GIUSTINIANI, PAOLO. – In the world Vincenzo. Founder of the Camaldolese Congregation of Monte Corona, born in Venice on 15 June 1476, died at S. Silvestro del Monte Soratte on 28 June 1528. Of a noble family, he was sent in 1494 to the University of Padua, where he studied philosophy and theology. In 1505, together with Pietro (in the world Tommaso) Quirino and Sebastiano Giorgi, he withdrew to a villa on the island of Murano, Delfin (v.), who induced him to visit the hermitage of Camaldoli (1510). Enthusiastic about that way of life, he embraced it together with his two friends. Following the counsels of the recluse b. Michele Pini, he became a priest in 1518; the following year he was elected major of the sacred hermitage. In 1520, with the permission of Leo X, he left Camaldoli to propagate the eremitical institute; after many vicissitudes he formed the first communities of what later became the Camaldolese branch of Monte Corona.
A prolific writer, in his numerous works (almost all unpublished) he left the imprint of his profound piety and refined humanistic formation. Among the published works, we recall: Regula citate eremitica (Camaldoli 1519); De dodici gradi de obediencia (Venice 1535); Libellus ad Leonem X (in G. B. Mittarelli-A. Costadoni, Annales Camaldulenses, IX, Venice 1773, pp. 612-719); an extensive program for the reform of the Church, written together with P. Quirino; Secretum meum mihi o dell'amor di Dio (Frascati 1941; preface by A. Stolz O. S. B.).
(courtesy of Fr. Attorio Vaccaro) GIUSTINIANI, AGONTINO – Page from the Patterium Octaplum by A. G. Genoa 1516, with biographical notes on Christopher Columbus added as a marginal gloss to Ps. 18:5. Copy of the Pont. Biblical Institute – Rome.
How two ancient hermits saw far ahead, in L'osservatore romano, 15 Apr. 1945, p. 3 (summary of the Libellus ad Leonem); H. Jedin, Quirini und Bembo, in Miscellanea G. Mercati, Vatican City 1946, pp. 407-26; id., Storia del Concilio di Trento, I, Brescia 1949, p. 113 and passim, V. index.