FLACIO (VLACIC), MATTIA. – Protestant scholar, known as F. Illyricus, born at Albona (Istria) on 3 March 1520, died at Frankfurt on 11 March 1575. Having entered the Franciscan Order, he was sent in 1539 by his uncle Baldo Lupetino, who was provincial of Venice, to complete his studies in Germany, where he embraced Lutheran errors and soon distinguished himself among the most ardent supporters of the German reformer.
Professor of Hebrew in 1544, he led an itinerant life, driven from city to city because of his radical attitude and his firm opposition to the Interim of Augsburg and to the adiaphorists, led by Filippo Melantone (v. ADIAFORA). F. was the acknowledged leader of the anti-adiaphorists and, as such, incurred the wrath of Melantone, who persecuted him relentlessly. Likewise, F. opposed both Giorgio Maior and the movement of the synergists, which he led, as well as Osiander (v.). An exalted advocate of Luther’s figure, particularly in his book on the marks of the true religion, De falan papistarum religionis (Magdeburg 1549), F. carried his doctrines to their ultimate consequences, asserting, among other things, that final salvation depends exclusively on a gratuitous judgment of God and that justification is to be attributed immediately to the merits of Christ. A teacher for several years at the University of Wittenberg, he was particularly vehement in combating Catholic dogma, especially in the two works Catalogus testium veritatis qui ante nostram octotem reclamarum Papae (Basel 1556) and Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (ibid. 1567).
For a certain period, during his residence in Jena, he played a leading role in the Centuries of Magdeburg (v. CENTURIATORI DI MAGDEBURGO). Shortly before his death, he was struck by yet another decree of expulsion while he was in Frankfurt.
Renzo U. Montini