Manuel Alberti

Manuel Maximiliano Alberti (Buenos Aires, May 28, 1763 - ibid, January 31, 1811) was a priest from Buenos Aires, at the time when the current Argentine city was part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. He was part of the Primera Junta that replaced the Spanish authorities after the May Revolution.

Biography

Manuel Alberti was born in Buenos Aires on May 28, 1763, his parents were Antonio Alberti Fulle, a native of the municipality of Garrezzi or Guerrechi (northwestern Italy) and the Porteña Juana Agustina Marín Pérez de Velasco, who donated in 1795 to the Immaculate Conception Parish, the site of the streets United States, Lima, Salta and Avda. Independencia to María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa (Blessed María Antonia de San José or Mama Antula) for the construction of the Holy House of Spiritual Exercises San Ignacio of Loyola.

Copy of baptismal record. Buenos Aires City. Immaculate Parish Conception.Baptisms 1737-1770. Foja 122

He studied theology at the University of Córdoba, shortly after completing his initial studies at the Royal College of San Carlos (Manzana de las Luces), obtaining a doctorate in Theology and Canons on July 16, 1785. He was ordained a priest in the year following and destined for the Parish of the Conception or Parish of the Immaculate Conception (Avenida Independencia 910, Buenos Aires neighborhood of Constitución) the same where he had been baptized.

He was lieutenant priest of the city of Concepción del Uruguay for about three years, and in 1790 he was appointed priest and interim vicar of the Magdalena district. He directed the House of Spiritual Exercises in Buenos Aires, where he was considered a "well placed, disinterested, charitable" ecclesiastic by his superiors, on that paternal site donated by his parents to the Church.

He was appointed as parish priest of the city of Maldonado, in the Banda Oriental, officiating over two hundred celebrations. He was imprisoned during the English Invasions, accused of maintaining epistolary contact with heads of the Spanish troops. He was released by the patriot armies after the English defeat, after which he returned to his duties.

He returned to Buenos Aires in 1808 and took charge of the recently created Parish of San Benito de Palermo. In 1810 he joined the political movements that led to the May Revolution. In this sense, he participated in the Cabildo Abierto on May 22, where he voted for the immediate dismissal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros.

He was elected a member of the Primera Junta, presumably as a member of the party of its president, Cornelio Saavedra. However, he especially supported Mariano Moreno and his reformist proposals. Due to his priestly character, he voted against the execution of Santiago de Liniers ―after his capture after the suppression of the Córdoba Counterrevolution― ordered by the First Meeting. The execution was promoted by the Morenista sector, and signed by all the members of the Junta, except Alberti himself.

He was also editor of the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, even after Moreno's departure from that publication. From there he supported all the measures of the Junta, with the exception of the firing squad of Liniers, mentioned above.

Alberti voted ―like all the members of the Board― in favor of the incorporation of the deputies from the interior, which led to the transformation of the First Board into the Big Board. In said vote he distanced himself from Moreno, who opposed said incorporation. Even so, he made it clear that he supported the proposal solely for political expediency.

He was the first of the members of the Board to die, on January 31, 1811, due to a cardiac syncope, for which Dr. Miguel Mariano de Villegas, as Trustee of the Cabildo, proposed to the Big Board that fill your vacancy.

Commemoration

Statue of Manuel Alberti in the homonymous square in Buenos Aires.

Nothing is known about the fate of his body after his death, except that he had been buried in the first building that the church of San Nicolás had, which was located on the site currently occupied by the Obelisk of Buenos Aires, and which was destroyed in 1936 to build the Avenida 9 de Julio.

In 1822, the government of the city of Buenos Aires arranged to name a street in the city after him, while in June 1910 a statue was carved in his honor in the Belgrano ravines. The town of Manuel Alberti, in the province of Buenos Aires, is also named in that way in his homage. On July 13, 2018, a Monolith was inaugurated in memory of the Presbítero in the Plaza Libertador San Martín in the town of Manuel Alberti (Partido del Pilar) that contains soil from the place where he was buried until 1936 (current Obelisk Porteño) after an excavation Made by the journalist, writer, historian and TV host José Cuello with the permission of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. The monolith was declared of municipal interest with file number 4089 - 007423/2018 Resolution 1182-18 of the Partido del Pilar.