BARONIUS, Caesar, Venerable. - Cardinal and distinguished historian, b. at Sora, 30 Oct. 1538, began his studies at Veroli, continued them at Naples on 29 Oct. 1556, enrolling in the faculty of Law, and continued them at Rome in 1557, enrolling at the Sapienza.
The spiritual movement of St. Philip Neri was already flourishing at that time, with its center in the church of S. Girolamo della Carità, in the Regola district. The B. [Baronio] entered decisively into this movement, and such a fact had capital importance in his life, since it determined his vocation and his scholarly career, and assured his success, under the prestige and high counsel of St. Philip.
A year later, in 1558, at the insistence of St. Philip himself, who had intuited his great abilities, B. began to narrate, though reluctant at first, the history of the Church, in the small room of the church of S. Girolamo itself, which still preserves the original name of oratory, a cenacle of a group of intellectuals and men of spirit. Such a narration was the seed of the Annales Ecclesiastici, begun and grown in the living unfolding of the spoken word.
While he practiced a wholly ascetic life of prayers and works of charity, he entered the sacred orders in 1560. To placate his father, indignant at his ecclesiastical vocation, he received his doctorate in utroque on 20 May 1561 and was ordained a priest on 27 May 1564. Continuing with constancy, for years, the narration of ecclesiastical history, with an ever broader design and an ever greater wealth of documentation, he soon made himself noticed and came into contact with the most learned men of his time in Rome, among them Card. Sirleto, around 1577.
In 1580, Sirleto called B. to be part of the commission for the reform of the Martyrologium Romanum: B. distinguished himself there with his talent and contributed more than anyone to the completion of that work. The martyrology was published in two successive editions in 1583. But the merit of B., more than for the prevailing cooperation in the correction of the martyrology, lies in the notes made necessary by the polemics aroused by the new publication. These notes document and justify the work: the martyrology thus annotated came out in 1586 with this title: Martyrologium Romanum ecc... Accesserunt notationes... auctore Caesare Baronio (Romae, Typis Dom. Basae MDLXXXVI). Such a publication, now certainly superseded, which marks the beginning of a hagiography built on a critical foundation, made the name of B. known throughout Europe.
At this moment the material for B.'s principal work, the Annales Ecclesiastici, was for the most part collected; in fact vol. I came out in 1588 with the title: Annales Ecclesiastici auctore Caesare Baronio Sorano Congregationis Oratorii Presbytero. The other 11 vols. followed in order until 1607. They narrate, year by year, the history of the Church up to 1198.
The occasion for the work had been given by the Ecclesiastica historia integrum ecclesiae Christi ideam complectens, congesta per aliquot studiosus viros in urbe Magdeburgica, which appeared in 13 vols. at Basel in 1559-74, in which history was divided by centuries. It was the work of the learned Protestant Matthias Flacius (Flacius Illyricus) who, with the collaboration of others, and with the aid of documents, intended to give a scientific foundation to the Reformation. The publication had had wide resonance, and on the Catholic side the necessity had been felt of not being outdone in the scientific field; for which reason the pontiffs Pius IV, Pius V, Gregory XIII, and men such as Panvinio, Sigonio, and Canisius had worked in that direction but without confronting the problem in all its complexity.
St. Philip Neri, aware of the anxious and insufficient efforts and of the urgency of the work, having found the suitable instrument in B., induced him to undertake the great labor. B. himself in vol. VIII of the Annales rendered this testimony to Neri.
The Annales had a great success, which remained uncontested for a very long time. Twenty-one editions were made up to 1756 and another edition in France from 1864-87. There were moreover partial editions, compendia and translations into Italian, French, German and Polish.
