DE VIO, TOMMASO, known as CAIETANUS. - Dominican philosopher and theologian, born in Gaeta on 20 February 1468, died in Rome on 10 October 1533.
I. LIFE
He entered the Dominican Order in 1484 in Gaeta, completed his studies in Naples, Bologna, and Padua. There, in 1493, he became bachelor after defending the *Sentences*, thus becoming part of the University. The following year, he obtained the chair of Thomistic metaphysics, while also serving, it seems, as regent of studies in his convent of S. Agostino. At the General Chapter in Ferrara (1494), after a brilliant disputation with Pico della Mirandola, he was created Master in Theology at the request of Duke Ercole. In the two-year period 1497-99, he taught theology, based on the text of St. Thomas, at the University of Pavia. After 1500, he assumed important positions: from 1501 to 1508 he held the office of Procurator General of his Order, while teaching philosophy and exegesis at the Sapienza in Rome; in 1508 he was elected Master General of the Order. From 1512 to 1517, both as General of the Dominicans and as procurator of Prince George of Saxony, he took an active part in the Eighteenth Ecumenical Council (Fifth Lateran), held under Julius II and Leo X. In 1517 he was created cardinal with the title of S. Sisto by Leo X, remaining, however, General until 22 May of the following year; on 8 February 1518 he was given in commendam the archbishopric of Palermo, and in April of the same year he went to Augsburg as legate of the Holy See to proceed against Luther. In 1519 he was at the Diet of Frankfurt, where he effectively promoted the election of Charles V as emperor. While still in Germany he was appointed bishop of his native city (13 April 1519). Returning to Rome in the summer of 1519, he worked on the drafting of the bull *Exurge Domine* against Luther. In the conclave of 1527 he promoted the candidacy of the Dutch pope Adrian VI. From 1523 to 1524 he was legate in Hungary. In the same year he was recalled to Rome by the new pope Clement VII. After the sack of Rome (1527), in which he was taken prisoner and suffered the gravest humiliations, he resided in his diocese of Gaeta. Returning to Rome in 1529, he remained there until his death. He was buried outside the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva.II. WORKS
A tireless scholar, despite absorbing duties, Caietanus worked with unflagging zeal. His philosophical, theological, and exegetical output is impressive.His most notable philosophical works are: *Commentaria super tractatum de ente et essentia Thomae de Aquino* (Venice 1496, recent ed. by H. Laurent, Turin 1934); *Commentaria in Libros posteriorum analyticorum* (Brescia 1496); *Commentaria in Porphyrii Isagogen ad praedicamenta Aristotelis* (c. 1497, recent ed. by J. Murega, Rome 1934); *Commentaria in Aristotelis praedicamenta* (Pavia 1498; new ed. by H. Laurent, Rome 1939); *De nominum analogia* (Pavia 1498; reprint edited by P. Zammit, Rome 1934); *Commentaria in III libros Aristotelis de anima* (Rome 1509; the new ed. by I. Coquelle contains Book I (1938) and Book II (1939)); *De conceptu entis* (Rome 1509; reprinted by P. Zammit, together with *De nominum analogia*, Rome 1934); *Opuscula oeconomico-socialia*: under this title, Zammit reprinted in Rome in 1934 an interesting collection of brief economic-social questions, the principal ones being: *De eleemosynae praecepto* (1496); *De monte pietatis* (1498); *De cannibis* (1499); *De usura* (1500).
Caietanus is renowned for his classic commentaries on the entire *Summa Theologica* of St. Thomas, to which his name and lasting fame are most closely bound. The commentary on the 1a was completed in 1507; that on the 1a-2ae in 1511; that on the 2a-2ae in 1517; and that on the 3a in 1520. In the Leonine edition of the works of St. Thomas (begun in 1882), they occupy volumes 3-12. He also wrote the *Summula de peccatis* (reprinted several times from 1525 to 1627) and the celebrated *De auctoritate Papae et Concilii utriusque invicem comparata* (Rome 1511), with the related *Apologia de comparata Papae et Concilii auctoritate* (ibid. 1512; a new ed. of both works was edited by V. M. Pollet, ibid. 1936). He also left numerous *opposita* (c. 80), on the most controversial points of dogmatic and moral theology. D. V. also made a name for himself in biblical exegesis through his commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, to which he devoted himself in the last decade, in his desire to oppose Lutheranism.
