Ferchio, Matteo (Ferkie, Ferchius)

FERCHIO, MATTEO (FERKIE, Ferchius). - Conventual Franciscan theologian, b. at Veglia (Istria) in 1583, d. at Padua on 8 September 1669. He became a religious in 1599 and studied at Bergamo, Padua and Rome, in the College of St. Bonaventure. Regent of studies at Rimini (1611) and at Venice (1617), public professor for about 40 years in the Scotist chair at the University of Padua (1630-66), minister of the province of Lyon, and finally, for two years, assistant to the minister general.

Ferchio, who had first devoted himself to Bonaventurian studies, then passed to the strenuous defense of Scotus, whom he knew profoundly and extolled as a saint, just at the time when the latter was being attacked by Bzovius. He wrote against him the Correctio Scotica I. D. Scoti doct. subit. vitum et mortem explicam (Chambéry 1620), and against a canon of Cologne the famous Apologia pro Io. Duns Scoto in Io. Frid. Mutenium (Cologne 1619); of the same character are the third Apologia Historica in Paulum Iocium Novocomensem (Bologna 1620) and the well-received Vita B. Io. D. Scoti franciscani doctori subtilis (Venice 1622-23, Naples 1629, Padua 1671). Other works of Ferchio are: Observaciones super Epist. I libri de septimo-Quæstitis, quae est de creatiens Filii Dei ad intra (Venice 1652), and Recognitio peripatetica Aristotelis ut magistri, Liceti ut discipuli... (Padua 1656); on the authenticity of Scotus's works there are the Discussiones Scoticae (ibid. 1638) against the Reportata Paritetuata edited by Giovanni Mayer, and on the interpretation itself of Scotist thought, to which the Vestigationes Peripateticae (ibid. 1639) and the violent Defeacio Vestigationem Peripateticarum ab offensionibus Belluti et Mestrii (ibid. 1646) refer. After an unpleasant polemic against his confreres Mestrio (v.) and Belluti (v.), that Defeacio of his was placed on the Index « donec corrigatur » (decree of the Holy Office, 12 May 1655). Weary of the struggle, he returned in old age to the doctrines of St. Bonaventure, and wrote the Trastatus theol. de Angelis ad mentem s. Bonaventurae (Padua 1655, 1658), judged a masterpiece. Mention is still made of the important treatises: De Personis producentibus Spiritum Sanctum (ibid. 1641), De caelesti substantia eiusque orta ac mota in sentratio Anaxagorae (ibid. 1646); De produzione Filii Dei (Venice 1650; Padua 1667); the literary "recreation" "on the most important poem of the Tuscan language" (as he himself says): Osservazioni sopra il Goffredo del sig. Torquato Tasso (ibid. 1642) and the Praecursor de B. mac Virginis Immaculatae conceptus (ibid. 1668, in 4°).

Lorenzo Di Fonzo