Antonio Novasconi (1798–1867) was an Italian prelate who became

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...

Life

Novasconi was born in

Castiglione d'Adda Castiglione d'Adda ( Lodigiano: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Lodi, in Lombardy, northern Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is loca ...

, part of the Cisalpine Republic. In 1810, he entered the minor seminary of Lodi and was ordained a priest in 1821. His first duty as priest was as a professor in the Lodi seminary, and in 1831 he was named pastor of the parish of

Maleo The maleo (''Macrocephalon maleo'') is a large megapode and the only member of the monotypic genus ''Macrocephalon''. The maleo is endemic to Sulawesi and the nearby smaller island of Buton in Indonesia. It is found in the tropical lowland and ...

and transferred to Lodi in 1838. After the failed revolution of 1848–1849, he begged for mercy for the Italian patriots sentenced to death by the

Austrians , pop = 8–8.5 million , regions = 7,427,759 , region1 = , pop1 = 684,184 , ref1 = , region2 = , pop2 = 345,620 , ref2 = , region3 = , pop3 = 197,990 , ref3 ...

. In 1850, Pope

Pius IX Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...

named him bishop of Cremona; during his episcopacy, he was one of the few bishops who supported

Italian Unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

. During the Second Italian War of Independence, he wrote a letter to the priests in his diocese where he repeated his support for Italian Unification; this opinion was unpopular in Italian Catholic circles because Pope Pius IX supported the church's right to have a state. King

Victor Emmanuel II Victor Emmanuel II ( it, Vittorio Emanuele II; full name: ''Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso di Savoia''; 14 March 1820 – 9 January 1878) was King of Sardinia from 1849 until 17 March 1861, when he assumed the title o ...

named him a

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. He died in Cremona on 12 December 1867.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Novasconi, Antonio 1798 births 1867 deaths People from the Province of Lodi 19th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy Bishops of Cremona