There could not fail to be someone to continue the work that B. had left interrupted. The continuation by the Dominican A. Bzowski reaches to 1572; that of the French bishop E. De Sponde to 1646, and finally that, far more important, of O. Rinaldi of the Vatican archive, who made use of the material collected by B., reaches to 1565. The continuator of Rinaldi up to 1571 was G. Laderchi, then from 1572 to '85 A. Theiner, all three Oratorians. The Conventual friars Antonio and Francesco Pagi published in four volumes a much esteemed Critica historica chronologica in universos annales eccles. C. B., Antwerp 1705. This work was added to the new edition of the Annali made at Lucca by Archbishop Mansi in 1738-56. With
(phot. Congregation of the Oratory)
BARONIO, CESARE - Portrait of the Roman school (17th century) at the pp. Filippini - Rome.
with quite a different spirit the Protestant writers, such as Casaubon and Basnage, set about criticizing the B., in order to discredit his authority.
Four centuries after the first edition, the work of the B. no longer renders scholars those services that it rendered to his contemporaries. Criticism, today so developed, was barely in its infancy in the times of the B., especially in the field of ecclesiastical studies; he practiced it as the times and the means allowed him, ample though these were, but often insufficient for the undertaking.
Sometimes the historian allowed himself to be carried away by the apologist, as in the question of the "Monarchia sicula" and in some other matter of secondary importance. But it must immediately be added that the fabric, the design, the development of the B.'s labor, in short the substance, remain intact even today in their fundamental value, and above all there remains the central motive of the work: namely, the concept that Catholic doctrine has undergone no variations in its essence.
The documentation is abundant, sometimes even excessive for the subject, and to procure it the B. spared no efforts in the Vatican Library and requested codices even from afar. Therefore his critical arrangement, as far as the chosen method of narrating year by year also allowed (which was, moreover, traditional), marks a great historiographical advance.
The B. then brought to his work a scrupulous honesty, which no one ever called into doubt, not even adversaries from preconceived bias such as Sarpi. He considered it a "sacrilege" not to transcribe a text in its own terms, and, while preserving its substance, to modify its form for literary reasons, as he happened to reproach someone who had done so while correcting the proofs of the Annales.
On Sept. 9, 1598 he wrote to his confrere Talpa: "I fear that, because I am a cardinal, there may not be, as before, such severe censors to correct my things as I desire there to be... Let them not spare me... Now more than ever is the time that my things pass through the alembic and the fine sieve." In a polemic concerning St. Gregory the Great, he had a pamphlet circulate under the name of his confrere Gallonio, so as not to weigh on the question with his authority as cardinal. He was therefore quick to change his mind when he had fallen into error. Sometimes he errs through too great a love of exactness. Thus in the intricate question of chronology, in which he wants to make profane and ecclesiastical chronology march in step by force and thereby establish sure milestones.
His great gift of erudition is remarkable and undoubted. Muratori not only calls him "the great cardinal, — a wondrous intellect — immortal," but enters into the merit of the work and writes: "I never take his sacred Annales in hand without admiring that great intellect which was able to build from the ground up so majestic an edifice and with so much erudition and with such fine criticism, although at that time there were lacking so many aids that we now have" (letter to Bianchini, May 21, 1735). Alfred von Reumont affirms that the B. "was the first to break the ground of ecclesiastical history."
Besides the much material left behind and other writings of no notable importance, the B. composed the life of St. Ambrose and of St. Gregory Nazianzen, the first published in 1587, the other left unpublished and later included by the Bollandists in their work and subsequently printed by Alberici. In these lives the same critical sense of the Annales is noted, and Calenzio rightly says that they are the first hagiographies in the modern sense of the word.
Most interesting is the epistolary of the B., in which there are also very many letters of great personalities addressed to him; it was published in 3 vols. by R. Alberici: Epistolae et opuscula inedita, I and II, Rome 1759; III, ibid. 1770.
The scientific position of the B. also determined his rapid and brilliant hierarchical career, in which he brought great advantages to the Church. In 1593, after the resignation of St. Philip, he was elected provost of the Congregation of the Oratory and in 1594 confessor of Clement VIII.
