GIOVANNI ANTONIO BIANCHI. – Scholar, theologian, and jurist, b. at Lucca on 2 Oct. 1686, d. at Rome on 17 Jan. 1768. He entered the Franciscan Order and became a lecturer in philosophy and theology, as well as a consultant to the Inquisition. He composed small moral works for the theatre. But his name is remembered especially as that of the defender of ecclesiastical rights and authority during the Enlightenment and Jansenist period. His principal work is a refutation of Giannone on the Gallican arguments of the writings attributed to Bossuet: Della potestà e politica della Chiesa trattati II contro le nuove opinioni di Pietro Giannone (6 vols., Rome 1745–51).
BIBL.: Mazzucchelli, II, 11, p. 1149 ff.; G. De Luca, Ritratto della vita dell'autore, in Tragedia del p. B., I, Rome 1761, pp. 1–10; J. F. V. Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart, III, 1, Stuttgart 1880, p. 512 ff.; A. Mariani, De vita et scriptis f. J. A. B. Lucensis, Rome 1942 (unpublished).
Felicce Antonio Wilches