BUSAEUS (BUSEO). – A Latinized surname, from the Dutch Bury, borne by three brothers, all Jesuits, compatriots and relatives of St. Peter Canisius: PIETRO (1540–57), famous for his major edition of Canisius’s Catechism, enriched with the sources (1569, etc.); TEODORO (1542–1609); and GIOVANNI, the best known.
GIOVANNI B., born in Nijmegen in 1547, entered the Society (1563) and taught theology at Mainz from 1589 until his death, on 30 May 1611. He wrote polemical works against the Protestants and translated the annual letters and other reports of the missions of the Society, but his literary production is predominantly ascetical in character.
While German Jesuits were reforming various monasteries, he published the works of the great Benedictine reformer Trietmio (v.): Joh. Trithemii Opera pia et spiritualia (Mainz 1604). A prolific translator into Latin of the ascetical works of his confrères V. BRUGNATO, L. Pinelli, G. Loarte, F. Androzzio, F. Arias, and B. Ricci, he added a work of his own, an Enchiridion piarum meditationum (ibid. 1608, with numerous reprints and translations, more or less modified), which achieved extraordinary success for its devout and simple sobriety; in it the author follows the method of meditation of Fr. Bartolomeo Ricci (v.). Two parallel compilations by B. also met with great favor: Panarium hoc est arca medica... adversus animi morbos (ibid. 1608); Viridarium christianorum virtutum (ibid. 1610), a catalogue of vices and virtues, together with the means of combating the former and acquiring the latter, according to the texts of the Bible, the Fathers, and theologians.