LOTTINI, Giovanni. - Dominican theologian and commissioner of the Holy Office, b. at Jolo (Prato) on 22 July 1860, d. in Rome on 5 January 1951.
Ordained priest in 1883 and reader in 1884, he began to teach philosophy and theology in the convent of Viesole, where he was also for some years primary reader and twice prior (1892-1895 and 1902-1905). From 1896 he was professor of philosophy in the local diocesan seminary and, in the period 1898-1901, vicar general of his Congregation of St Mark. From 1901 doctor of the Sacred Theological University of Florence. On 7 September 1905 Pius X appointed him first associate of the commissioner of the Holy Office and on 14 September 1906 and 21 August 1909, respectively, apostolic visitor to the Congregation of St Mark and to the Apulian dioceses of Lecce, Molfetta, Giovinazzo, Terlizzi and Oria. On 15 November 1919 he was elected commissioner of the Holy Office, a post he held until his death. A learned, simple and pious religious.
He left good school manuals; worth noting: Introduzione alla sacra teologia ossia della verità della fede cattolica (Florence 1902); Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae specialis ex Summa Theologiae s. Thomae Aquinatis (3 vols., ibid. 1904; 2nd ed., Rome 1908-10); Compendium philosophiae scholasticae ad mentem s. Thomae Aquinatis (3 vols., ibid. 1911-12); Divi Thomae Aquinatis ord. praed. Summa Theologica in breviorem formam redacta (3 vols., Rome-Turin 1925-27); L'imitazione di Cristo, Italian trans. (3rd ed., Rome 1950).