Fr. Gianfranceschi: a Jesuit at the North Pole

Among the last unexplored parts of the earth at the beginning of the 20th century was the North Pole. Few people know that a Jesuit also took part in one of the polar expeditions.

Umberto Nobile, protagonist of the famous 1928 expedition to the Pole that we are discussing today, had already organised an initial exploration two years earlier, deciding to return for a scientific mission.

That journey, which went down in history as the Red Tent Expedition, was to have a very dramatic outcome.

Among the members of that expedition was a Jesuit: Fr Giuseppe Gianfranceschi, the photos accompanying today’s in-depth study are preserved in his personal file.

Why was a Jesuit among the members of the expedition? Fr Gianfranceschi, who was born on 21 February 1875 in Arcevia and entered the Society of Jesus on 12 November 1896, had been a lecturer in mathematics and science at the Maximilian Maximus Institute and a professor of physics, chemistry and astronomy at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In 1926, he had been appointed Rector of the Gregorian and was involved in the expedition as chaplain and scholar, having received the blessing of the Fr General and the Pontiff.

We know the chronology of events from Lorenzo Rocci’s diary, although it is a well-known episode, which we will go over again.

Rocci recounts that on 10 April 1928, a month after taking part in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Angelo Secchi’s death held at the Gregorian, Fr Gianfranceschi left for Milan to take part in the expedition.

Rocci returns to mention the expedition, having to note the dramatic news, a month later:

“On the 25th Nobile has misfortune in the airship, returning to the Baia del Re, after having put the cross is the flag on the pole: everyone’s grief: great search. 27.D ad int. dantis. (…)”

During the first part of the mission, the group on board the airship managed to throw a crucifix blessed by the Pope and the Italian flag onto the ice; on the return journey, however, the airship crashed on the ice. Part of the crew, thrown onto the ice, suffered injuries such as Nobile himself, and part was lost. The survivors lived several weeks inside the red tent, for which this expedition is known.

P. Gianfranceschi was not on board the airship, however, as Rocci tells us, on 10 June 1928.

The crew was able to radio in as best they could from the drifting ice, and Svalbard: help flowed to the wretches, but slowly, through the frozen seas: Nobile described the misfortune: Fr Gianfranceschi was in the ship, escorting, “Città di Milano”, to the King’s Bay. Everyone rejoiced to know that they lived. Prayers were said all over Italy: great triduum to Jesus.

P. Gianfranceschi therefore remained in the ‘base’ ship and took part in the anxieties and long and difficult rescue operations. During those months he kept a diary, now preserved in the historical archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University and recently published ‘Diary to the North Pole’.

Thanks to this source, it is possible to retrace the various stages of the expedition.

The missing persons on board the airship were never found.

P. Gianfrancheschi died in 1934, in Rome.

Maria Macchi