Antonio Andrea Arrighi

Born c. 1835 to a traditional Catholic family in Firenze, Italy, Arrighi was the youngest of five children son of Luca Arrighi, a notaro (or letter writer) from a family which originated in Corsica, and Angiola del Darme. His family (he later claimed) were distantly related to the Napoleonic general, Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova (1778-1853), later Duke of Padova, and so of Napoleon himself. The family lived at Via San Nicola 3, Florence. Arrighi remembered that the local priest thought Protestants were 'children of the devil', but that otherwise he had no knowledge that Protestants existed [Arrighi 1911, 20].

In 1845, the family moved to Barga, about 40 miles from Firenze. Like many Italian liberals, he came to associate Roman Catholicism with obscurantism. He joined the town band on the recommendation of his uncle, Pietro, as tenor drummer. He also had a strong, sweet voice, which later in life would make him in demand as a singer and a hymn writer. Like many Italians, he was disappointed in the failure of Pius IX to carry through with his undertakings to support Italian unification and expel the Austrians. On 2 February 1849, Barga (and so Arrighi) joined the Garibaldian revolution after the declaration of the Republic of Rome by Mazzini: in Barga, Arrighi climbed the 60ft pole and placed the revolutionary red cap on its top. When he came down, he was caught by Signor Gordial, a Protestant. Arrighi and his father joined the 'national guard', the son as a drummer, his father as a corporal, under Captain Carrara, and were sent to guard the Pietra Santa fort on the Mediterranean. He was then sent with a detachment to reinforce the National forces, first at Livorno then at Rome. He was wounded in the jaw by a Neapolitan shell during the defence of the Piazza del Popolo during the seige of Rome. While many of his company escaped, he was captured and held in the Castel Sant'Angelo, before being transferred to Civita Vecchia as a galley slave and working on the treadmills. This experience of brutality deeply coloured his view of the Papacy, though he recorded a continuing love for the many kind and helpful Catholics who helped him survive. His singing in the prison chapel forged positive relationships with a member of the local nobility (Count Malsano). After 3 years and 2 months, as he turned 19, he escaped from a slave gang by hiding under an oxcart full of manure. [Arrighi, 131]

After a long and difficult journey across Tuscany, he caught a ship to the USA, which (in an autobiography full of miracles and visions) he names as the brigantine Balena, under Captain Costa, arriving in New York on 14 July 1855. He claims that he could not read or write when he commenced the journey, but through the good offices of a crewmate, he learned both when he arrived. After a run-in with the law, he joined the small Italian colony, and made a living selling plaster of Paris decorations from door to door. This sales activity took him to western Illinois and Iowa. Going into partnership with three other Italian friends, they set up a business first in Mansfield, Ohio, then in Desmoines, where he first experienced a Protestant service (thinking that he was entering a concert hall).

In 1858, the partners opened a meat market in Fairfield, Iowa, and lodged with Cyrus E. Carpenter (1838-1867), a harness maker and Class Leader in the MEC. Carpenter (who was later to be ordained) took Arrighi to a Methodist revival service, where he was especially charmed by Methodist hymns, and the teaching that he could confess his sins directly to Christ. Arrighi's autobiography describes Carpenter falling to the floor in a revival meeting, overcome by the Holy Spirit for some two hours. Arrighi himself dates his conversion to this time. [Arrighi, 206-207] At the Iowa Annual Conference of the MEC, he gave his testimony, and declared that he desired to return to Italy to preach the gospel. Charles Elliott, president of Iowa Wesleyan College at Mt. Pleasant was in the congregation and invited him to study there. Elliott had been a longstanding proponent of an MEC mission to Italy. The first year was English preparation. Teachers included Wesley J. Spaulding, later President of the institution. On news of his conversion, Arrighi later recalled that he was disowned by his mother. His hymn, 'Disowned by my Mother' was written in a school room at Mt Pleasant, appeared in The Timbrel: a collection of solos, duets and choruses, for Sunday schools (1866), with music set by Professor Manelli, and published by Ditson & Company. After his conversion, however, he became a regular speaker at camp meetings, such as that at Mt Pleasant. In 1860, he delivered a lecture on "Life in Italy” in Bloomington, Illinois, in the second Presbyterian Church, with Peter Cartwright in the chair. While there, he met Abraham Lincoln, who was running for President -- Lincoln declared his admiration for both Garibaldi and Mazzini. The lecture and Arrighi’s singing supported him through the second year of his studies. In October 1860, he was also naturalized. 'I have two documents which I regard as sacred.’, he later wrote, ‘The first and the most important is the one which authorized me to preach the Gospel, which certifies that as a Christian minister I belong to Christ's kingdom. The other document is my naturalization paper.' [Arrighi, 229]

