Giovanni Battista Varnier

Born in Genoa on 22 August 1948, Varnier was educated at the University of Genoa, graduating in 1972 with 110 out of 110 cum laude, the dignità di stampa and medaglia d’argento. Under the supervision of Lazzaro Maria de Bernardis, his thesis on the relations between State and Church in Italy between the capture of Rome and the Lateran Pacts and the tortuous path that led to the Conciliation decree in 1972, was published in an expanded version four years later. His training here would be repeatedly evinced in the mastery of archival sources underpinning his many publications thereafter. From 1 November 1973, Varnier was made assistant professor in Elementi di diritto ecclesiastico in the Faculty of Political Sciences. He then progressed to the rank  associate professor and from 1980 full professor, a career particularly marked by an engaging and empowering teaching style which departed from the rote learning, 'manual' approach often then taken in legal faculties. (Benzo) From 1986, he was made extraordinary and then ordinary professor of Canon Law and appointed as director of the Ecclesiastical Law and the History of Canon Law programs in the Faculty of Law at the University of Urbino. He has also taught Ecclesiastical Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Turin and History of Christianity at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences of the University of Urbino. He was a profesor invitado at the Universidad Externado de Colombia and member of the teaching staff in the doctoral program in Social and Religious History at the University of Sassari and then at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. Other responsibilities included involvement in the doctoral program in History, Policies and Languages of Intercultural Relations of the University of Genoa and in the doctoral program in Historical Sciences of the University of the Republic of San Marino. He also coordinated the doctoral program in Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Studies at the University of Macerata.

In Genoa Varnier chaired the Enrico Vidal Library Service Centre and was delegated by the Rector as Vice Director of the Giovanni Tarello Department of Legal Culture, and vice-dean and then dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences. During that time he also taught History of Trade Union Movements; History of Canon Law; Comparative Ecclesiastical Law; Law and Religions in Mediterranean Countries and History of the Risorgimento. 

Among his contributions to his scholarly community were acting as a member of the editorial board of the journal Quaderni di diritto e politica ecclesiastica and as a member of the scientific committee of the journals Il diritto ecclesiastico, Hermeneutica and Storia e memoria, as well as on the steering committee of the collaborative “Centro interuniversitario di ricerca e documentazione sulla legislazione ecclesiastica e le istituzioni religiose” ("Interuniversity Center for Research and Documentation on Ecclesiastical Legislation and Religious Institutions"). Other positions included his roles as Secretary General of the Italian Archaeological Academy, as class president of the Ligurian Academy of Sciences and Letters; and co-director of the Historical Institute of the Resistance in Liguria. At the time of his death, Varnier was still vice president of the Istituto ligure per la storia della Resistenza e dell’Età contemporanea (the Ligurian Institute for the History of Resistance and the Contemporary Age).

Across his career, Varnier produced approximately 450 publications mainly on his key area of mastery, the history and systems of relations between State and Church in the modern and contemporary age, including studies of the relations between State and Church in Italy both at the top level (Gli ultimi governi liberali e la questione romana) and in the local aspects (Le organizzazioni cattoliche genovesi e il fascismo 1922-1939; La Chiesa a Genova negli anni della ricostruzione). He studied the history of ecclesiastical institutions (I sinodi postridentini della provincia ecclesiastica di Genova, vol. II, Studies and indices), the legal status of religious minorities (Normativa ed organizzazione delle minoranze confessionali in Italia; Principio pattizio e realtà religiose minoritarie, Le minoranze religiose in Italia), also addressing various aspects of ecclesiastical policy (Il fenomeno religioso nella trasformazione dell’ordinamento giuridico, vol. I). He also edited the volumes Dall’età giolittiana ai nostri giorni, in the series entitled The Religious factor and political community by the publishing house Giuffrè, including: Idee e programmi della DC nella Resistenza; Il nuovo volto del diritto ecclesiastico italiano; Giuristi liguri dell’Ottocento; La Santa Sede nell’assetto internazionale dopo la grande guerra; Fattore religioso, ordinamenti e identità nazionale nell’Italia che cambia; La costruzione di una scienza per la nuova Italia. Dal diritto canonico al diritto ecclesiastico; Le Società di mutuo soccorso e l’associazionismo solidaristico in Liguria dalla grande guerra all’avvento del fascismo; Mutualismo e solidarietà a Genova. Romolo Palenzona (1897-1963) dalle società operaie cattoliche al sindacato; Teoria e filosofia del diritto in Antonio Falchi (1879-1963).

