FOGGINI, PIER FRANCESCO. - Historian and theologian, b. in Florence in 1713, d. in Rome on 31 May 1783. Son of Giovan Battista, reputed the best sculptor of his time and architect in the service of the Grand Duke, he pursued his theological studies at the University of Pisa, where he perhaps acquired his sympathetic orientation toward Jansenism and his closeness to Enlightenment theories.
A friend of Giovanni Lami, he collaborated on his Novelle letterarie. Invited, he went to Rome, where he met and formed a friendship with his fellow citizen Giovanni Bottari. He was a member of the Academy of Ecclesiastical History, at which he several times delivered erudite dissertations, also in the presence of the Pope. In 1746, at Bottari's wish, he became his coadjutor with the right of succession to the office of second custodian of the Vatican Library, an office he obtained in 1768 when Bottari became its first custodian. Esteemed for his erudition and moderation, he was theologian to Cardinal Neri Corsini and also to his nephew Cardinal Andrea. By virtue of this office he had to exercise his influence in the Commission for the Suppression of the Jesuits, of which Cardinal Andrea Corsini was a member. Indeed, the execution of the suppression of the English College was entrusted to him, and the General of the Jesuits, Ricci, remained there under his surveillance until his transfer to Castel S. Angelo, where he visited him several times. Through Bottari he also formed a relationship and friendship with Cardinal Passionei, frequently attending his hermitage at Camaldoli. In Rome he thus completed his Jansenist formation. He collaborated on the Giornale dei letterati, and held various delicate assignments in the Eternal City, either through or in the service of his cardinal friends. A distinguished cultivator of ecclesiastical history, he published several works of the Fathers, especially notable being that of St. Augustine on Grace, in eight small volumes dedicated successively to different popes, and he edited the translation and commentary of the works of George of Pisidia. His history of St. Romulus stirred up a controversy that lasted ten years. Following in the footsteps of Lami and Muratori, he in fact applied a critical discernment in his investigations, demanding a strict separation of legend from history, defended in this also by the Dominican Mamachi. As for his position toward the papacy and its privileges, in theory he appears Catholic, in practice, however, hesitant between truth and error. He always sought to moderate the episcopalian ideas of De Ricci, whose friend he was. In the disputed questions of moral theology, first an opponent and later a supporter of Concina, he was decidedly against probabilism. Also in the doctrine of Grace he is Augustinian, and although he published no dogmatic study, in the individual works of the Fathers he seeks the concordance of the Augustinian system with patristic tradition. In the dogmatic field F. held the same ideas as De Ricci, as in the propaganda for «sound doctrine», praising all its initiatives, disseminating its pastoral letters and arranging for them to be translated into French; he disagreed, however, on the manner of proceeding in the reforms; because of his unforeseen death he could not witness the decidedly heretical and schismatic aspect that these took on at the famous Synod. F. must be considered, after Bottari, the principal spiritual leader of the Roman Jansenists, each complementing the other, despite the difference in their dispositions and their formation, precisely in their common aspirations of sympathy toward the heretics rather than toward the heresies of the time.