DE DOMINIS, MARCANTONIO. – Archbishop of Spalato, then apostate and finally Catholic once more, b. probably in 1560 (or 1566) in the city of Arbe (Rab), on the island of the same name in the Dalmatian archipelago, and d. in Rome on 8 Sept. 1624. A pupil of the Jesuits, he subsequently entered the Order. At first he cultivated the physical and mathematical sciences, of which he was also an in-
structor at Padua. Of irascible and intolerant temperament, he left the Order in 1596. Appointed bishop of Zengg (Segna) in Aug. 1600, he acted energetically there against the Uscocchi; he then became archbishop of Spalato (15 Nov. 1602) and also received the pallium. The fruit of his scientific studies was the work De radiis visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride (Venice 1611), concerning the decomposition of light. In the dispute over the “Interdict” he sided with Venice against Rome. He consequently came into conflict with the Chapter and the nobles of his diocese.
In 1615 he went to Venice, where he had contacts with Sarpi and became friends with the English ambassador to the Republic, Sir Enrico Wotton, and with his embassy chaplain, Guglielmo Bedell. The reasons and circumstances why, in 1616, De D. left Venice for Switzerland, whence, by way of Heidelberg and Rotterdam, he reached England on 16 Dec. 1616, are not, however, entirely clear. He then entered the Anglican Church and, on the first Sunday of Advent in 1617, in the chapel of the Mercedarians in London, launched a violent public attack against the Church of Rome. This was followed shortly afterward by the writing Scogli del naufragio cristiano quali va scoprendo la S. Chiesa di Cristo allii suoi figliuoli perché da quelli possano allontanarsi (London [?] 1618), later translated into English, French, and German. Rome was accused therein of aspiring to a purely temporal dominion, of sowing religious terror, and of corrupting evangelical ideals. De D. received honors and benefices until he became dean of Windsor. Meanwhile, in 1617, the first part of his major work De republica ecclesiastica had appeared (Heidelberg and London; then Heidelberg 1618, Books I–IV). The work continued to appear in the years 1620 (Books V–VI) and 1622 (Books VI and IX; Books VIII and X were never published). Welcomed by Protestants for polemical reasons, it was widely translated and used; but its truest significance is essentially anti-curialist and Gallican, albeit with Protestant influences. De D. intended to substitute for a “monarchical” conception of the Church that of a “spiritual aristocracy” represented by the episcopate: the primacy of St. Peter was personal in nature; the Church of Rome possessed no prerogatives, and its authority was of “external” origin, according to De D., or purely “historical,” as it was subsequently described. In the second part of the work, Protestant influence is more pronounced, especially in the doctrine concerning the sacraments. Purgatory is denied therein. In discussing relations between temporal powers and the Church, De D. arrived at a clear jurisdictionalist conception; for D., ecclesiastics and the pope himself are bound by the laws of princes in temporal matters, including the external governance of the Church. De D. made use of the narrative and accentuated the guiding ideas of Sarpi’s Historia del Concilio Tridentino, whose publication he had undertaken, from a copy of the original and without Sarpi’s consent, dedicating it to King James I (London 1619).
But De D. was beginning to tire of his stay in England. His ideas were suspected of insufficient Protestant orthodoxy. When Gregory XV, who had known De D., ascended the papal throne, the latter, through the Spanish ambassadors, conveyed to Rome his intention of returning to the Church, and on 16 Jan. 1622 wrote to the king that he wished to leave because of the climate. The king was indignant and, after several attempts to retain him, gave him twenty days in which to depart. From Rome he had received assurances of a favorable welcome. After various vicissitudes, he arrived in Brussels, where he wrote Sui reditus ex Anglia consilium (published in Rome in 1623), in which he completely recanted his past and declared that everything he had said or written against the Catholic Church was simple calumny. In Rome, where he had gone, he was nevertheless required to make an apology in Consistory. But when D. once again gave cause for suspicion, the Inquisition had him arrested and examined his case. During this period, however, De D. died (1624) (cf. letter of G. Fabro to G. Galilei, in Opere by G. Galilei, XIII, Florence 1903, p. 207). At the conclusion of its examination, the commission of cardinals declared, chiefly on the basis of certain writings on the Most Holy Trinity found among D.’s papers, that he had died a heretic. His corpse was therefore disinterred and burned together with his books. All his works are on the Index (decrees of 1616, 1617, 1618, 1620, 1621).