Born in Borgomanero (Novara) on 23 September 1852.
Died in Rome on January 21, 1935.
Ordained priest for the diocese of Novara in 1879, he was appointed director of the diocesan seminary and teacher of natural sciences. He entered the Institute of Charity in 1889 and in 1901 he was appointed Provost General of the Rosminians, a position he held until his death. In the thirty-four years of his government, despite the difficulties associated with the posthumous decree condemning Rosmini's propositions and the Great War, he brought the institute to a moderate development, tirelessly asked for justice for Antonio Rosmini and obtained the assignment from Pius X, in September 1906, of the important and very popular church of S. Carlo al Corso, which was the seat, until 1939, of the general curia of the Rosminians.
Although it is not yet documented, it is probable that Father Balsari met Don Guanella in the *church of S. Carlo al Corso, where he often went during his stays in Rome and where he was present, for example, on the occasion of the *inauguration of the monument to Msgr. *Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, in November 1912. Years later in fact, in March 1920, addressing the Servants of Charity to report three pitiful cases in need of assistance (a war orphan, an unemployed man and a boy suffering from congenital idiocy ), Father Balsari based his hope of obtaining a positive response from «the knowledge I have of the beneficial charity of their congregation and of its most reverend superior Monsignor Bacciarini, and having also known the revered founder Don Luigi».
Sources:
«Bulletin of the Roman clergy», 1935, p. 32.
DOMENICO MARIANI, Rosminian Superiors and Bishops, Stresa, Edizioni Rosminiane Sodalitas, 2003, pp. 61-73.
Guanellian sources:
Epistolario «Guanelliano» by Aurelio Bacciarini, edited by Alejandro Dieguez, vol. II (1917-1935), Rome, New Frontiers Publishing, 2000, pp. 41, 142-144 (the surname is erroneously reported as Balzari).
Photographs:
Historical Archive of the Institute of Charity (courtesy of Father Domenico Mariani).