FERCHIO, MATTEO (FERKIE, Ferchius). — Conventual Franciscan theologian, born at Veglia (Istria) in 1583, died at Padua on 8 September 1669. He entered religious life in 1599 and studied at Bergamo, Padua, and Rome, at the Collegio di S. Bonaventura. Regent of studies at Rimini (1611) and Venice (1617), he was public professor for approximately forty 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.
F., who had initially devoted himself to Bonaventurian studies, subsequently turned to the strenuous defense of Scotus, whom he knew deeply and venerated as a saint, and who at that very time was being attacked by Bzovio. Against him he wrote 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 nature were the third Apologia Historica in Paulum Iocium Novocomensem (Bologna 1620) and the highly esteemed Vita B. Io. D. Scoti franciscani doctori subtilis (Venice 1622–23, Naples 1629, Padua 1671). Other works by F. 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); in defense of the authenticity of Scotus’s works are the Discussiones Scoticae (ibid. 1638), against the Reportata Paritetuata edited by Giovanni Mayer, and, concerning the interpretation of Scotist thought itself, the Vestigationes Peripateticae (ibid. 1639) and the violent Defeacio Vestigationem Peripateticarum ab offensionibus Belluti et Mestrii (ibid. 1646). Following an unpleasant controversy with his confrères Mestrio (v.) BELLINI (v.), that Defeacio was placed on the Index “donec corrigatur” (decree of the Holy Office, 12 May 1655). Tired of the struggle, in old age he returned to the doctrines of St. Bonaventure and wrote the Trastatus theol. de Angelis ad mentem s. Bonaventurae (Padua 1655, 1658), judged a masterpiece. Also worthy of mention are 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 in the Tuscan language” (as he himself put it): Osservazioni sopra il Goffredo del sig. Torquato Tasso (ibid. 1642), and the Praecursor de B. mac Virginis Immaculatae conceptus (ibid. 1668, in 4°).