III. THOUGHT
Born in an era of transition, Caietanus lived through the turmoil of two clashing ages. A genuine scholastic and convinced Thomist, he penetrated deeply into the latent potentialities of the thought of Aquinas, highlighting its internal harmony and its assimilative power of the best philosophical currents, but concerned to defend it from the attacks of the sceptic Antonio Trombetta and the Averroists of Padua (Pomponazzi and Nifo), he indulged in a polemic that was to lend his powerful work something of the contingent and the ephemeral.Even the proverbial obscurity: «si vis intelligere Caietanum lege Thomam», perhaps arises from his frequent excursions into a philosophical field that did not leave a mark on the general development of thought and which therefore remained unknown territory for posterity.
Endowed with extraordinary mental vigour, D. V. could not but imprint upon the great commentary the signs of his strong personality. Thus it happened, perhaps unconsciously, that in some points he strayed from St. Thomas and the best tradition of his school, both in philosophy (the object of metaphysics, the concept of analogy, the formal constituent of the person, the principle of individuation, philosophical demonstration of the immortality of the soul) and in theology (the form of Baptism, the validity of Baptism conferred *in nomine Christi*, the salvation of children *in voto parentum*, the possibility of the figurative sense of the words of consecration, the distinction of canonical books inspired *ad aedificationem fidelium* from those not inspired). But these are slight fissures that do not impair the solid block of his vast work.
Particularly attached to the Apostolic See, Caietanus defended its prerogatives with depth and brilliance in the celebrated treatise *De auctoritate Papae* with its related *Apologia*, which crushed the conciliarist pretensions of Pisa (1511) and anticipated in advance the condemnation of the Gallican error.
With an open mind, sustained by sincere piety and a heartfelt love for the Church, he lived with profound awareness the tragic events in which he participated, and by tackling the difficult problems posed by the rising error of Luther, he traced with a sure hand the solutions in his golden little works on the Eucharist and penance, which were widely used at the Council of Trent. Even his exegetical works, undertaken with a mind superior to his scant linguistic and positive preparation, show, despite serious defects, insights (e.g., the non-authenticity of the Johannine comma) of a keen and far-sighted mind.
The resentments and indignation aroused even among his confreres (Bartolomeo Spina, Ambrogio Catarino, Melchior Cano) and which found their natural epilogue in a posthumous condemnation by the Sorbonne at the end of the 16th century, were already dormant when St. Robert Bellarmine defined him as «vir summi ingenii et non minoris pietatis» (De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, ad annum 1506). In the 18th century, Ughelli exalted him as «alter Thomas et ingeniorum extrema linea» (Italia Sacra, I, Venice 1717, col. 544), and at the beginning of our century Pastor declared him, with slight exaggeration, the greatest theologian after St. Thomas.
DE VIOTTO TOMMASO – DEVOTTI GIOVANNI
travelled through Egypt, collecting abundant information and drawings of monuments and inscriptions from those regions; this collection was expanded during a second journey undertaken in 1861-62 together with Waddington and the architect E. C. Duthoit. On that occasion he also visited Cyprus, where he likewise took an interest in buildings from the Paleochristian period and those from the age of the Crusades. In Jerusalem he was able to obtain permission to study the sacred precinct of the Temple (Haram al-Sharif).
The publications that followed led to his election in 1868 as a member of the Académie des Inscriptions. After 1870 he entered diplomacy: in 1871 he was sent as ambassador to Constantinople, then in 1875 to Vienna, where he remained until 1879. Thus he entered the second period of his life devoted to modern history, to which he made some valuable contributions (*Le maréchal de Villars, d'après sa correspondance et des documents inédits*, 1888; *Mémoires de Villars*, 1889; *Le duc de Bourgogne et le duc de Beau Villiers*, 1900), but he never abandoned his earlier field of study, continuing among other things to oversee the direction of the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. In 1891 he was elected to the Académie française.
His works on Oriental archaeology and epigraphy, and especially those on Christian buildings in Syria and Palestine—*Syrie centrale. Architectura civile et religieuse du Ier au VIIe siècle* (Paris 1865-77); *Eglises de la Terre Sainte* (1859); *Temple de Jérusalem* and *Essai sur la topographie de la ville sainte* (1864-65)—remain fundamental today for the study of Paleochristian architecture in these regions and of the influences exerted by it on Byzantine and medieval architecture. An influence which D.V. and many with him, almost surprised by the revelation of a world hitherto almost unknown, perhaps overemphasized to the detriment of Roman and Western influences.
Other works by him, in addition to many minor contributions in journals and academic proceedings, include: *Mélanges d'architecture orientale* (1868); *Evénements de Syrie* (1860); *Syrie centrale—Inscriptions sémitiques* (1869-77); *Inscriptions hébraïques de Jérusalem* (1864), etc.