Alessandro Gavazzi

Alessandro Gavazzi (born March 21, 1809, Bologna, Kingdom of Italy—died Jan. 9, 1899, Rome) was a reformer in church and politics during the Risorgimento (Italian unification) who inveighed against the neglect of social problems and Italian unity by the papacy.

Gavazzi at first became a monk (1825) and attached himself to the Barnabites at Naples, where he afterwards (1829) acted as professor of rhetoric. In 1840, having already expressed liberal views, he was removed to Rome to fill a subordinate position. Leaving his own country after the capture of Rome by the French, he carried on a vigorous campaign against priests and Jesuits in England, Scotland, and North America, partly by means of a periodical, the Gavazzi Free Word.

During a lecture tour of North America, Gavazzi, on June 6, 1853, speaking in strongly Catholic Quebec, provoked a riot that was quelled by troops. Another demonstration occurred three days later, while Gavazzi was lecturing in Montreal. Troops were once again called out to maintain order; this time they fired on the demonstrators, killing 11 of them. These incidents (known historically as the Gavazzi Riots) aggravated religious antagonisms in Canada, and the Hincks-Morin administration was criticized for its handling of the riots.

While in England he gradually went over (1855) to the Evangelical Church and became head and organizer of the Italian Protestants in London. Returning to Italy in 1860, he served as army chaplain with Garibaldi. In 1870 he became head of the Free Church (Chiesa libera) of Italy, united the scattered congregations into the Unione Delle Chiese Libere in Italia, and in 1875 founded in Rome the theological college of the Free Church, in which he himself taught dogmatics, apologetics, and polemics. In his teachings he aimed to restore Christianity to its original simplicity while avoiding the prolix doctrinal controversies between Protestants and Roman Catholics.