Vincenzo Gioberti, an Italian philosopher, born in Turin, April 5,1801, died in Paris, Oct. 20, 1852. He studied at the university of Turin, and in 1825 was ordained priest. Becoming professor of theology at Turin, he spent several years in scholastic retirement. Religion and patriotism were the twin motives with which he inspired his pupils. On the accession of Charles Albert he was appointed court chaplain, but resigned the office in 1833. This step and the liberal tone of his university lectures made him suspected as an accomplice of the revolutionary schemes of "young Italy," and he was suddenly arrested. Although no direct connection with the young Italy societies was proved, he was sentenced to four months1 imprisonment and to banishment. The first year of his exile he spent in Paris, for the purpose of pursuing his studies in philosophy. He then went to Brussels, where he occupied for eleven years a humble position as teacher in a private school. He resumed his interrupted studies, and produced his philosophical works, the Teoria del sorrannaturale (Brussels, 1838), and the Introduzione allo studio della filosofia (2 vols., Brussels, 1840). The mastery displayed in the latter work at once of the highest problems of theology, philosophy, and history, its profound expositions and hostile criticisms of the principal modern philosophical systems, and its brilliant and novel subjection of science to revelation, and of all the culture of life to religion, caused him to be immediately recognized as one of the chiefs of Catholic philosophy.

It was rather by the remarkably original form of its statements than by the novelty of its ideas that the Introduzione exerted its influence, and caused Gioberti to be hailed as the reconstruc-tor of modern philosophy. It was quoted with applause in the charges of French and Italian bishops, and, though assailed by a portion of the Catholic press, was examined, judged, and commended by Pope Gregory XVI. Eloquent, passionate, and full of bold and felicitous digressions, it contains more pages on literature, art, and especially politics, than on the philosophical theory which it introduces. In his work Del hello (Brussels, 1841) he applied his philosophy to aesthetics. The first work that made him popularly known was the Del pri-mato morale e civile degli Italiani (Brussels, 1843), whose object was to restore in Italy not only the philosophy of the Christian fathers but the Guelph policy of the papacy. Italy, he maintains, is the sacerdotal nation of Roman Catholic Europe, being elected by Providence to guard the second dispensation, as Israel was to guard the first. He affirms that the priesthood has attempted to retain the people in tutelage beyond the proper time, after it has lost its former moral and intellectual superiority over them.

Hence a fatal schism exists between the ecclesiastical and temporal orders, between spiritual and secular culture, which is the source of all the evils that afflict modern society. He proposes a voluntary cession by the priesthood of a dominion which has become incompatible with modern civilization, and a thorough alliance of sacerdotal and lay culture. He calls upon the Italians and the Italian clergy to inaugurate this new civilization, urging the latter to put themselves at the head of social movements, and to be the champions and not the enemies of the demands of the age for free institutions. He claims for the pope an arbitra-torship in the affairs of the European nations, founded on his spiritual authority. The programme which he proposed for immediate Italian politics was: a confederation of the states; the introduction of reforms; a religious head, the pope; a military head, the king of Sardinia; a capital, Rome; a citadel, Turin; and above all, a sentiment of nationality in the Italian princes. From the publication of the Primato, Gioberti was regarded as the leader of the moderate liberal party.

Few works have been received with greater enthusiasm, or have wrought a greater influence upon the public opinion of a nation. .It was, however, distrusted by the Jesuits, to whom Gioberti replied in the Prolegomeni of the second edition (Brussels, 1845). In 1846 he removed to Paris. The accession of Pius IX., who had studied with favor the writings of the exiled philosopher, and the liberal measures which he granted at the same time that constitutional principles were proclaimed by the court of Turin, promised to Gioberti the speedy realization of his ideal. He wrote a severe and passionate answer to the attacks of the Jesuits, under the title of II Gesuita moderno (5 vols., Lausanne, 1847), which was followed by their expulsion from Sardinia. At the revolution of 1848 he returned to Italy after an absence of 15 years, and Turin was illuminated in his honor several nights in succession. He advocated a union of the states under the supremacy of the house of Savoy, and he visited the principal cities of the peninsula, haranguing the troops, the universities, and the populace, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm.

But Mazzini, the head of "young Italy," was his rival in popularity and his bitter opponent; and discord prevailed also among the princes, some of whom withdrew the forces which they had sent to aid Sardinia against Austria. Gioberti, elected to the Piedmontese parliament (which assembled on May 8) by both Genoa and Turin, placed himself at the head of the constitutional royalist party in the chamber of deputies, and was appointed its president by acclamation. In July he entered the Casati ministry, which after the military reverses of Charles Albert gave place to that of Revel, which accepted an armistice that resembled an abandonment of the war of independence, and therefore was at once unpopular. Gioberti united with his opponents of the extreme democratic party in efforts to overthrow this ministry, and at the same time resumed his idea of a political league, and became president of the society for an Italian confederation, representatives of which from all parts of Italy assembled in Turin in October. His conduct won general admiration, even from "young Italy," and he was enthusiastically placed at the head of the cabinet which in December succeeded that of Revel. Though he had announced a new campaign in Lombardy, he was convinced that it could only be fruitless, and broke with the party which had yielded to him and shared with him the ministry, absorbed in himself all the energy and responsibility of the cabinet, and, renouncing the war of independence, resolved to employ the Pied-montese armies in restoring the thrones of the peninsula which had been carried away by the popular commotions.

He designed to surround them with constitutional guarantees, and to make them not less liberal than anti-republican. Two obstacles prevented his beginning the execution of the plan: the refusal of the Italian princes to trust their restoration to the court of Turin, and the energetic resistance of the other Piedmontese ministers to such a movement. The king himself formally opposed the programme, and Gioberti resigned his office on Feb. 21, 1849, declaring that with him had fallen the cause of Italian renovation. After the disaster of Novara (March 23), he entered the new cabinet as minister without a portfolio, and was soon after sent to Paris as plenipotentiary. The mission being hardly more than an honorable exile, he solicited the appointment of a successor, and retired from public life. He resumed his studies, and published his Del rinnovamento civile italia (2 vols., Paris and Turin, 1851), in which he criticises the conduct of parties in the movement of 1848, and affirms that he repents of no counsel which he gave or political act which he performed during his public career.

The end of his efforts he declares to have been "to establish in Italy a Piedmontese hegemony, and in Europe the moral supremacy of Italy." He resided from this time in Paris, and was engaged in a philosophical work on Protologia, or first science, when his death occurred suddenly by apoplexy. Gioberti refused to submit to the papal condemnation of his Gesuita moderno, and all his works have been placed on the index at Rome. Besides those already mentioned, he wrote letters in French Sur les erreurs reli-gieuses de M. de Lamennais (Brussels, 1840), and Sur les doctrines philosophiqnes et poli-tiqries de M. de Lamennais (1842), and a treatise Degli errori filosofici di Ant. Rosmini (1841), charging both of these philosophers with ten-dencies to pantheism; Del buono (1843), in which he applies his philosophical system to ethics; Apologia del libro intitolato II Gesulta moderno (Paris and Brussels, 1848);, and Ope-rette politiche (2 vols., Lugano, 1851). A uniform edition of his earlier works was published at Brussels (9 vols., 1843-'5). The edition of his posthumous works, edited by G. Massari (Paris and Turin, 1856), has never been completed.