Tobia Donnarumma

Born in Naples, Donnarumma spent his childhood there. Having entered the Bourbon army at a very young age, in 1860 he became a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, a role which he abandoned almost immediately.

Returning to his hometown, he came into contact with the Rev. Thomas W. Jones and the Westleyan Methodist Mission. Converting to Protestantism, he first became a colporteur and then an evangelist of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Naples. He was accordingly first sent to Fuorigrotta (1870-1871) and later to Pozzuoli (1872). There he managed to found a large evangelical community which he led until 1886. Spini notes that Donnarumma and other evangelists did so despite being subjected to the "implacable hatred" of the omnipresent Catholic Church, which fomented the 'outbreak of violence by fanatical mobs'" and church burnings and bombings. "The evangelists Tobia Donnarumma and Luigi Girone, also from the Wesleyan mission, were the object, respectively in Pozzuoli and Cosenza, of violent demonstrations and death threats." (Spini 2002)

In Bergamo, the Catholic boycott had prevented the Free Church from finding a free place to gather its few followers. But when he finally managed to get hold of this place and to send an evangelist, one Lorenzo Mazzetti, to Bergamo, it was enough that he, in 1883, dared to print notices to announce one of his conferences, for all hell to break out. The bishop, Msgr. Guindani, appealed to the secular arm, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. «In a city like ours... - he affirmed in one of his Easter homilies - it did not seem possible that any representative or minister of a foreign cult of a pure heresy, such as Protestantism... should try to start a work of proselytism, which is prohibited by the same civil laws". After that, a crowd of fanatical peasants descended on Bergamo and went to riot in front of the evangelical chapel. The police intervened; some troublemakers were arrested, tried, and sentenced to a month in prison. But the bishop sent the prefect a letter of protest against Mazzetti's activity, making it also signed by a number of heads of families, and insisted that the authorities remove "the occasion for disturbance" represented by the evangelicals with an evident "danger for the 'public order". Moreover, even without the intervention of the secular arm, Msgr. Guindani achieved his aim. The Free Church had to abandon the place of worship and Mazzetti himself moved away from Bergamo. Subsequently a new place was found but the few members of the Free Church of Bergamo had such fear in their bodies that they did not dare to be seen.In 1886 he was replaced by the pastor Salvatore Ragghianti.

Morì a Pozzuoli il 9 maggio 1887.

Bibliografia

Donnarumma, Tobia in L'Italia Evangelica 23 (5 giugno 1887).

Sciarelli, F., Il cristianesimo in Pozzuoli (Napoli, Tip. del giornale l'Operaio, 1890).

Chiarini, F., Storia delle chiese metodiste in Italia 1859-1915 (Torino: Claudiana, 1999).

Spini, Giorgio, Italia Liberale e Protestanti (Torino: Claudiana, 2002)