CAPELLI, MARCO ANTONIO. — Born at Este around the middle of the 1500s, died in Rome on 21 Sept. 1625. Franciscan Conventual historian, theologian, and controversialist. He served as regent at Udine and at Padua in the Studium of the Santo, then as provincial of the Orient (Constantinople). Highly esteemed in Venice, in 1606 when the city was interdicted by Paul V, Cappelli, together with other theologians, took a position against the Pope but recanted the same year in Bologna, writing various theological and juridical works, including De absoluta omnium rerum sacrarum immutatae a potestate principum laicorum (manuscript in the Vatican Library), dedicated to Paul V who, as a sign of forgiveness and esteem, summoned Cappelli to Rome and appointed him qualificator of the Holy Office. He also wrote, with “remarkable acumen,” several works against the pretended primacy of the King of England (Bologna 1610), and later against other Englishmen and against the Lutherans, who attacked him violently.
Among his other works: De appellationibus ecclesiae africanae ad romanam Sedem (Paris 1622); Regole di s. Agostino, s. Benedetto e s. Chiara dichiarate secondo i decreti del Concilio di Trento (Bologna 1623); De coena Christi suprema (Paris 1625). Some of Cappelli’s works, which enjoyed great resonance, were included in later libraries and collections.