KERSBELE (KERSBELL), PHILIPPE. – Carmelite theologian, b. in Ghent (Belgium) around 1462, d. in Paris on 20 Nov. 1489.
An ardent defender of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, he wrote the De conceptione Mariae (London, British Museum, mss. Harley 3838), which, although profound from a theological standpoint, seemed to his contemporaries insufficiently elegant in literary terms. It was directed principally against the work of the Dominican superior general Vincenzo Bandelli.
BIBL.: C. de Villiers, Bibl. Carm., II, 2nd ed., Rome 1927, pp. 634–35; Anastase de St Paul, s. V. in DThC, VIII, II, cols. 2350–51. Ambrogio di Santa Teresa