This last promotion would not have had importance historically in itself had it not been the occasion of a political action of universal scope. Burning at that time was the question of the reconciliation of Henry of Navarre with the Church, so that the latter might be elected king of France. The Spanish party, most powerful in Rome, obstructed such a reconciliation for political motives.
In the Roman Curia itself and among the cardinals the division was great. B. intervened decisively and contributed effectively to the reconciliation that took place in 1595 and that saved Europe and France from greater schisms. The elevation to higher offices was rapid: B. was named apostolic protonotary on Nov. 21, 1595; cardinal on June 5, 1596; librarian of S.R.C. in 1597. In his nomination as cardinal the B. chose as his titular church that of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, refused by all and for some time, because the church was almost in ruins and would therefore have obliged him to great repairs and personal expenses.
The B. took it freely precisely with this purpose, had it restored from the foundations and decorated, with sums huge for those times, even incurring debts. He thus saved one of the most ancient monuments from irreparable ruin. And it was again he who, having become commendatory abbot of S. Gregorio al Celio, promoted the first restoration works. Noteworthy is the part he took in the struggle against the opponents of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and particularly on the occasion of the interdict of Venice under Paul V; he then published the Paraenesis ad Rempublicam Venetam (Rome 1606) to draw it back from the path on which it had set out. Equal zeal he showed against the attempts to promote to ecclesiastical dignities and to the cardinalate persons less worthy. Instead it was he who proposed Bellarmine to the Pope and urged his nomination as cardinal.
But the work, the personality, the sanctity of the B. shone especially in the two Conclaves of 1605. In the first, which opened on March 14, the B. managed to have as many as 32 votes, but could not gather the few others that were lacking because of the rigid opposition of the Spanish party and the exclusive placed by Spain, following the publication of the "Monarchia sicula." When the newly elected Leo XI died after a few days, in the following Conclave opened on May 8, Cardinal Tosco was about to be elected pontiff. He was a man most learned especially in law, but not equal to the great dignity, above all because of his great freedom of language. The B., remaining alone in opposition, went to meet the procession of cardinals that was proceeding to the proclamation of the candidate and knew so much to say that the agreement, barely obtained before, was broken.
On the proposal of Cardinal di Montalto, who had reluctantly adhered to Tosco, the name of the B. was put forward again. A great number of cardinals then sought to drag him toward the Pauline Chapel for the adoration as was customary in elections, but the B. resisted, "clinging with feet and hands to the columns and the doors, shouting: I do not want to be pope: make another pope worthy of the Holy See" (letter of Cardinal di Joyeuse to Henry IV of France).
Though ill and old, the B. continued to work intensely not only on the Annales, but on everything that was of utility to the Church. He immediately grasped the scientific importance of sacred archaeology, which was being born precisely in those days, with the discovery of the cemetery of Vigna Sanchez on the Salaria, visited the sacred places, took part in scholarly meetings. The Pontiff indeed delegated him to the recognition of the remains of St. Cecilia in Oct. 1596.
He interested himself furthermore in the reform of the Roman Ritual, on the commission of Paul V; he had the image of the fabulous Pope Joan removed in Florence from public display, energetically, and wrote on the question of the interdict of Venice and occupied himself with the reform of the Premonstratensians.
He died on 30 June 1607 and was buried in the Chiesa Nuova, next to the high altar. Henry IV, who had also had recourse to the B. for other matters, arranged a funeral at the cardinal's death and attended it in person, in recognition above all of the great part he had played in his reconciliation with the Church.
If through his work he rendered the Church a great service, greater still is that which he rendered to it through the holiness of his austere and penitent life, wholly given to charity toward the poor and the unfortunate, averse to ambitions and to nepotism. Benedict XIV declared him "venerable" (18 Jan. 1745).
The B.'s lofty scholarly personality set in motion within the Congregation of the Oratory a broad historical movement and created a fine tradition of historical culture. Besides the late continuators of the Annals already mentioned, we recall here Gallonio, Severano, Bozzio, Marciano, who left behind significant writings of a historical character.
Bibliography8 works
Giuseppe De Libero