Palmieri, Aurelio

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PALMIERI, AURELIO

Italian Orientalist; b. Savona, May 4, 1870; d. Rome, Oct. 18, 1926. After joining the augustinians (1885) he transferred to the assumptionists (1890) and then returned to the Augustinians (1902). He resided at the Italian Augustinian Holy Rosary parish in Lawrence, Massachusettes, from 1913 to 1916. During the First World War his knowledge of European languages led to work supported by the American government. Because of his private conduct and erroneous ideas, he fell into difficulties with ecclesiastical authorities and was laicized. During 20 years devoted to Oriental, especially Byzantine, studies, he published 15 scholarly books, notably Die Polemik des Islam (Salzburg 1902), La Chiesa Russa (Florence 1908), Dositeo patriarcha greco di Gerusalemme, 16471707 (Florence 1909), and Theologia dogmatica orthodoxa (2 v. Florence 191113). Besides editing Bessarione, the Italian journal devoted to Byzantine studies, he wrote 130 articles for it between 1896 and 1923. Between 1917 and 1923 he also wrote six articles on the relationship between Italian immigrants and religion in the United States. In some of these articles he elaborated on the question of the "Italian problem" in the Catholic Church in America. Together with his writings for other Italian and foreign periodicals and for the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, the total of his articles exceeded 300. During his last years he headed the Institute for Eastern Europe.

Bibliography: Studi Bizantini 1 (1925): 261269, lists all Palmieri's writings. e. lo gatto, "Bibliografia essenziale degli scritti di A. P.," L'Europe orientale 6 (1926): 519532. d. a. perini, Bibliographia Augustiniana, v. 3 (Florence 1935) 4548. e. c. stabili, "Palmeiro, Aurelio (1870 1925)," in The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, ed. s. j. la gumina, et al. (New York 2000).

[g. a. maloney]