BONHOMINI (BONOMI), GIOVANNI FRANCESCO

BONHOMINI (Bonomi), Giovanni Francesco. Nuncio, bishop of Vercelli, b. 6 Dec. 1536 at Cremona. He pursued his early studies in his native city and then attended courses in law at Bologna and Pavia. He was a companion of St Charles Borromeo, to whom he was bound by great friendship, and followed him to Rome when the latter was summoned there by his uncle Pope Pius IV. He became his collaborator and vicar, and when Cardinal Borromeo retired in 1565 to his archbishopric of Milan, Bonomini remained in Rome as his agent. He was soon recalled by his protector, who in 1566 resigned in his favour the abbacy of Nonantola; in 1567 he accompanied him on his visitation of the Ticino Canton, and in 1570 on that of German Switzerland, from which arose the idea of establishing a nunciature in Switzerland, which was subsequently entrusted for the first time to Bonomini. In 1572 he was appointed bishop of Vercelli and soon began the reform of his diocese in accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent. In 1579 he was named nuncio to the seven Catholic cantons of Switzerland, remaining there until 1581 and indefatigably visiting churches and monasteries to implement the decrees of the Council of Trent and to introduce various religious orders. When Gregory XIII suspended the Swiss nunciature, Bonomini returned to his diocese of Vercelli, but only briefly, for on 16 Sept. 1581 he was appointed nuncio to Vienna. Here too he aimed at implementing reform, visiting Hungary and Bohemia, and when the Diet of Augsburg opened in 1582 he assisted the papal legate Cardinal Madruzzo in defending Catholic interests against the archbishop of Cologne. After the dispute ended with the excommunication of the Archbishop of Cologne, Gebhard Truchsess, who had turned Protestant, and the appointment in his stead of Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Liège, the Pope established the nunciature of Cologne and chose Bonomini as its first nuncio in 1584. The jurisdiction of the nunciature extended over the three ecclesiastical provinces of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier, as well as other dioceses of western Germany and the Belgian regions, and very extensive powers were granted to the nuncio. Bonomini reached his new see in 1585 and soon began his visitations and took part in various synods for the reform of the dioceses according to the decrees of the Council of Trent. Death overtook him at Liège on 25 Feb. 1587. His remains rest in the cathedral of Vercelli. Besides numerous letters, his works include: *Antiquorum Patrum sermones et epistolae de s. Eusebio episcopo vercellensi et martyre* (Milan 1581); *Reformationis ecclesiasticae decreta generalia* (Vercelli 1579).