Agide Pirazzini

Born in Cotignola, provincia di Ravenna, on 22 February 1875, Agide Pirazzini was the son of Giovanni Pirazzini and Maria Emiliani. He bore the name of a regionally-famous son of Cotignola, Agide Pirazzini, a leading Garibaldino who fought at Mentana and finally died of his wounds while a captive in Rome after the battle of Monte Rotondo.  Sartorio describes his conversion in passim, while describing the poverty of biblical scholarship in Italy: 

while living in Rome, [he]  saw one day displayed in the store window a big open book. He stopped and read the two open pages. He was so impressed with what he read that for weeks he went every day to the window of the store to read the two new pages that were displayed each morning.  The store was one of the Bible Centres of the British Bible Society.  He finally went inside the store and bought a copy of the Bible. He had never heard of it and thought himself very fortunate to possess such a marvellous book of religious knowledge, believing himself to be the only person in Italy to own it; and yet he was living in an intellectual atmosphere, in the capital of Italy, the city of the Pope. It was only a few years afterwards that, entering a Waldensian church, he found brethren  who had the same book and the same faith. One of the most needed works, and one which would have far reaching and lasting results, is the dissemination of a knowledge of the Bible among the university students of Italy. [Sartorio, 91-2]

He is known to have studied in Rome, and in 1896 was sent by James Stokes to the USA to train at the International YMCA Training School (later Springfield College).  In 1896, Thomas Cree helped organize the association at Rome, Italy, of which Pirazzini became founding General Secretary. He held that position until 1900, in which he reported having good success. 'The fall pro­spectus promises a good work, especially in the religious and educational departments. Several Bible classes have been organized. The dumb-bell and wand drill, he says, is meeting with unexpected success. His address is Via Due Macelli n. 31.' He was, however, nostalgic for the USA. 'He has furnished him an American room, which is decorated with the stars and stripes and the photographs of friends associated with his stay here.'  [YMCA Association Outlook, Nov. 1899, 32] An aspect of his preaching when he did take up permanent ministry in the USA was the need for gratitude and for Italians to 'become good American citizens'. In Philadelphia, he took advantage of the proximity of Valley Forge to preach in Italian and English on George Washington, encouraging his hearers to live up to the teachings and principles of the 'Father of his country'. [Philadelphia Inquirer 27 Feb 1905: 5] The values of America - 'the right of life, of property, of family' - were also the values of the Gospel.  To be effective, Americanization, Pirazzini grew increasingly convinced (drawing on historic examples of Romanization in the early Church) must be attended by evangelization. (Bristol Daily Courier 27 Oct 1921: 4)

In 1900, Pirazzini returned to the USA for further study, during which time he was sent to Rhode Island as a Methodist missionary and pastor of the Italian Methodist Episcopal Church in Providence. His brother, Francesco, followed him after the completion of his service in the Abyssinian War. As missionary attached to the Broadway Methodist Church in Providence, some dozens of Italian people were converted, and several provisional ministers were sent back to Italy to support the work there. In 1904, Pirazzini graduated with a BA from Temple College. (Philadelphia Inquirer 15 Jun 1904: 16) 

On 1 September 1900, he married Ester Coletti (b. 1883, Lazio, Rome), with whom he would have 6 children, including Mabelle E. (b. 28 Sep 1901, Rhode Island); Lillian G. (26 Nov 1902, Rhode Island); Edward (1907-); Robert Livingstone, and Helen (1909-). Mabelle would marry Frank Bruno Gigliotti. The next year, he was elected to Deacon's orders as a missionary of the New England Southern Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He studied at Brown University, graduating AM AB in 1903, during which time his brother, Francesco, was an evangelist for the Brooklyn City Mission Society in New York. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle 30 May 1902: 10) After graduation, he followed Michele Nardi as pastor of the Italian Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Working with F. B. Santilli, he long struggled with both the divisions in the Italian community (anarchism, socialism, hyper nationalism and ultra Catholicism), and with the building in which his 100 members met - 'The Italian men and women of the better classes, the more educated and refined, tell us: 'We cannot go there. That is a barn.' (Philadelphia Inquirer 22 Feb 1904: 9) As his members were poor, he appealed to the Presbyterian Church to assist.

Pirazzini's much quoted book The influence of Italy on the literary career of Alphonse de Lamartine was first written as his PhD dissertation taken at Columbia University. Both Pirazzini brothers had held leadership positions in the YMCA in Italy, and so they were logical additions (Agide as Professor of Hebrew, his brother Francesco as professor of Italian language and literature, asssisted by Rev. P. Griglio) to the Italian and English language training staff of W. W. White's  Bible Teachers Training School, New York (later the New York Theological Seminary). They built it into a leading Protestant centre for Italian language ministry training for the growing Protestant Italian churches. The fruit was soon coming - in 1909, Pirazzini translated for Cesare Perina, as the former Catholic priest and now student at the BTTS was ordained by the Presbytery of Brooklyn. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle 25 May 1909: 8)  The next year, among his students was Charles Fama [q.v.], who in the same (counting back from his Congressional testimony in 1924) began evangelism and social work for the Presbyterian church in the Bronx. In 1915, he officiated at the wedding of another former student, Roberto Corradini, who had taken up the pastorship of First Italian Methodist Episcopal Church, Paterson NJ. (The Morning Call 9 Feb 1915: 8) It was theological education for a purpose - like their teachers (Pirazzini was a regular feature in city wide evangelistic campaigns, such as that led in Chicago by Paul Rader in 1916), (Chicago Tribune 1 Apr 1916: 13) the graduates of the school had to be able to teach and to preach. 

