Michael Ribotta – Hero or villain: Don Bosco as seen in the press of his time

One spring day in 1860 Don Bosco was startled by a newsvendor’s cry. “Read all about it! Don Bosco in jail!” He was both amused and bemused.

Several of the passersby who also heard the newsboy’s shouts and who recognized Don Bosco in the street, stopped short.

The papers were selling briskly. Never one to be ruffled, he sent his walking companion, John Guarino, to buy two copies of La Perseveranza to learn who had so summarily incarcerated
him.

Contents:

• Piedmont and Early Press Censorship
• The Disillusioned Journalist
• The Gazzetta del Popolo, the Anticlericals’ Battering Ram
• Turin’s “Humorous” Papers to the Attack
• Death Comes for Don Bosco: Hero to Some, Villain to Others
• The Priest, First Victim of Risorgimento Anticlericalis

Reference time period: 1848 – 1888

Reference institution:
Institute of Salesian Studies