CRISOSTOMO IAVELLI — Dominican theologian, born in Casale Monferrato c. 1470, died in Bologna after 1538. A member of the Dominican province “utriusque Lombardia,” he devoted himself entirely to study and teaching.
A man of great intellect, he wrote extensively; against the “Commentator,” in defence of the Thomist interpretation of Aristotle, he composed: Quaestiones auxiliaresque super VIII libros Physices ad mentem s. Thomae, Aristotelis et Commentatoris plurimum decisa. Important and significant for the period are also, besides the Ethica christianae (Venice 1540), the Philosophiae politica sive civilis christianae dispositio (ibid. 1540) and the Oeconomica vel familiaris christianae disciplina (ibid. 1540). All the works of Iavelli were collected in Totius rationalis, naturalis, divinae ac moralis compendium (3 vols., Lyons 1567–60; 2 vols., Venice 1577).
He had dealings with Pietro Pomponazzi. When the latter, for his work De immortalitate animae (1516), was condemned by the Inquisitor, he turned to Iavelli and asked him to refute the work. The Dominican briefly replied to the various points of the controversial text. Pomponazzi was satisfied. Iavelli again treated the question of the immortality of the soul in his Tractatus de animae humanae indeficientia in quadruplici via, scil. peripatetica, academica, naturali et christianae (Venice 1536).