During World War I, Pirazzini led the Italian Protestant ministers in support of the US entry into World War I. He was one of the speakers in Sons of Italy events supporting entry to the War, (see for example the Sons of Italy patriotic function in the Bridgewater, New Jersey, YMCA building, in support of the US declaration of War in World War I Courier-News 13 Jun 1917: 11) and in discussions about settlements after the war insisted on Italy's right to hold territory fought for during the War. (as compared, for example, to the claims of Greece in the Dodecanese Islands, Birmingham News 18 Apr 1917: 7)

Bill Mellor had Pirazzini as a visiting professor at the Alliance Bible College in Nyack:

He looked like an Italian nobleman. Dr. Pirazzini was head of the Philosophy Department at Columbia University in New York City. I looked forward to hearing him every Friday as a guest professor. Listening to him lecture about the great thinkers of all time opened up a whole new world to me. I just drank it all up. I never thought for one moment that years later I would be teaching in college and the subject would be Philosophy. (http://www.j31.co.uk/mellor.htm)

His son in law, Frank Gigliotti, wrote to J. Roswell Flower:

You undoubtedly remember that my father-in-law, Dr. Agide Pirazzini, was possibly one of the greatest philologists in America having taught Hebrew, Greek and the Oriental languages at the Biblical seminary in New York for thirty years.  He told me on more than one occasion he had heard these people actually speaking Aramaic, the language which Jesus spoke and I, personally believe this to be so after having heard them myself and seen them with my own eyes. This was my great stumbling block. I am giving you this lengthy explanation on this subject because as far as I am personally concerned in understanding the Pentecostal people. I did not believe and could not intellectually conceive how this phenomena was possible;   I now believe it with all my heart." (Frank Gigliotti, "The Pentecostal Movement in the United States and Italy", mss, Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center)

Over time Pirazzini garnered a significant reputation for his cultured, energetic and (in the 1920s) anti-Fascist faith, presenting widely on themes (such as 'Columbus The True Democrat') which argued for the normality of Italian Protestantism.  He was also a lifelong opponent of Socialism (and, when it arose, Fascism), which he believed was ill understood by southern Italians and which therefore tended to violence and anarchy. His writing against socialism while in Philadelphia attracted attempts to disrupt his work, attempts he considered sponsored by socialist organizations in New York. (The Philadelphia Inquirer 15 Feb 1904: 1) He typically deflected such attacks, preaching reasoned conversation through, for instance, a public debate with people like Giovanni di Silvestro (a leading socialist and Carlo Tresca's partner in Il Martello).  In March 1904 they met in Philadelphia to debate the topic 'Rivelazione e Evoluzione'. Even the enemies of religion admitted Pirazzini's preparation and learning, and di Silvestro's failure. (Cronaca Sovversiva 26 Mar 1904: 3; Philadelphia Inquirer 1 Mar 1904: 3). He would also appear, during Garibaldi commemorations, alongside others - such as Tresca, di Silvestro - with whose politics he disagreed, but with whom he was prepared to cooperate for the good of their people. Placing the Presbyterian mission in the useful position of acting as a coping mechanism for an American Protestant culture struggling with the assimilation of large numbers of migrants connected well to the old Garibaldian liberalism, and gave the Protestant minority some protection from the depredations of secret societies and aggressive ideological cliques. (see Philadelphia Inquirer 8 Jul 1907: 3). Pirazzini would tour the USA, encouraging local Presbyteries and other churches to both give and to support candidates into Italian language ministry training as a mechanism for the Americanization of America's vast Italian diaspora. (see Akron Evening Times 18 Jul 1920: 23).

Pirazzini died on 2 January 1934 at his home in Manhattan, aged only 59 years of age. His wife Esther spent the latter part of her life with her daughter, Mabelle, in San Diego. She died on 26 May 1985, at Chula Vista.

Mark Hutchinson

Publications:

Raccolta D'Inni E Cantici Sacri Con Melodie. Seguito da Letture Responsive Delle... by Rev. Stefano L. Testa and S.T.D. Rev. Agide Pirazzini (1907) . He wrote a number of hymns such as "Il Salvator per me morì".

The influence of Italy on the literary career of Alphonse de Lamartine (1917).

[Letters to Jacob Titus Bowne] by Agide Pirazzini (1896). 

"L'Arpa Davidica" ossia: I Salmi di Davide, tradotti in versi italiani dal Rev. Agide Pirazzini, editi dal prof. Tommaso Fragale e dal prof. John McNaugher, ad uso delle chiese Evangeliche Italiane, Pittsburgh: The United Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1919.

'Training an Italian Ministry for America', originally in The Assembly Herald 24.3 (March 1918): 152-153; republished in F. Cordasco (ed.), Protestant Evangelism among Italians in America, New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Sources: 

Barone, Dennis, "The soul of a stranger: Italy, America, and Italian American Protestants", Forum Italicum, 03/2010, Volume 44, Issue 1, p. 136

Cordasco, Francesco, Protestant evangelism among Italians in America, Arno Press, 1975

Methodist Church (NE); Official Journal and Year Book, Methodist Church (U.S.). New England Southern Conference, The Conference, 1900

Finding Aid, 'New York Theological Seminary: Biblical Seminary of New York Records, 1881 - 1973', The Burke Library Archives, Columbia University Libraries at Union Theological Seminary, New York, http://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/libraryweb/locations/burke/fa/misc/ldpd_11693337.pdf, accessed 27.5.2018.

Sartorio, Enrico C., Social and religious life of Italians in America, with an introduction by Dean George Hodges, D. D., Boston: Christopher Publishing House [c1918], 91-2].

Springfield College, Digital Collections, http://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15370coll2/id/9977, accessed 27 May 2018.

Association Outlook, The International [YMCA] Association Training School Notes and Association Outlook (vol. 6 no. 1), 1894-1909.