Seventy-five years ago, on January 25, 1948, Pastor Giovanni Luzzi, one of the most important Reformed theologians of the 20th century, died in Poschiavo, Switzerland. He translated the Bible into Italian and Romansh and was a pioneer in the ecumenical field.
An exhibition will be dedicated to his figure and work in the Pro Grigioni Italiano Gallery in Poschiavo, opening on March 4. On display will be books, letters, manuscripts, and some objects that belonged to the theologian, from the recently catalogued 'Fondo Luzzi', deposited in the archives of the Reformed Church in Poschiavo.
Giovanni Luzzi was born in Tschlin in the Engadine, in 1856, and devoted much of his life to the translation of the Bible. First, he chaired a committee to revise the old Italian translation by Giovanni Diodati, dating back to the first half of the 17th century. Then, he devoted himself to a new translation of the Bible into Italian, which was published in twelve volumes, first by Sansoni, then by Fides et Amor, between 1920 and 1930.
Persuaded of the need to spread the Bible as widely as possible, beyond all confessional fences, in order to raise the moral and civil level of Italy, he distributed more than 40,000 copies of his edition of the New Testament among the soldiers at the front, during the First World War. The text was also appreciated and requested by hundreds of Catholic chaplains and priests accompanying the troops. Luzzi's enthusiasm was not dampened even by the warning issued by the Vatican Congregation of the Holy Office, in April 1925, against his translation, guilty of being the result of the work of a 'non-Catholic' and therefore, for every Catholic, forbidden.
On March 10, in the Reformed Lecture Hall in Poschiavo, a dinner conference will provide an insight into the fascinating personality of Giovanni Luzzi on board the ocean liner "Rotterdam", on which the theologian travelled to America, where he met, among others, US President William Taft and presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson, in the autumn of 1912.
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