FASSINI, VINCENZO MARIA. - Dominican theologian and historian, b. at Racconigi on 19 Aug. 1738, d. on 15 July 1787 at Pisa, at whose University he held the chair of Sacred Scripture.
An anti-probabilist and anti-Molinist, having written a volume on Concina, De vita et studii P. D. Concinae O. P. (Venice 1762), which brought him under suspicion of Jansenism, he obtained the Pisan chair from Leopoldo. He also wrote, with erudition, works of a theological-historical character, such as: De singularibus Eucharistiae usibus apud veteres Graecas (Brescia 1760); De privorum Christianorum sinaxibus extra aedes sacras (Venice 1770); as well as works on Sacred Scripture, such as: De apostolica origine evangelorum Ecclesiae catholicae (Livorno 1775); Divini libri Apocalypseus auctoritatis vindiciae (Lucca 1778). He also composed dissertations as a supplement to Natale Alessandro’s Ecclesiastical History: Ad Not. Alexandri hist. eccles. supplementum, duas in partes distrib. (Bassano 1778), in which he distinguished the two powers, sacred and civil, without, however, satisfying the editors of the Annali ecclesiastici of Florence, who discussed this book in composing his obituary (27 July). Although he maintained epistolary relations with Baldovinetti and De Ricci and other Jansenists, it cannot be decisively asserted that he himself was one. It is known, indeed, that he had opposed Baldovinetti’s plan for ecclesiastical reform at Livorno.