He coordinated for Liguria the III and IV volume of the "Historical Dictionary of the Catholic Movement in Italy" (Marietti editions) and the C.N.R. research on the Post-Tridentine Synods of the ecclesiastical province of Genoa. Also for the C.N.R. he directed the investigations which resulted in the volumes Fascismo e minoranze religiose in Italia; Le origini della Costituzione italiana. I documenti programmatici dei cattolici; Felicità e libertà: esperienze e diritti. Dalla rivoluzione francese e americana alla problematica attuale delle società civile e religiosa and, finally, the Legal Observatory of Religious Minorities in Italy. His last publications were his work on the Genoese pontiff, Giacomo Della Chiesa. Un pontefice genovese capace di guardare lontano (2022). and the chapter edited by Paolo Zanini for the Brill Global History of Italian Protestantism (posthumously published in 2025). His long academic life and intense productivity was marked by 'an authentically and positively secular vision' for Italy which respected the roles of religion and civil society in their respective depths and individualities:

undoubtedly no one can deny the relationship between the Christian faith and national aspiration, just as no one can deny the fact that the contemporary history of relations between State and Church constitutes a considerable part of the history of the Italian State and, above all, a part that cannot be ignored without losing one's sense of direction. (quoted in Benzo)

... In the analysis of events of the 20th century, the warning against the dangers of authoritarianism and the sense of a common responsibility of all generations in working to prevent tragedies like the Shoah and the other dramas witnessed by the "short century but with a long war (1914-1945)" always emerge clearly. Despite his typical understated approach, which led him not to define himself as a full-fledged historian, he left us a fundamental lesson on the role of history, which, precisely because it is too often taken for granted, we tend to forget. Knowledge and understanding of history – in its entirety and not read through partisan lenses – are indispensable prerequisites for building the future with the necessary awareness and responsibility. (Benzo)

Outside the Academy, Varnier was a longstanding member of the Rotary Club of Genoa (President, 2013-2014),  by which he was remembered as a man who, though externally austere, was a person of great culture and profound humanity, always available to others, and generous with advice and help. 'He had the essential eloquence typical of a Genoese, dry, frank, and direct. He never used a word more than strictly necessary, and his choice of terms was always deliberate and well-considered.' (Benzo). His love for his native Genoa and Liguria acted as a substratum for all his work, the regional history of which acted as 'indispensable elements for understanding the dynamics and events of wider scope and better documented, of which these "stories" constituted often a preview or completion, like threads of a single plot.' (Benzo)

After a protracted illness in which 'despite the growing burden of the illness, he ...always lived with great dignity and Christian acceptance' (Benzo), Varnier passed away in Genoa on 6 June 2022.

Sources

Benzo, A., Ricordo di Giovanni Battista Varnier, Diritto e Religioni (1. 2022), reproduced at https://rotarygenova.it/images/Ricordo_di_Giovanni_B.VarnierA.Benzo-Estratto_Diritto_e_Religioni.pdf

Tira, A., Un ricordo di Giovanni Battista Varnier dalla lettura dei suoi ultimi scritti, Diritto e Religioni, 1 Dec 2022, https://hdl.handle.net/10446/240269, accessed 8 May 2024.

Varnier, G. B. Curriculum Vitae, https://giurisprudenza.unige.it/sites/giurisprudenza.unige.it/files/pagine/CV_Varnier_2017.pdf.