MAGNI, VALERIANO (da MILANO). — Capuchin, born in Milan on 15 October 1586, died in Salzburg on 29 July 1661.
Received into the Order by s. Lorenzo da Brindisi (v.) at Prague on 25 March 1602, he soon acquired fame as a preacher. He taught philosophy at Vienna and Prague; he composed philosophical books and pamphlets with innovative aims, taking his inspiration from the Augustinian-Bonaventurian current against Aristotelianism, which he regarded as contrary to Christian doctrine, inadequate and deficient in the objective study of nature.
His principle was the knowledge of God and the world through divine illumination: De luce mentium et eius imagine (Rome 1642, completed in the 2nd ed., Vienna 1646; Bologna 1886); Principia et specimen philosophiae (Cologne 1652 and 1662). Also: Opus philosophicum (Leitomischl 1660).
In 1616 he was placed at the head of the Capuchin mission in Poland, requested by Sigismund III; he worked for the succession of his son Ladislaus (1632), whom, for religious reasons, he persuaded to marry Cecilia Renata, daughter of the Emperor (1637). He negotiated in Paris on behalf of Ferdinand III of Austria and Maximilian of Bavaria in the Grisons question (1623); at Pinerolo and at the Diet of Regensburg (1630) concerning the succession to Mantua; he acted as intermediary between General Wallenstein, Urban VIII (1632) and the Emperor (1634). Provincial minister of Austria, Bohemia and Moravia (1624–26), in 1626 he was placed by the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide at the side of the archbishop of Prague, Cardinal E. Harrach, for the religious restoration of Bohemia; from 1643 he was appointed apostolic missionary in Electoral Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburg and Danzig. His disputes and controversies with the Protestants attracted considerable attention: in De acatholicorum credendi regula iudicium (1628); Iudicium de acatholicorum et catholicorum regula credendi (Vienna 1641); Echo absurditatum Ulrici de Neufeld Blesa (Krakow 1646). At the request of the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide, he led Landgrave Ernest of Hessen-Rheinfels and his consort to abjuration (Epiphany 1652). Connected with this undertaking was the disputation with the Protestants at Rheinfels Castle (14–24 December 1651), which continued in a series of writings between M. and his opponents. The landgrave and the Jesuits also opposed him, and this divergence, which had already begun with the question of the University of Prague, led him to publish ill-fated writings in his own defense: Apologia (without date or place; probably 1655). By superior order, the nuncio of Vienna had him imprisoned (1 February 1661). Friends and admirers secured his release; he was received joyfully in Salzburg, where he died reconciled and at peace with everyone.