BERTINI, GIOVANNI MARIA. – Dominican theologian, born in Palermo around 1610, where he died in the odor of sanctity on 15 February 1669. He entered the Dominicans of Palermo at a young age and pursued there the course of his studies up to the regency which he held in the general studium of S. Domenico from 1654 to 1656. He also governed the convent as prior (1651–53 and 1659–61). He then became a qualificator and consultor of the Inquisition in Sicily. Full of zeal for souls, he promoted various pious associations, such as that of the Rosary, for secular priests.
His writings concern either the doctrine of s. Thomas or piety, particularly the S. Rosary. His commentaries on Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae are found in the Biblioteca Comunale of Palermo (ms. 369, c. 35, 362 q – A : 127). Echard also mentions La Teologia mistica seconda la dottrina di s. Tommaso (Palermo 1668). In Sacri Rosarii Hortus (4 vols., there 1658–67), B. explains the Rosary as an aid to contemplation, preaching, and action. In Sacratissimae inquisitionis rosa virginea in qua catholicae fidei puritas efflorescit virginalis (there 1662), a work of learning, piety, and Baroque imagination, he attempts an explanation of the Summa according to the mysteries of the Rosary. Only the volume on the Joyful Mysteries saw the light. Worth noting are his theory of corporeal visions and the manner of knowing them, and especially the “perorationes,” that is, brief ardent prayers concluding the individual articles.
BERTINI, GIOVANNI MARIA. – Philosopher and educator, born at Carmagnola in 1818 and died at Turin on 14 October 1876. A scholar of Greek and Platonic philosophy, he published various essays, among which the following deserves mention: Idea di una filosofia della vita (2 vols., Turin 1850).
Called to serve on the Higher Council of Public Education, he exercised a beneficial influence there; the products of this period on the Higher Council are Relazione e proposte sulla scuola secondaria (1865), Questione urgente sull'istruzione classica, and the letters to Fassini, Sulla riforma dell'istruzione secondaria classica. For B., secondary education has above all a formative purpose, in the sense that it does not merely impart knowledge but educates, aiming at the full formation of the personality of the human being, the citizen, and the soldier. B. wanted the State not to remain indifferent to the religious instruction and education of the young, which, however, was to be imparted by the State itself through its own personnel and not entrusted to priests, because they would provide “ecclesiastical instruction,” which, in his view, at that time could not fail to be informed or influenced by the question of the temporal power of the Holy See.
In the works Questione religiosa, Dialoghi (Turin 1861), and il Vaticano e lo Stato (1876), B. sets forth his religious convictions, which lead him from sincere Catholicism to rationalism; for, although he accepts the teaching of Jesus as highly moral and humane, he strips religion of the light of revelation, believing that philosophy exerts a more beneficial influence than that exercised by revelation.