ALFONSO OF ZAMORA. - Converted rabbi, b. at Zamora in 1474, baptized in 1506, d. in 1531. He was the first professor of Hebrew at the University of Salamanca. He worked for 15 years on the Complutensian Polyglot, Cardinal Ximenes having entrusted him with the correction of the Hebrew text and the Latin translation of the Targum.
He produced the entire 6th vol. of the Polyglot (1515), containing a Hebrew-Aramaic vocabulary and a Hebrew grammar. He then published, again in Latin, a new Hebrew grammar with a lexicon (Alcalá 1526), adding to it a Catalogus iudicum, regum et sacerdotum atque prophetarum Veteris Legis and an Epistola auctoris ad infideles Hebraeos urbis Romae (in which he demonstrates the coming of the Messiah). The Escorial preserves manuscripts by A. in Castilian: Libro de la Sabiduría de Dios (against the Jews), a third Hebrew grammar, and the translation of Kimchi's commentary on the first 59 Psalms.
Bibliography2 works
Antonino Romeo
ALFONSO MARIA de' LIGUORI, saint, doctor of the Church.
1. BIOGRAPHY
B. at Marianella, near Naples, on 27 Sept. 1696, to don Giuseppe de' Liguori, captain of the royal galleys, and donna Anna Cavalieri, of the marquises d'Avenia; d. at Pagani on 1 Aug. 1787. Having completed at home his courses in letters and sciences, in which music and the arts also had their part, in 1708 he enrolled at the University of Naples, after having been examined in rhetoric by G. B. Vico. There he studied civil and canon law, graduating in law on 21 Jan. 1713, with a dispensation of about 4 years from the required age. He completed his precocious formation under the guidance of Perrone and Jovene, celebrated jurists, at the same time frequenting the circle of the president of the High Council Domenico Caravita, a kind of evening academy, where historians and philosophers of law such as Costantino Grimaldi, Gaetano Argento and Pietro Giannone, the principal architects of Neapolitan jurisdictionalism, gathered.
In 1715 he joined the pious union of the Doctors, directed by the Fathers of the Oratory, edifying young and old magistrates by his conduct. In the same year he began the practice of law, and, as appears from the Catalogo delle sentenze, he was always successful in his defenses. For his rare gifts in 1718 he was elected judge of the royal Portulano of Naples and in 1722 ambassador of the new viceroy Cardinal Altan. The following year the duke of Gravina entrusted him with a very important case against the grand duke of Tuscany. Despite his severe diligence, made more acute by the exceptional nature of the feudal lawsuit, the brilliant lawyer suffered a bitter defeat because of a clause not duly considered. He believed his fame annihilated and his future destroyed, and, taking up a resolve of his early youth, as is indicated in his unpublished Diario, after some months he decided to put on the ecclesiastical habit. Having overcome his father's opposition and having offered to the Madonna in the Church of the Mercede his little sword of Knight of the Sedile di Portanova, he renounced his right of primogeniture and undertook the study of theology with the most learned mons. Giulio Torni, participating assiduously in dogmatic and moral discussions at the house of mons. Guerriero and the Lazarist fathers.
On 21 Dec. 1726, ordained a priest, he immediately began his ministry among the common people of the poorest districts, paying no heed to the prejudices of the patriciate, from which he descended. Availing himself also of the help of laymen, he instituted chiefly for the street boys (lazzaroni) the "Cappelle serotine," which became a school of civil and moral re-education. As a member of the Apostolic missions he went to the Vesuvian towns, the Apennines and the Puglie, proclaiming with simplicity the eternal truths to the popular masses. From that moment the thought of the salvation of the most abandoned souls acted in him as a predominant element.
A series of providential encounters, among them those of the venerable sister M. Celeste Crostarosa (v.) and of mons.
JURAMENTI
PROFESSIONIS FIDEI
A' Cathedralibus, & Superioribus Ecclesiis, vel beneficiis
curam Animarum habentibus, & locis Regularium,
ac Militiarum predictendis, obferoanda.
GO Alphonso Maria de' Liguri. S. Agnès
Gallagher
firma fide credo, & proficeo omnia, & singula,
que continentur in Symbolo fidei, quo sancta
itomans Ecclesia utitur, videlicet; Credo in-unum DEUM. Patrem omnipotentem facto-
(phot. Curia 3ra, pp. Redentoristi, Roma)