BERTI, GIOVANNI LORENZO. - Theologian of the Hermit Order of St. Augustine, a leading representative of the Augustinian school in the 18th century. Born at Seravezza on 27 June 1696, died at Florence on 26 May 1766. Having entered the Augustinian Hermits as a boy (1711), he taught philosophy and theology at Pavia, Florence, Rome and Siena, was prefect of the Angelica Library and assistant general of his Order. Benedict XIV held him very dear. At the command of his superior general Antonio Schiaffinati he wrote an extensive synthesis of theology: De theologicis disciplinis libri 37, setting out the thought of St. Augustine and the Augustinian tradition, a work of erudition and sound doctrine that still commands the esteem of scholars. It went through numerous editions. In 1765 Girolamo Buzi added to it the Luoghi teologici and made of it a compendium that was widely circulated as a school manual.
Controversies arose; it seemed to some, especially in France, that B. had taken up Baianist and Jansenist doctrines. Giovanni d'Yse de Saleon even wrote a work entitled: Le baianisme et le jansénisme ressuscités dans les livres de Bellelli et B.; in the same vein wrote also Giovanni Giuseppe Languet, archbishop of Sens, and two letters were addressed to Benedict XIV to request his intervention. The Pontiff had the De theologicis disciplinis examined, and it was instead commended for its erudition and its sound doctrine. On the advice of the same Pontiff B. replied to his accusers: to the first with the writing Augustinianum systema de gratia ab iniqua baianismi et iansenismi erroris insimulatione vindicatum; to the second with the other In opusculum inscriptum: I. Languet iudicium de operibus FF. Bellelli et B. aequissima expostulatio, several times reprinted.
Despite B.'s energetic reply and the Pope's favour, his adversaries did not fall silent and B. found himself compelled to continue the controversy.
Appointed professor of history at the University of Pisa, he wrote Historia ecclesiastica seu dissertationes ecclesiasticae (4 vols., Bassano 1769); in connection with which he was accused by Fr. Francesco Antonio Zaccaria of having imitated the Historia of Alessandro Natale. B. defended himself and made a compendium of his history: Historiae eccl. breviarium, widely circulated, later continued by Tirso Lopez down to 1888 (Valladolid 1889), and subsequently revised and brought up to date by A. Saraceno of the Oratory, who published it under his own name (Turin 1892).
Besides the works cited, cf. De rebus gestis s. Augustini commentarius (Venice 1769); to Dissertazioni storico-dommatiche (Florence 1759); Panegirici sacri e profani (ibid. 1764).
Bibliography4 works
Agostino Trapé