With the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861 Arrighi served in Company F of the "1st Iowa Infantry", raised by Daniel Wise in Mt Pleasant. They mustered in on 14 May 1861 and mustered out on 20 August 1861. Arrighi was present at the battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, and in the retreat which saved the Union Army of the West through Sigel's famous defence. After mustering out, he undertook a lecture tour to raise money for his studies. From 1861-1863, in the recommendation of Elliott, he transferred to the better equipped Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. At the end of 1863, however, continuing health issues associated with his military service caused him to transfer to what was considered the healthier setting of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, a College commenced in the 18th century, and taken over in 1833 by the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal (now United Methodist) Church under John Price Durbin. Arrighi graduated from Dickinson in 1865.

In 1866 he was living in Nashua, MA, where he supplied the Methodist pulpit for some time – here he was associated with the work of L. P. Causey. In August, he was preaching at the Yarmouth Methodist camp meeting. He had not forgotten Ohio, however, and before he enrolled at Boston University, he married Emma Vining (1844, Delaware, Ohio -1917, Brooklyn), daughter of the county Sherriff in Delaware, Ohio. They would name their first child 'Garibaldi'. As a student, Arrighi worked in ministry to the many Italians settled around BU’s theology settlement house in the East End. In 1868, he gave a talk on Catholicism in America to the New York Preachers' Meeting, the record of which noted him as a student of the Boston Theological Seminary. When he graduated the next year, he was technically the first graduate of the Theology Faculty. His experience convinced him that non-Italian missionaries would never be able to do what Italians themselves could in terms of evangelizing Italy, and it was his long-standing prayer that he would be able to use his theological education in preaching in Italy. (Barone 2016, 46)

On 20 September 1870, the Italian army successfully breached the gates of Rome, and the next year (after a plebiscite) it became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1871, supported by the congregation in Halifax, Arrighi was thus free to return to Italy and found a mission there: 'Italy was now open to the preaching of Christ's Gospel, and my heart was burning with intense longing to go there as the herald of a free salvation.' (quoted in Barone 2016, 71) He went out originally under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church missions in Italy, overseen by Leroy M. Vernon, the headquarters of which was in Bologna. It was there that Arrighi first went, and there that for the first time, he heard the gospel preached in 'my own sweet tongue'. In his home town, there was rejoicing at the return of the prodigal son from everyone except the local priest, who tried to have him arrested. The local questore, however, refused, as they no longer lived under Papal rule. Arrighi’s parents later converted to Methodism, and became part of his congregation in Florence.

