Francesco Mari (M / Italy, 1873-1934), scholar
Francesco Mari (1873-1934) was an Italian scholar, a Catholic priest, accused of Modernism. Francesco Mari was born at Nocera Umbra [Italy] in 1873. At the beginning of the twentieth century he was the most promising Italian scholars in the field of Second Temple Judaism. A Catholic priest, he was sent to Rome as a writer at the Vatican Library, to complete his studies. At Rome he had the support of Card. Respighi and father Giovanni Genocchi, and collaborated to the journals Studi Religiosi and Rivista Storico-Critica delle Scienze Teologiche. He fell victim of the anti-Modernist reaction within the Catholic Church. After leaving the teaching of Scripture in 1908, in 1910 he was forced to quit his studies in antiquity, and sent back to his diocese as a teacher in an elementary school at Mosciano, a remote mountain village. There he made a name for himself in the field of education and pedagogy, but was never allowed to resume his interests in ancient Judaism. Mari died at Nocera Umbra [Italy] in 1934.