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CHAPTER 41
Italian Journalists
By Antonio Lluberes, S.J.
Professor at the Intec-Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo University,
St. Thomas de Aquino Seminary and Instituto Filosófico Bonó.
Director of the Instituto Filosófico Bonó
•
he Italian migration to Santo Domingo became apparent in the early nineteenth century with the
arrival of Napoleonic troops on the island in 1802. Napoleon sent the expedition in an attempt to
subdue slave uprisings in Haiti, which was already under French control, and enforce the conces-
sions of the Treaty of Basel of 1795, by which Spain agreed to cede the entirety of the island to
France. The expedition brought along Italian soldiers.
Juan Antonio Billini Ruse
(1787–1852), from the town of Alba in the Piedmont region, is the first Italian
on record in Santo Domingo at this time.
1
He was a businessman who resided in Santo Domingo and fathered
a family of fifteen children. The many descendants of this family tree assimilated into Dominican society and
have taken part in its patriotic and political struggles and its religious, academic, and journalistic activities. Bil-
lini Ruse had four children with his first wife, Juana San Carlena de Mota Arvelo. When she died, he married
Ana Joaquina Hernández González, who was born in Cuba to Dominican parents. Together they had eleven
children. Three of his sons, Epifanio and Hipólito Billini Hernández and José Billini Mota, were signers of La
Trinitaria’s manifesto for independence of January 1844, and two of them, Miguel and Francisco Xavier Billini
Hernández, were priests. Diocesan priest Francisco Xavier was the most prominent of the children.
2
Francisco Xavier
(1837–1890) was born in Santo Domingo on December 1, 1837. From a very young age,
he was interested in pursuing religious life. He was ordained a priest in 1861. A supporter of the annexation
of the Dominican Republic by Spain, he departed for Cuba in 1865 when the defeated Spaniards abandoned
Dominican territory. He left Cuba for the island of Saint Thomas, then returned to Santo Domingo on August
1, 1866. During that time, he devoted himself to his priestly commitments, charitable work, and teaching. He
founded Colegio San Luis Gonzaga, which he also directed, in 1866, as well as a hospital, asylum, lazaretto,
and lottery to support his work.
He established several newspapers, including
La Crónica
and
El Amigo de los Niños
, and a public library.
He also had a small printing press for his publications, which included several devotional and educational
booklets.
3
The second generation of
Billinis
produced two of the most talented journalists of the second half of
the nineteenth century, the brothers Francisco Gregorio and Hipólito Billini Aristi, sons of Hipólito Billini
Hernández and María de Regla Aristi.
Francisco Gregorio, affectionately known as Gollito, was born in Santo Domingo in 1844 and died there
in 1898. He completed primary and secondary school in his hometown at Colegio del Padre Boneau, where
he learned to write in Latin and Italian. He then attended Santo Tomás de Aquino Conciliar Seminary, where
Fr. Fernando Arturo de Meriño became his mentor. He was a Blue Party activist who fought for independ-