Born in Fermo on March 19, 1819.
Died in Pisa on March 18, 1892.
Giovanni Battista Crollalanza was born in Fermo in the Marche region, where his father Pietro, who had married Eufrosina Ricci, had moved from Chiavenna following the events of the late 700th century. Addressing the study of history, Giovanni Battista taught it in various Italian institutes. In Carpi he founded the Prince Umberto College, later becoming director of the National College of Imola. In Fermo he founded the «Giornale araldico» in 1874, in Pisa in 1875 «Accademia araldica», in 1879 «Annuario della nobiltà italiana».
Don Guanella, a young curate from Savogno, used the Storia del contado di Chiavenna to give lectures on the history of Prosto to his "docile" parishioners who attended the winter school.
Written:
In addition to the aforementioned and better-known Storia del contado di Chiavenna, published in Milan by Serafino Muggiani in 1867 and also released in installments, by the Giovanni Ogna typography of Chiavenna in 1898, which has remained until today in various respects a «valid organic synthesis of the valchiavennasca», Giovanni Battista Crollalanza is responsible for a dozen works of historical-genealogical, heraldic and biographical subjects, including «I conti Balbiani di Chiavenna and their branches», five volumes of military history, three of poems, two of popular songs , then tragedies, studies in French grammar and literature, a contemporary encyclopedia and a journal of philology. There are also some unpublished historical and genealogical works. One, «Historical information on the churches, collegiates, brotherhoods, religious and hospital orders of the Chiavenna countryside» (1864) is in the Laurentian Chapter Library of Chiavenna.
Sources:
BATTISTA LEONI, My province, Sondrio, Banca Popolare di Sondrio, 1978.
Guanellian sources:
LUIGI GUANELLA, The ways of Providence. Autobiographical Memoirs, Rome, New Frontiers, 1988 (popular edition), p. 38.
Photographs:
"Nobility. Journal of Heraldry, Genealogy, Knightly Orders», September-October 2003, p. 382.