Caesar Baronius
Sora, Duchy of Sora | |
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Died | 30 June 1607 Rome, Papal States | (aged 68)
Buried | Santa Maria in Vallicella |
Styles of Caesar Baronius | ||
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Reference style His Eminence | | |
Spoken style | Your Eminence | |
Informal style | Cardinal |
Cesare Baronio,
Life
Cesare Baronio was born in the Duchy of Sora (present day Sora in Italy) on 31 October 1538, the only child of Camillo Baronio and his wife Porzia Febonia. His family was of Neapolitan origin.[1]
Baronio was educated at
Contacts with such illustrious
Neri directed Baronius to focus his attention on the study and explanation of Church History. Baronius spent the next few years balancing his studies, lectures, and continued involvement in apostolic work. In 1588, he began to publish the Annales.[4] He succeeded Philip Neri as superior of the Roman Oratory in 1593.[5]
Pope Clement VIII, whose confessor he was from 1594, made him a cardinale on 5 June 1596 and also appointed him to head the Vatican Library.[5] Baronio was given the red hat on 8 June and on 21 June was assigned the title of Cardinal Priest of Santi Nereo e Achilleo. Baronio restored this titular church and in 1597 a procession was held to transfer there a number of relics.[6] In the garden to the left of the Church of San Gregorio Magno al Celio, Baronius commissioned three oratories to commemorate Gregory's original monastery.[citation needed]
At subsequent
Baronio's last days were spent in the Oratory at Santa Maria in Vallicella. He found solace in the humble surroundings of the Oratory and in the company of his fellow religious. There he died on 30 June 1607, and was buried in that same church. He was named "Venerable", an honor to which Pope Benedict XIV elevated him in 1745.[4]
Works
Baronio is best known for his Annales Ecclesiastici. It was after almost three decades of lecturing at Santa Maria in Vallicella that he was asked by Philip Neri to tackle this work, as an answer to a polemical anti-Catholic historical work, the Magdeburg Centuries.[5] Baronio was at first unwilling that the task should be given to him and tried to persuade Neri to entrust the work to Onofrio Panvinio, who was already working on a history of the Church. After repeated commands from Neri, however, Baronius changed his mind and spent the rest of his life devoted to this enormous task.
In the Annales, he treats history in strict chronological order and keeps theology in the background.[5] Lord Acton called it "the greatest history of the Church ever written".[7] In the Annales, Baronio coined the term "Dark Age" in the Latin form saeculum obscurum,[8] to refer to the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first inklings of the Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046.
Notwithstanding its errors, especially in
Baronio also undertook a new edition of the
At the time of the Venetian Interdict, Baronio published a pamphlet, Paraenesis ad rempublicam Venetam (1606). It took a stringent papalist line on the crisis.[10] It was answered in the same year by the Antiparaenesis ad Caesarem Baronium of Nicolò Crasso.[11]
Biographies
A Latin biography of Baronio by the oratorian Hieronymus Barnabeus (Girolamo Barnabeo or Barnabò) appeared in 1651 as Vita Caesaris Baronii.[12] Another Oratorian, Raymundus Albericus (Raimondo Alberici), edited three volumes of Baronio's correspondence from 1759.[13] There are other biographies by Amabel Kerr (1898),[14] and by Generoso Calenzio (La vita e gli scritti del cardinale Cesare Baronio, Rome 1907).[15] The works of Mario Borrelli also contributed to the biographia of Baronius.
Beatification
Baronio left a reputation for sanctity, which led Pope Benedict XIV to approve the introductions of his cause for canonization; Baronio was proclaimed "Venerable" on 12 January 1745.[1]
In 2007, on the 400th anniversary of his death, a petition was presented by the Procurator General of the Oratory of St Philip Neri.[16] to reopen the cause for his canonization.
References
- ^ a b c Peterson, John Bertram. "Venerable Cesare Baronius." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Pincherle 1964.
- ^ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Caesar Baronius". Encyclopedia Britannica
- ^ a b "Venerable Caesar Cardinal Baronius, C.O.", Raritan Oratory
- ^ a b c d e f g Taunton 1911.
- ^ Cyriac K. Pullapilly, Caesar Baronius: Counter-Reformation Historian (1975), University of Notre Dame Press, p. 77.
- ^ Lord Acton (1906). Lectures on Modern History, "The Counter-Reformation", p. 121.
- ^ Baronius, Caesar. Annales Ecclesiastici, Vol. X. Roma, 1602, p. 647.
- ^ Cerrato, Edoardo Aldo. "How to go to Heaven, and not how the heavens go"
- ISBN 978-0-520-05221-5. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
- ^ Niccolò Crasso (1606). Antiparaenesis ad Caesarem Baronium Cardinalem pro S. Venetia republica. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
- ^ Hieronymus Barnabeus (1651). Vita Caesaris Baronii ex congregatione Oratorii S.R.E. Presbyteri cardinalis et Apostolicae Sedis bibliothecarii. Casoni. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
- ^ Gaetano Moroni (1846). Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da S. Pietro sino ai nostri giorni ... (in Italian). Tipografia Emiliana. p. 141. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
- ^ Lady Amabel Kerr. The Life of Cesare Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Oratory, London, 1898
- ^ (in Italian) treccani.it, Calenzio, Generoso.
- ^ Zev, Elizabeth. "A Saintly Chef: Cardinal Baronio's Canonization Cause Revived" Archived 2012-03-16 at the Wayback Machine
Sources
- Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. "Il cardinale Cesare Baronio. Nel terzo centenario della sua morte," in La Scuola Cattolica (Monza), XXXVI, 1908, no. 12, pp. 1–29. (Reprinted with preface and notes by Giuseppe De Luca, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma, 1961) Roncalli's episcopal motto 'Obedientia et Pax' was taken from Baronio. [Peter Hebblethwaite JOHN XXIII: POPE OF THE CENTURY 2005 edition, p. 57.]
- OCLC 53276621.
- public domain: Taunton, Ethelred Luke (1911). "Baronius, Caesar". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 424. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Pincherle, Alberto (1964). "BARONIO, Cesare". ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Venerable Cesare Baronius". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.