Giles of Viterbo

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Basilica of Sant'Agostino, Rome
, Italy
NationalityPapal States
ParentsLorenzo Antonini & Maria del Testa

Giles Antonini,

theologian, orator, humanist and poet. He was born in Viterbo and died in Rome
.

Life

He was born to humble parents and his given name is not known; his father was Lorenzo Antonini, of

General Chapters
of the Order: in 1507, 1511 and 1515.

Antonini was a noted preacher, presiding at several papal services at the order of Pope Alexander VI. He also travelled widely, due to his responsibilities as head of the Order. This allowed to be in touch with the leading intellectual figures of the period, with many of whom he formed working collaborations. One friend, Giovanni Pontano, dedicated a work to him, entitled Ægidius.[4]

Antonini is famous in ecclesiastical history for the boldness and earnestness of the discourse which he delivered at the opening of the

Fifth Lateran Council, held in 1512, at the Lateran Palace.[5]

Following this service to his Order, Antonini was elevated to the rank of

Latin Patriarch of Constantinople.[4]

Antonini's zeal for the genuine reformation of conditions in the Catholic Church prompted him to present Pope Adrian VI with a Promemoria.[6] He was universally esteemed as a learned and virtuous member of the great pontifical senate and many deemed him destined to succeed Pope Clement VII.

When the riotous soldiers of Charles V sacked Rome in 1527, Antonini's extensive library was destroyed. He spent the next year living in exile in Padua. In 1530 he requested the transfer of his titular church to that of the Church of San Marcello al Corso.[4]

Antonini died in Rome and was buried in the

Basilica of Sant'Agostino.[4]

Christian Cabalist

Antonini knew

Johannes Reuchlin.[7]

In Jewish history, Antonini is coupled with the

Elias Levita, who honed his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. When the turmoil of war drove Levita from Padua
to Rome, he was welcomed at the palace of the bishop, where, with his family, he lived and was supported for more than ten years. It was there that Levita's career as the foremost tutor of Christian notables in Hebrew lore commenced. The first edition of Levita's Baḥur (Rome, 1518) is dedicated to Aegidius. Aegidius introduced Levita to classical scholarship and the Greek language, thus enabling him to utilize Greek in his Hebrew lexicographic labours – a debt acknowledged by Levita, who, in 1521, dedicated his Concordance to the cardinal.

Antonini's main motive was to penetrate the mysteries of the

Pico della Mirandola also were prominent, who believed that Jewish mysticism, and particularly the Zohar, contained incontrovertible testimony to the truth of the Christian religion. In the course of Reuchlin's conflict with the obscurantists (1507–1521), in which the preservation of the Jewish books was at issue, the cardinal wrote (1516) to his friend: "While we labour on thy behalf, we defend not thee, but the law; not the Talmud
, but the Church."

Antonini also engaged another Jewish scholar,

Baruch di Benevento
, to translate for him the Zohar (the mystic Book of Splendor). The scholar last named may also have been partly responsible for the numerous cabalistic translations and treatises which appeared under the name of Ægidius. The cardinal was a collector of Hebrew manuscripts, of which many are still to be seen at the Munich Library, bearing both faint traces of his signature and brief Latin annotations.

In the

Maranos
.

Works

Antonini was a profound student of the

Scriptures and a good scholar in Greek as well as Hebrew. Giovanni Pontano
dedicated to him one of his Dialoghi.

The writings commonly attributed to Antonini are numerous. Most of them are to be found in manuscript form in the

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, but their authenticity is still to be established. Aside from minor works on the Hebrew language, the majority by far are of a cabalistic nature. There is scarcely a classic of Jewish medieval mysticism that he has not translated, annotated, or commented upon. Among these works may be mentioned the Zohar
.

Only a few of Antonini's writings have been printed in the third volume of the Collectio Novissima of

Martène. When urged by Pope Clement VII to publish his works, he is said, by the Augustinian historian, Friar Tomás de Herrera, O.E.S.A., to have replied that he feared to contradict famous and holy men by his exposition of Scripture. The Pope replied that human respect should not deter him; it was quite permissible to preach and write what was contrary to the opinions of others, provided one did not depart from the truth and from the common tradition of the Church.[9]

Antonini's major original work is a historical treatise: Historia viginti sæculorum per totidem psalmos conscripta. It deals in a philosophical-historical way with the history of the world before and after the birth of Christ, is valuable for the history of its own time, and offers a certain analogy with Bossuet's famous Discours sur l'histoire universelle.

The six books of Antonini's important correspondence (1497–1523) concerning the affairs of his Order, much of which is addressed to Friar Gabriel of Venice, his successor as Prior General, are preserved in Rome in the

Church historian of the 19th century, praised particularly the circular letter in which Antonini made known (27 February 1519), his resignation of the office of Prior General of the Augustinian friars.[10]

Other of Antonini's known works are a commentary on the first book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, three Eclogae Sacrae, a dictionary of Hebrew roots, a Libellus de ecclesiae incremento, a Liber dialogorum, and an Informatio pro sedis apostolicae auctoritate contra Lutheranam sectam.

Notes

  1. ^ "His family name was Antonini, not Canisio as it sometimes appears", reports John W. O'Malley, S.J., in Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform (Studies in Renaissance thought, 54, Leiden) 1968:4 note 1.
  2. ^ G.Signorelli, Il cardinale Egidio da Viterbo agostiniano, Firenze, 1929
  3. ^ The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1842), s.v. "Ægidius of Viterbo"
  4. ^ a b c d "Viterbo, O.E.S.A., Egidio da". Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.
  5. Harduin
    's collection of the Councils, vol IX, p.1576.
  6. Munich Academy of Sciences
    , III class, IV, 3 (B) 62-89.
  7. ^ O'Malley 1968.
  8. ^ Daniel S. Kokin, "Entering the Labyrinth: On the Hebraic and Kabbalistic Universe of Egidio da Viterbo", in Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, v.45, 2011:27.
  9. ^ Nat. Alex., Hist. Eccl., saec. XV, 1,5,16; XVII, 354.
  10. ^ Lämmer, Zur Kirchengeschichte des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts', Freiburg, 1863, 64-67

References

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Egidio Colonna". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Aegidius of Viterbo". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  • Signorelli, Giuseppe, Il cardinal Egidio da Viterbo: Agostino, umanista e riformatore (1469-1532) (Florence, 1929).
  • John W. O'Malley, S.J., Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform: A Study in Renaissance Thought. Leiden: Brill, 1968.

External links

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