BALDASSARRI, DOMENICO ANTONIO. - Theologian of the Conventual Minors, b. at Osimo in 1713, d. at Montegiorgio on 8 Jan. 1791. His theological work chiefly concerns questions of grace, on which he polemicized against Tamburini and other theologians of the time, defending, in accordance with St. Augustine, the absolute gratuity of grace together with human freedom. A keen and prolific theologian, he wrote: De restituenda divinae Gratiae idea, epistolae 26, 2 vols., Venice 1777 ff.; Dissertatio de Gratia...; a large manuscript work in 4 vols.: S. Aurelii Augustini... de Auxilii divinae gratiae... He returned to the subject in ascetical writings.
Also worthy of note are the Epistola apologetica pro Patribus Sextae Synodi (a. 680-81) against the bishop of Feltre G.B. Baroli (Foligno 1756), and the four biblical dissertations: De omnium hominum primo, De virtute arboris vitae, De antidiluvianorum hominum cibo, De universalitate diluvii (translated into Italian by D. P. Rotti, Venice 1758).