CASAMARI – East side of the cloister of the abbey (first half of the 13th century).
assessor of the Holy Office for more than five years, and secretary of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, until on 6 June 1673 Clement X created him cardinal of the title of S. Maria in Portico. He was assigned five of the most important Congregations, among them that of the Holy Office. In 1693 Innocent XII appointed him librarian of the Holy Roman Church, and in this office his fame as a patron of the arts became firmly established. Eager to publish the ancient unpublished works of the Vatican Library, he entrusted the vice-librarian, Abbot Zaccagni, with a series of volumes entitled Collectanea monumentorum veterum Ecclesiae graecae et latinae, which, however, was suspended after the first volume owing to the death of C. In the political sphere, C.’s work in the conflict between the Holy See and Louis XIV was noteworthy; it was especially owing to him that Innocent XI firmly upheld the rights of the Church, so that C. earned the hatred of the king of France, who sent a veto against him in the subsequent conclaves up to 1700, while nevertheless admiring his learning and intelligence. He played a major role in the condemnation of Michele Molinos and in having the doctrines of the Quietists declared heretical in a bull whose draft he himself composed (1687).
C. was one of the major ecclesiastical personalities of the seventeenth century; his figure as a scholar is of particular importance. A collector of books and researcher of ancient documents, he had assembled a library containing more than 25,000 volumes, including many valuable manuscripts, which by his will he donated to the Dominicans of the Minerva, adding the sum of 160,000 Roman scudi for the foundation of a large public library beside the convent (bibliotheca Casanatensis). He also assigned other revenues for the foundation of a college of Dominican theologians (theologi casanatenses) for the study of theology, and two chairs for teaching the Summa of St Thomas.