Joseph M. Finotti
Joseph M. Finotti [1]
a Roman Catholic divine, was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1817, and educated at the Jesuit College, Rome. Being induced, in 1845, by professor Ryder, of Georgetown College, to come to America, Finotti was ordained at Georgetown; in 1850 was pastor of St. Mary's Church, Alexandria, Virginia; in 1852 left the Society of Jesus, and went to Boston, Massachusetts, where he was for three years editor of the Boston Pilot, was also pastor of Brookline, Brighton, and other missions, and afterwards at Arlington, near Boston. He resided for a time at St. Mary's Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, from there he went to Omaha, Nebraska, and finally to Central City, Colorado, in 1877, of which parish he had charge ulnntil his death, January 10, 1879. Finotti was a lover of books, most of his time being spent in his library, and he was constantly writing. He published, A French Grammar (in Italian): — A Month of Mary (1853): — Life of Blessed Paul of the Cross (1860): — Italy in the Fifteenth Century: — Diary of a Soldier (1861): — The French Zouave (1863): — Herman, the Pianist (ibid.): — The Spirit of St. Francis of Stales (1866): — Works of Rev. Arthur O'Leary: — Life of Blessed Peter Cleaver, etc. Most of these works are translations, or were edited by him. His greatest work, never completed, was his Bibliographia Catholica Americana, being a list of all the Roman Catholic books published in the United States, with notices of their authors and epitome of their contents. The first part, bringing the list down to 1825, was published in 1872. One of the projects of Finotti was the introduction into schools of a wellarranged series of Christian classics. See (N.Y.) Catholic Annual, 1880, page 44.