Arrighi felt, however, that he needed to serve as a 'native' missionary, not one sent by the American church. In consequence, in 1873 he technically withdrew from Methodist ministry, by surrendering his parchments to the quarterly conference of St Paul's Church, Delaware, Ohio. The next year, he was sent by the MEC mission to Florence, where he was technically a missionary of the Schweig District, along with Teofilo Gai (aka Gay), Enrico Borelli, Luigi Capellini, Orismane Ottonelli, Amedeo Guigon, Daniele Lantaret, Bartolomeo Godino, and Bartolomeo Malan. He found considerable difficulty in finding a location, due to the deeply entrenched anti-Protestant bias among florentines: "After much tribulation I secured a large room that had been used as a cafe in Piazza delle Cure outside of Porta San Gallo." (Elsewhere he reports it as 18 Piazza della Indipendenza). He often preached to the sound of showers of stones being thrown against the door of the Church. On a Friday night in February 1874, a mob broke into the Church Hall where he was speaking and 'attempted to take my life'. He felt that God was with him, and two of the mob turned on the rest of them to protect him. They escorted him out and deposited him with the police. The ringleaders were arrested and placed in jail for 2 months - Arrighi returned to the church to repair the door and prepare to preach on the Sunday. For months afterwards, there were often police in the meetings, a presence which didn't stop the throwing of stones against the door. Despite hazing and disruptions, he quickly built a core group of some 30 members, saw conversions which would befit any Methodist revival meeting, and 'every week some new ones are coming to Church.' The next year, 1875, when he was ordained by Bishop Mathew Simpson, he claimed to be the first man of Protestant faith ever ordained in Rome.

Not long after this, he changed formal allegiances, arriving in 1878 in New York to delegate among the evangelical Churches in New York and Boston on behalf of the 'Free Italian Church', and under the auspices of the American and Foreign Christian Union, with recommendations by R. S. Storrs and other clergymen. The Unione delle Chiese Libere in Italia was a movement established in 1870 by Alessandro Gavazzi in Florence. By 1879 it had 27 churches in various cities, some 90 preachers, and 2500 communicants. This might explain why Arrighi left the Methodist Church in Italy -- Gavazzi had Presbyterian links, with the Free Church in Scotland through Rev. John R. McDougall (based at the Scots Church, Florence). Arrighi’s delegation round saw him preach at the William Mackergo Taylor's Broadway Tabernacle; J A Liggett's First Presbyterian Church, Rahway, NJ; and the Brick Church, Orange, NJ. Liggett found him the most interesting missionary delegate he had ever welcomed to Rahway, and helped him establish links with people who would act as commissaries.

In 1880, still as a Unione delegate, he attended the Pan-Presbyterian Council, Philadelphia, 1880. While he was there, a committee of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, under the banker and philanthropist Morris Ketchum Jesup and Roswell Smith among others, asked him to take up the evangelization of Italians in New York. He accepted, and in 1881 established an Italian congregation which for five years held meetings in the chapel of the Five Points House of Industry (of which Jesup was founding Chairman). The church was referred to by various names, but mainly 'The Five Points Mission' established in an old brewery as a Methodist slum mission in 1853. His first sermon there was preached on 21 June 1881; meanwhile, he visited dozens of families, passed out hundreds of tracts, visited Italians in jail at the White Plains and the sick in the Emigrants' Hospital on Ward's Island. He found employment for dozens of people, including in the paper mills in Connecticut. In 1886, due to funding given by Jesup to the local Presbytery, the Italian Congregation at Five Points was reorganized as a church, named 'Calvary Church', with 91 members, and regular attendance ranging widely between 30 and 152 people. The Church opening featured an address by Rev. S. W. Hamilton.

In 1894, Arrighi established with Helen Louisa Stokes' support the Anson Phelps Stokes Italian Free Library, with the motto “Out of abundance, give to the poor.” The library opened in July 1894 in a stately building on Mulberry Street, which had become a thriving centre of Italian migrant life. Housing more than 3,000 books and newspapers in both Italian and English (in part forwarded by the Italian government), it claimed to hold 32 daily Italian newspapers, and (under the oversight of his son, Garibaldi Arrighi, and assisted by a Miss Tealdi) attract some 50,000 visitors a year. Arrighi foresaw "a space where ‘Italians could freely obtain the books they needed, as well as serve as a refuge from urban temptations" (N.Y. Tribune, 1894). "Capitalizing on the steady stream of over 200 daily visitors to a facility that provided both a social and educational function, the opportunities were many for acts of religious conversion and Americanization" (Deluise, 2015). It provided space for clubs and classes (which taught useful skills such as sewing), and healthcare and instruction clinic. Due to the increasingly delapidated state of the Five Points Mission Chapel, Arrighi had meanwhile moved the congregation to the Broome Street Tabernacle, where 'the whole building' could be dedicated to the Italian work. He later claimed that this "Italian Evangelical Church of New York City... is the mother of all missions for Italians in the United States of America." [Arrighi, 226]

