BILIO, LUIGI. - Cardinal, b. 25 March 1826 at Alessandria (Piemonte), d. 30 Jan. 1884 at Rome. Of a very poor family (his father was a shoemaker, his mother a vegetable seller), he entered the Barnabites of Genoa. After a period of teaching at Parma and Rome, he was created cardinal on 24 June 1866, bishop of Sabina in 1873, perpetual abbot of S. Maria di Farfa, prefect of the Congregation of the Index, and major penitentiary. Card. B. is commonly regarded as the drafter of the Syllabus. During the Vatican Council he presided over the commission on dogmatic theology and was one of the presidents of the council itself. Pius IX entrusted to him the high supervision of the printing of the proceedings of the eighty-nine General Congregations of the council. From 1875 to 1884 five folio volumes appeared under the title Acta Congregationum generalium, and ten copies of each volume were printed.
BILIO, LUIGI
BIBL.: L. Pica, Le card. B. barnabite un des présidenti du Concile du Vatican, Parigi s.a.; G. Boffito, Bibl. barnab. illustr., Firenze 1933, p. 220 sgg. On Card. B. during the Vatican Council cf. P. Granderath, Geschichte des satilistischen Konzils, Friburgo in Br. 1903-1906, passim. On the Conclave of 1878 see R. De Cesare, Il Conclave di Leone XIII, Roma 1888, passim. Silvio Furlani
Cite this article
“BILIO, LUIGI.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II (1949), p. 946. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/bilio-luigi.