MAGNI, VALERIANO (da MILANO). - Capuchin, b. in Milan on 15 Oct. 1586, d. in Salzburg on 29 July 1661.

Received into the Order by St. Lawrence of Brindisi (v.) at Prague on 25 March 1602, he immediately acquired fame through his preaching. He taught philosophy at Vienna and Prague; he composed philosophical books and pamphlets with innovative aims, drawing inspiration from the Augustinian-Bonaventurian current against Aristotelianism, which he considered contrary to Christian doctrine, insufficient and deficient in the objective study of nature.

His principle is the knowledge of God and of 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). In addition: 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 the latter's son Ladislaus (1632), whom for religious reasons he persuaded to marry Cecilia Renata, the Emperor's daughter (1637). He negotiated in Paris for Ferdinand III of Austria and Maximilian of Bavaria in the Grisons question (1623); at Pinerolo and at the Diet of Regensburg (1630) for the Mantuan succession; he was an 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 alongside the Archbishop of Prague, Card. E. Harrach, for the religious restoration in Bohemia; from 1643 he was appointed apostolic missionary in Electoral Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburg and Danzig. His disputes and controversies with the Protestants were widely noted: in De acatholicorum credendi regula iudicium (1628); Iudicium de acatholicorum et catholicorum regula credendi (Vienna 1641); Echo absurditatum Ulrici de Neufeld Blesa (Kraków 1646). On the instructions of the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide he led the Landgrave Ernest of Hesse-Rheinfels and his consort to abjuration (Epiphany 1652). Into these undertakings there entered the disputation with the Protestants in Rheinfels castle (14-24 Dec. 1651), which dragged on in a series of writings between M. and his adversaries. 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 ill-fated publications in his own defense: Apologia (no date or place; probably 1655). By order of his superiors the nuncio of Vienna had him imprisoned (1 Feb. 1661). Friends and admirers obtained his release; he was received festively at Salzburg, where he died serene and reconciled with all.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: Valdemiro Bonari da Bergamo, I Cappuccini della provincia milanese, I, Crema 1898, pp. 193-218; E. d'Alenson, s. v. in DThC. IX, coll. 1553-65; K. Spiegel, Die Prager Universitätsunion (1618-54), in Mitteilungen des Vereines f. Geschichte der Deutschen in Böhmen, 62 (1924), pp. 5-94; R. Bizzarri, Tre cappuccini precursori del Rosmini, in Rassegna nazionale, 46 (1924), pp. 3-9; Augustin de Corniero, Capuchinos precursores del p. Bartolomeo Barberis, in Collectanea Franciscana, 3 (1933), pp. 67-80, 209-28, 347-83, 518-70; Giustino da Novara, La regola prossima della fede nell'apologetica di V. M., Casale Monferrato 1937; German Abgotspon von Staldenried, P. V. M. Sein Leben in allgemeinen, seine apostolische Tätigkeit in Böhmen im besonderen, Olten 1939; Melchior a Pobladura, Historia generalis Ordinis Min. Capucinorum, I, parte 2°, Roma 1948, pp. 376-81; II, ivi 1928, (v. indice).

Ilarino da Milano

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Magni, Valeriano (da Milano)

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