Priest, writer and benefactor

Born at Colla di Sanremo (now Coldirodi) on 25 December 1803, he spent most of his life in Florence.
He was rector of the seminary for ten years, but his Piedmontese origins and his friendship with Gioberti and Pellico led to his removal from his post when the Austrians occupied his city following the revolutionary uprisings of 1949.

It was only ten years later that the government of Tuscany entrusted him with catechetical instruction in the Liceo, while in 1863 Vittorio Emanuele II gave him an annual pension from the canteen of the Real Basilica di Superga. Throughout his life he worked to build up a very rich collection of paintings, including over five thousand volumes and incunabula, which he bequeathed to the Colla Town Hall in his will, and which still make up the Rambaldi Collection, on display at the Coldirodi Museum.

The collection includes over one hundred valuable paintings, including a Madonna and Child attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, about fifty rare volumes, thirty-one incunabula including Pliny's Naturalis Historia of 1476, a Bible of 1480 and the Historie Romanae by Tito Livio printed in 1470, as well as numerous manuscripts and many volumes on religious subjects.

He died on 5 April 1865.

(source: Marco Mauro)