GAVAZZI

Gavazzi lived a turbulent life, arousing strong passions among the crowds he addressed. In 1847 he hastened to Rome to see Pius IX, who had given hopes of liberal reforms. Pius IX employed him as a chaplain in the North during the struggle with Austria, which he turned into a crusade. On one occasion 40,000 people came to hear him. Gavazzi's aims were not simply political, nor simply 'protestant', but a powerful combination, and a desire to return to Scriptural authority. After attacking the temporal power of the Church, in 1849 he fled to London on an American passport and a French safe conduct, and after initial privations travelled much in England, Scotland and North America. In the 1860s he was back in Italy. In 1870 an assembly at Milan voted the union of all the Italian Free Churches, but this did not materialize. His own Free Church united with the Methodists in 1905.