JANDEL, ALEXANDRE-VINCENT. - Master General of the Dominicans, born at Gerbévilliers (Lorraine) on 10 July 1810, died in Rome on 11 Dec. 1872. Ordained priest in 1834 and professor of Sacred Scripture at the Seminary of Nancy, he was shortly afterwards appointed rector of that at Pont-à-Mousson. Drawn by the noble figure of Fr. Lacordaire, he joined the Dominicans at the convent of La Quercia (Viterbo) in 1841, and two years later was already in France to cooperate in the noble undertaking of restoring the Friars Preachers there. In 1850 he was summoned to Rome by Pius IX as vicar general of the Order, and his first concern was to transform the monastery of S. Sabina into a convent of strict observance, from which, it may be said, the disciplinary renewal of the others began. In 1862 he was elected master general.
A man of government, a skilled administrator, and of profound interior life, he devoted himself to creating almost a new life in the Order: he restored several provinces, opened a great number of houses, promoted the study of the doctrine of St. Thomas, cooperated in the new editions of the Dominican liturgical books and of the partly revised Constitutions, and propagated the Third Order and the associations of the Rosary and of the Holy Name of Jesus. He took part in the Vatican Council, working with various prelates to counter the objections of the anti-infallibilists; he accepted for his followers the mission of Mossul, and obtained the union of the Dominican provinces of Spain with the centre in Rome. For all this incessant work, J. is considered one of the greatest generals of the Order.
Compendium hist. Ordinis Praedicatorum, 2nd ed., Rome 1948, pp. 531-34, 565-69. Celestino Testore