VINCENZO LUDOVICO GOTTI. — Dominican theologian and cardinal, b. Bologna 5 Sept. 1664, d. Rome 18 Sept. 1742. He entered religious life in Bologna in 1680, studied at Forlì, Bologna, and then at Salamanca. Returning to Italy in 1688, he taught philosophy at the Conciso in Mantua, then at the College of S. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, and later in Bologna. In 1695 he became professor of theology at the University of Bologna. Appointed by Clement XI as inquisitor in Milan in 1715, after two years he returned to Bologna, where he held the chair of apologetics at the University. On 30 Apr. 1728, Benedict XIII created him Patriarch of Jerusalem and cardinal-priest with the title of S. Sisto in the Consistory. Consultor to nine congregations, he took an active part in all discussions. Falling ill during the 1740 conclave, he did not recover. He was buried in the church of his titular title.
Gotti was one of the finest minds of his age and never ceased to defend the Catholic faith with his pen. His first work was written while he was inquisitor in Milan: *La vera Chiesa di Cristo dimostrata da’ segni e da’ dogmi contro i due libri di Giacomo Picenino intitolati Apologia per i riformatori e per la religione riformata e Trionfo della vera religione* (3 vols., Bologna 1719; 2nd ed., Milan 1734; a Latin translation was published in Venice in 1750). It is a systematic refutation of the errors of the Calvinist G. Picenino, such that rather than being a polemical work it is a true treatise of apologetics. In this work, printed without the author’s knowledge, offensive expressions against Picenino were introduced; Gotti condemned these in the preface to his second work: *Colloquia theologico-polemica in tres classes distribuita* (Bologna 1727). It consists of 38 conferences in which, in dialogical form, Gotti defends against Picenino the celibacy of the clergy. But his principal work is the *Theologia scholastico-dogmatica iuxta mentem D. Thomae Aquinatis* (16 vols., ibid. 1727-35; 2nd ed., 3 vols., Venice 1750; 3rd ed., ibid. 1783), in which the author, in the preface, argues that purely scholastic questions, now outdated, should be abolished in the study of theology, so as to give greater importance to the study of sources and of the heresies that must be combated. Against the Dutch Protestant G. Le Clerc, who maintained that the true Church was that of Calvin, he wrote: *De eligenda inter dissentientes Christianos sententia, seu de vera inter Christianos religione eligenda* (Rome 1734; 2nd ed., Regensburg 1740; 3rd ed., Vienna 1749). In defense of the truth of the Christian religion he also wrote: *Veritas religionis Christianae et librorum quibus imbuitur contra atheos, polytheos, idolatras, mahometanos et iudaeos demonstrata* (12 vols., Rome 1735; 2nd ed., Venice 1750). This second edition also contains the *Colloquia* and the *De eligenda*.
Alfonso D’Amato
St. Altmann, bishop of Passau, founded in 1073, near the ruins of a Roman watchtower, a monastery for 12 Augustinian canons, but toward the end of his life (d. 1091) he brought in the Cluniac Benedictines from St. Blasien; a convent of Benedictine nuns was also added, which lasted until the 16th century. The monastery, richly endowed, carried out extensive colonization activity in the Middle Ages and continued it later (agricultural, forestry, and famous viticulture: the income from wine enabled the Baroque reconstruction of the monastery). Already in the 12th century there were seven churches on the mountain of G. In the Gothic period G. carried out great building activity and was a bulwark against Lutheranism. A devastating fire on 17 June 1718 destroyed the monastery almost completely. Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt drew up the grand plan for its reconstruction, which was never completed (1717-88). Nevertheless, G. is one of the richest and most extensive monastic buildings in Austria. It has a rich library, many incunabula, and large musical collections. From 1939 to 1945 the Nazis completely suppressed it and installed an “Ordensburg” there. Notable was the learned Abbot Gottfried Bessel (d. 1749), who published, among other works, the *Chronicon Gottwicense* (Tegernsee 1732).