Gioacchino Ventura De Raulica, an Italian pulpit orator, born in Palermo, Dec. 8, 1792, died in Versailles, Aug. 3, 1861. He was educated in the Jesuit college of Palermo, and entered the society of Jesus, but left it to become a Theatine. His first pulpit discourses marked him as one of the greatest orators in Italy. He became general secretary of his order, contributed largely to its restoration, and published La causa dei regolari al tribunate del buon senso. Subsequently he was named censor of the press and member of the royal council of public instruction for the kingdom of Naples, and used his influence to introduce into Italy the new traditionalist philosophy of France. He became especially distinguished for his funeral orations. In 1824 he was appointed general of the order of the Theatines, and fixed his residence at Rome, where he was made a member of a commission of censorship; at the same time he was presented to the chair of ecclesiastical law in the university of Rome,' and soon after made almoner of the same institution. He was prominently employed in diplomatic affairs. In 1828 he published De Methodo Philosophandi, in defence of the scholastic philosophy.

This was bitterly attacked by the abbé Lamennais; and, wearied of the controversies which ensued, Ventura quitfed the pontifical court, and spent ten years in retirement. In 1839 appeared his work Belle bellezze della fede (3 vols. 8vo). During this period also he preached his finest sermons in the church of S. Andrea della Valle and at St. Peter's, and his published homilies fill 5 vols. 8vo. After the death of Gregory XVI. he exerted himself to secure the election of Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, and became one of the private counsellors of the new pope. In 1847 he preached the funeral sermon of CVConnell, the liberal opinions advanced in which gave him great influence with the people. At the beginning of 1848 the popular government of Sicily made him minister plenipotentiary and commissioner extraordinary to the court of Rome. He published a treatise "On the Independence of Sicily," another "On the Legitimacy of the Acts of the Sicilian Parliament," and subsequently an octavo volume entitled Mensonges diplomatiques. He also labored with Gioberti and Rosmini to effect a commercial union of the Italian states as a first step toward a political confederacy.

On May 4,1849, he retired under the protection of the French to Civita Vecchia, and afterward to Montpellier in France. There he wrote "Letters to a Protestant Minister" (12mo, 1849), in answer to a clergyman of Geneva, who maintained that St. Peter had never been in Rome. After remaining two years at Montpellier he went to Paris, where he drew crowds to the churches of the Madeleine and St. Louis d'Antin. He published there Histoire de Virginie Bruni (12mo, 1850); Les femmes de Enangile (12mo, 1852); La raison philosophique et la raison catholique (8vo, 1852); Essai sur l'origine des idees (8vo, 1853); La femme catholique (3 vols. 8vo, 1854); L'ecole des miracles, ou les oeuvres de la puissance et de la grandeur de Jesus-Christ (2 vols. 18mo, 1854-'5); and Le pouvoir chretien (8vo, 1857).