Carlo Crespi Croci (29 May 1891 – 30 April 1982) was an Italian

Salesian The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (), is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1859 by the Italian priest John Bosco to help poor and migrant youth during the ...

priest, anthropologist, and filmmaker. He lived for over sixty years as a

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

in Ecuador.

Biography

Carlo Crespi was the third of thirteen children born to Daniele Crespi, a peasant, and his wife Luisa Croci. In 1907, he began his

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

Foglizzo Foglizzo is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin. It is part of the Canavese historical region. Foglizzo borders the following municipalities: San Giorgio ...

and between 1909 and 1911 he studied philosophy in Valsalice, where he met priest

Renato Ziggiotti Renato Ziggiotti (9 October 1892 – 19 April 1983) was a Roman Catholic priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who was the fifth Rector Major of the Salesians, Rector Major of that order, serving between 1952 and 1965. Before becoming a Sales ...

, who would live to become the successor of

John Bosco John Melchior Bosco, Salesians of Don Bosco, SDB (; ; 16 August 181531 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco or Dom Bosco (International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ), was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer. While working in Tu ...

. On Sunday, 28 January 1917, Crespi was ordained priest. In 1921, Crespi graduated in natural sciences, specializing in

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

, at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

. He defended a thesis entitled "''Contribution to the knowledge of fresh water fauna in the region of Este and neighboring locations. Swamps, channels, pits, sources of Euganei, of lakes from Arquà and Venda.''" Three months later, he graduated in piano and composition in the Cesare Pollini conservatory, located in the same city. During his time in Ecuador, he lived with the

Shuar The Shuar, also known as Jivaro, are an indigenous ethnic group that inhabits the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazonia. They are famous for their hunting skills and their tradition of head shrinking, known as Tzantsa. The Shuar language belongs to ...

people of the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

. In addition to his religious work, he dedicated himself to education, cinema, anthropology, and archaeology. He was one of the first to investigate the

Cueva de los Tayos Cueva de los Tayos (Spanish, "Cave of the Oilbirds") is a cave located on the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains in the Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador. It owes its name to being the home of the native nocturnal birds called tayos (''Steat ...

. He was one of the forerunners of Ecuadorian cinema with his documentary ''The invincible Shuaras of High Amazonas'' (1926). Its images were recovered and stored years after the footage was taken. During his missionary life, he collected a number of archaeological artifacts, with which he intended to form a museum. After some thefts, in 1978, with his assent, it was decided that works with a certain value would be bought because of a debt with the

Central Bank of Ecuador The Central Bank of Ecuador (; BCE) is the central bank of the country, and an institution of the Executive Function, which has institutional, administrative, financial, and technical autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, poli ...

. Over five thousand objects with archaeological value and character were inventoried and sold, as well as a smaller number of objects of sculptural or ethnographic aspect. Some of them were

out-of-place artifact An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt or oopart) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest to someone that is claimed to have been found in an unusual context, which someone claims to challenge conventional historica ...

s that some assumed to have been created before the

Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeva ...

, around which interest and debate already had developed. When interviewed, Crespi always declared that all elements in his museum were donated to him by the Shuar, who in turn took them from the Cueva de los Tayos. He was mainly active in Cuenca, where he founded numerous schools and educational institutes, as well as eateries and laboratories dedicated to poor children. In 1940, he founded the Faculty of Education and was its first dean. He was proclaimed "Cuenca's most illustrious citizen in the 20th century". His memory was immortalized in the names of several institutions and places such as a street and a square where a statue representing him with a child stands.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crespi, Carlo Croci 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests Salesians of Don Bosco Italian documentary filmmakers Italian anthropologists 1891 births 1982 deaths People from Legnano