Born in 1886 in Venice, Piero Chiminelli was orphaned at the age of 9, and raised in an orphanage in Venice. After completing elementary school, he pursued higher education in Franciscan colleges. Faes (2014) notes, in 1898 Chiminelli attended the OFM college of S. Bernardino (Verona); in 1899 the Serafico College or probationary institute of Chiampo (Vicenza), where he was already noted as a "promising writer"; and in 1900, he transferred to the college in Peschiera sul Garda, to which older probationers from Chiampo were sent. The Serafico College, a distinct institution of the Minor Friars, emphasized a thorough spiritual and moral education based on devotional practices and a rigorous academic curriculum.  It also meant that Chiminelli brought with him a deeper humanities preparation, and an orientation to pastoral work, which many early Protestants did not have. (Faes 2014)

At the age of 15, he joined the Franciscan Order as a novice. Spotted as a student of promise, the Franciscan Order sent him to study theology in Rome at the Collegio Internazionale S. Antonio (CISA). However, following several personal crises of conscience, he renounced his religious vows, relocated to Milan. Like many who left a Catholic order, the process left him destitute and homeless. He initially worked as a singer, then as a teacher in a boarding school that sheltered him. In Milan, he encountered the Wesleyan Methodist preacher Nicola Lettieri, and was deeply moved by his sermons. Consequently, in 1905, at the age of 19, he embraced Protestantism and reportedly converted three of his acquaintances. Guided by the Baptist pastor Luigi Mario Galassi, in 1907, he wrote to DG Whittinghill seeking admission to the Baptist Theological School in Rome. In that year, with the encyclical letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, many modernist priests (such as Mario A. Rossi and Nicola Macioce) were forced out of the Catholic Church, something which is perhaps reflected in Chiminelli's intention of '"serving the Lord intelligently", that is, to become a pastor'. (Faes, 2014) 

Unlike Gangale, Chiminelli was 'neither ideologically neo-Calvinist, nor vehemently anti-clerical, nor anti-fascist (in fact, he was a fervent nationalist with pronounced sympathies towards fascism)' (Faes 2014:  452). His articles for Protestant journals, and in his longer historical work, he tended not to use the ascerbic fighting language of colleagues such as Gangale, seeking rather to construct alternative cases which - as with his treatment of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas - denied his enemies any basis for absolute claims. This, and the influence of key historians/ antiquarians who had a connection to his native Venice (such as Emile Comba and Antonio Battistella), drove him to promote more modern, less 'ecclesial' approaches to the history of Protestantism, particularly emphasizing the collection of sources and the creation of research resources (such as his own Bibliografia della storia de la Riforma Religiosa in Italia: Contributo alla storiografia religiosa italiana, for Bylichnis, published in 1921).  In part, this was the ex-Catholic trying to read his way into a deeper knowledge of his new faith, even as he was teaching in the College and leading the popular intellectual engagements of the movement. While his successors - such as Giorgio Spini - didn't put much store in Chiminelli's expertise or method - it is remarkable how much of his proposed historical agenda the students of the 1920s went on to carry out in the 1950s onwards. Ordained as a Baptist pastor, Chiminelli served in this capacity in Sicily, Naples, and Florence: while serving in Floridia, Sicilia, where he met and married Lucia Squadrilli, he was attacked and holed up in his Church building by a mob stirred up by what Spini estimates was ‘a convenient alliance between clerical robes and Mafia hats to curb the Protestant threat’ (Spini 2002: 245). He became a prominent writer in liberal protestant journals in Italy.  In 1923 even as he was responding to resurgent Thomism in the Catholic Church, and serving as director of Conscientia, Chiminelli took at ThD from Whittinghill's alma mater, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY (Baptist and Reflector 25 Jan 1923: 11). He studied English in Naples under Mrs. C. M. Lampson, and in 1929, he left Italy under the cloud of conflict and accusations relating, he later said, to unreasonable expectations in his work engagements. (Faes, 2014) He took up ministry in the USA in Italian missions in Kansas City, and in Hazelton, PA (later 2nd Presbyterian Church, Hazelton). In 1931, he succeeded Domenico D’Addario as pastor of the First Italian Congregational Church at 131 Temple St., Hartford CN.  When he left Hartford in 1936, he told his congregation that he was returning to Italy to take up literary work - clearly he didn’t tell them that it would be for the Catholic Church. Faes identifies 1933 as the year in which Chiminelli had a change of heart, a private letter indicating that the Fascist/Catholic dominance of Italian identity politics at home, and his dislike for the dominance of Communist entities abroad, was bearing in upon him:

"Studies, life abroad, homesickness, and observing history gradually convinced me of a truth: that the Reformation wasn't a renewal or an integration of Christian thought and life, but as Ercole Ricotti aptly wrote, it was a revolution and even a spiritual uprising of the Nordic, Teutonic, and Anglo-Saxon people against the Latins and Latin heritage." He later realized that promoting separation and proselytism in Italy was akin to a betrayal of the homeland. (Faes 2014: 454) The next year he formally renounced Protestantism and was received into the Catholic Church. (see Spini 2002: 391; Faes 2014: 454) 

At heart, Chiminelli retained a passionate Franciscan spirituality, something which though birthed in his upbringing and early education, found expression in the early ecumenical movements of the 1920s (fuelled by the work of Paul Sabatier, whose La vie de St. François d'Assise (1893) was proscribed by listing on the Index, but sparked widespread Protestant interest in historical studies in general and Franciscan Studies, in particular, and the azionista historian Luigi Salvatorelli). In time, he would become a committed Franciscan tertiary. In Conscientia, he adopted the ancient Catholic medieval dualism, opposing static Aquinan rationalism and Aristotelianism with the dynamic Franciscan and Scotian approach to God through experience, inward living and feeling of Christ and the testimony, love, and doing [of] God's will which originates in the Gospels... "It is certain that Paul of Tarsus would not have been a Thomist... Neither would that Cyprian... Nor Bonaventure or Duns Scotus.. (Faes 2014: 455)

