Z., in Memorie domenicane, 45 [1928], pp. 45-56, 204-10).