Antonio Bresciani

Antonio Bresciani is a Jesuit father who is passionate about writing and research. Active from a young age, he is the author of novels and essays, as well as being one of the first editors of the newspaper “Civiltà Cattolica”.
Born in the province of Trento at the end of the 18th century and ordained priest in 1821, he moved to various Italian cities as rector of colleges and visited Sardinia from 1844 to 1846, when he traveled through the Trexenta and Ogliastra, Barbagia and the western part, animated by the desire to learn about the traditions of “ancient nations”. His vision, however, is particular: in fact, it is based on a series of doctrines that are now the subject of various criticisms, which require many customs of the island derived from the peoples of the East. He therefore implements a comparative mechanism that will attract him numerous attacks, while meeting some public success.
The work, entitled “Of the customs of the Island of Sardinia compared to the ancient oriental peoples”, published in Naples in 1850, is divided into two volumes: in the first one there is the most descriptive part, classically set and not easy to read, in which the Jesuit focuses on the history, on the geographical description of the island, on the customs and traditions of the inhabitants, on their physical and moral description. The second volume is more distinctive and intense. Written in a dialogic form, it imagines a conversation between four confreres in the castle of Montalto, an exchange of ideas rich in Tuscan terms that enliven considerations about the land just visited, moved by a sincere affection for the Sardinians. Bresciani tells of endless olive groves, fields overflowing with almond trees in bloom, large wild spaces, cherries, plums, figs and “other fruits of every season” of the “remote and very strange sky of the Island”, the flavor of meat, the scent of oil and the taste of wine (with respect to the high alcohol content of which the stranger must “be on the alert”). To all this genuinely annotated pride, there is no need to add the customs of farmers, shepherds, fishermen, described in their most typical and ritual gestures and often accompanied, without scientific basis, with those of the “first peoples of Asia”. Despite some bitter considerations about the waste of so many resources and the character of the Sardinians, a spontaneous enthusiasm prevails in the pages of the Jesuit: “Whoever calls Sardinia evil, either never saw it, or saw no more than the dry stones of the coasts of Nurra, Figari or Tavolara.”

Update

25/6/2026 - 13:29