In 1939 Chiminelli published Lo Spirito Santo: cuore della Chiesa (Roma: A.V.E., 1939). In the 1940s he wrote for Catholic journals on topics such as religious art for Commoneal (La Crosse Tribune 24 Dec 1946: 10), and the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano (see The Catholic Advance 1 May 1953: 15; Southern Nebraska Register 12 Oct 1945: 5), his use of historical ‘synergies’ reflecting on Catholic apologetics much in the same way that he had written in his former Protestant media outputs (see for instance his claims about the origins of democracy in the works of Bellarmine, The Tidings 31 Aug 1945: 1). During the War, he became a leading figure in the Catholic establishment, 'honored by pontifical academies with merit certificates and receiving letters and papal blessings' (Faes 2014, 454)

On his death in 1959, his library was donated to support the 'Cattedra Francescana' (Franciscan Chair) in the Collegio Intemazionale di S. Antonio, a collection later absorbed into the Biblioteca della Pontificia Universita Antonianum on via Merulana, near the Lateran.

Publications:

• 1917 - Il denominazionalismo leale: (ovvero fedeltà alla propria Chiesa (Firenze: Tip. Fattori e Puggelli , 1917)

• 1917 - Perché io sono evangelico Battista? (Firenze: Tip. Fattori e Puggelli, 1917)

• 1921 - La fortuna di Dante nella cristianità riformata (Roma: Bilychnis, 1921)

• 1921 - Bibliografia della storia della Riforma religiosa in Italia (Bologna: A. Forni, reprint, 1983; first edition Roma: Bilychnis, 1921).

• 1924 Il contributo dell'Italia alla riforma religiosa in Europa (Roma: Bilychnis, 1924)

• 1924 - (anon) Baptists in Italy (Nashville TN: 1924).

• 1925 Scritti religiosi dei riformatori italiani del '500 (Torino: Paravia, 1925)

• 1949 with D. Lathoud, Jubilé 1950 (Paris: Bonne Presse, 1949)

• 1950 with others, Per il 4. centenario della morte di S. Giovanni di Dio (Roma: Tip. S. Giuseppe, 1950) 

• 1953 La beata Rosa Venerini (Roma: [Istituto Maestre pie Venerini], 1953)

• 1954 Monna Tessa attraverso i secoli (Firenze: Ediz. Libreria Fiorentina, 1954)

• 1955 Il primo anno mariano della storia (Milano: Casa ed. Mondo Cattolico, 1955)

• 1957 L'umile capestro (Padova: Il Messaggero di S. Antonio, 1957)

• 1958 Un sacerdozio raggiante (Firenze: Salani, 1958)

• 1959 I terziari francescani cavalieri dell'Immacolata (Roma Commissariato nazionale del T.O.F., 1959)

• 1968 Josephi Del Ton Vaticana levia: epigrammata Italice reddita a Petro Chiminelli (Mediolani: V. Scheiwiller, 1968)

In a sort of inverse continuity of his Protestant writing, he also involved himself in a good deal of hagiography...

• 1941 S. Caterina da Siena (Roma: SALES, 1941)

• 1941 Anima e storia delle cattedrali medievali (Roma: SALES, Croce e spada, 1941)

• 1942 Il poemetto del Pastore (Pisa: Editrice Salesiana, stampa 1942)

• 1942 Janua coeli: John Henry Newman, Roma: Studium, 1942

• 1948 San Gaetano Thiene, cuore della riforma cattolica, 1948

• 1949 Storia in miniatura degli Anni Santi, 1949

... and popular theology, e.g. 

• 1941 Che cosa pensi di Gesù Cristo? (Torino: Sei, Soc. Ed. Internazionale, 1941

• 1942 La gioventù nuova ed il sangue di Cristo (Gavignano: Scuola Tipografica, 1942

... and reflections for Catholics on Protestant reformers, e.g. 

• 1948 Luther, 1948; 

• 1948 Calvin, 1948

A large 2 volume history of Catholicism in the United States was projected, but does not appear in the national collections in Italy (‘Was Preacher: Convert Writes United States Church History’, The Eastern Montana Catholic Register, 8 Apr 1945: 1). 

A memoir was written by his wife, Lucia, appearing in 1960 under the title Piero Chiminelli: in memoria (Roma: Ars-graf di Andreocci, 1960).

Sources:

• D’Auria, D., M. Ibarra, E. Paschetto, M. Rubboli, R. Volpe (eds.) (2013)  150 Years of UCEBI: the Baptists and Italy (1863-2013), Historical Exhibition. (Roma: Edizioni Protestanti, 2013)

• Faes, B. (2014) Pubblicistica evangelica italiana e VI Centenario della Canonizzazzione di Tommaso D'Aquino (1923), Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 68.2 (Jul-Dec 2014): 437-464.

• Gangale, G. (1926), Theses and friends of the new Protestantism (Rome 1926)

• Ronchi De Michelis, L. (2005), 'Una pagina dell' evangelismo italiano: la Scuola teologica bat­tista di Roma (1901-32)', in L. Ceci and L.  Demofonti, Chiesa, laicita e vita civile: Studi in onore di Guido Verucci (Roma: Carocci, 2005):  247-62.

• Spini, G., (2002), Italia Liberale e Protestanti: gli invisibili (Torino: Claudiana, 2002).

• Newspapers.com

• Ancestry.com