In 1905, there is a record of Arrighi having attended the Riverdale Conference of the New York Presbytery, at which Rev. Dr. Hugh Black of Edinburgh was the speaker. By 1905, Arrighi’s congregation had grown so large as to take over the entire Broome Street Tabernacle (Miller 1962, pp.114), making his church the largest in the world of any Italian Evangelical church. (Deluise, 2018). A 1901 report took credit for the church supporting in Italy 'one regularly organized church and two missions... supporting in the mission field "12 of its young converts, all of whom have been regularly ordained to the Christian ministry, 11 preaching the Gospel to the Italians in America, and 1 in Italy, Mr. Mangeri" (quoted in Meehan, 1903, p. 25).

In 1907, one newspaper estimated that he had, in twenty-two years, received 1,300 Italians into a profession of faith. When in 1908 his old friend L. P. Causey visited him, he noted that Arrighi was 'having continued success in his great work, and exhibits personally the same faith and gentleness of spirit that characterized him in the dear old days of our association at Concord and Boston.' (Causey 1908)

In 1911, Arrighi retired from regular ministry. When he had started, he was the sole Italian language Protestant minister in New York. By the time of his death on 25 February 1923, one estimate held that the Italian ministers’ fraternal in New York regularly attracted 50 or more members. Along the way, Arrighi had been the pathbreaker for many others to follow, mobilizing considerable mainstream attention and wealth for Protestant outreach to the mass migration of Italians which his arrival in the USA had previsioned. As a nationalist and liberal, he also typified the position of many Italian Protestant clergy who followed.

Arrighi was buried in The Evergreens Cemetery Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. His wife, Emma, predeceased him in 1917: the commemorative services and pastoral work were carried out by Arrighi's successor at Broome Street Tabernacle, Rev. Joseph Brunn [q.v.].

Mark Hutchinson

Sources:

anon, 'Ministers and Churches' New York Evangelist 54.30, 26 July 1883, p.5

anon, 'Yarmouth Camp Meeting', Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal 15 August 1866, pp. 33, 37.

Arrighi, Antonio, 'An Italian missionary in Italy', Christian Advocate 27 August 1874, p. 275

Arrighi, Antonio, The Story of Antonio and the Galley-Slave: A Romance of Real Life in Three Parts, London and Edinburgh: Fleming Revell, 2011.

Barone, Dennis, Beyond Memory: Italian Protestants in Italy and America, SUNY Press, 2016

Barone, Dennis, 'To Struggle for a Place at the Table: Italian-American Protestants in Italy', Italian Americana 30.1 (Winter 2012), 70-81.

Causey, L P., 'Vacation Notes,' Zion's Herald (1868-1910); Boston 86.46 (Nov 4, 1908): 1429.

Deluise, Alexandra, "Mission work, Conversion and the Italian Immigrant in Turn-of-the-Century New York City: the Story of the Anson Phelps Stokes Italian Free Library" (2015). CUNY Academic Works. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/lacuny_events/3

Liggett, John A, 'The Free Christian Church of Italy', New York Evangelist 50.46 (13 Nov 1879), p. 8.

Meehan, Thomas F., 'Evangelizing the Italians', Messenger of the Sacred Heart of Jesus XXXIX. (1903), 16-32.

Miller, K. D., & Miller, E. P. Z. The people are the city; 150 years of social and religious concern in New York City. New York: Macmillan, 1962.