MAGRI (Latin: Macer, Macri), DOMENICO. — Theologian and Oratorian, born in La Valletta (Malta) on March 28, 1604, died on March 4, 1672. He studied in Palermo, then in Rome, from where he was sent, at only 19 years of age, to the East to negotiate with the Maronite patriarch on matters of the Holy See. In Rome he was ordained a priest, then, by order of Cardinal Palleotto, he worked on the Arabic translation of the Bible. Under Innocent X he was promoted secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith; he was also a consultor of the Sacred Congregation of the Index. Cardinal Francesco M. Brancaccio, bishop of Viterbo from 1654, held him in high esteem and protected him greatly; he made him canon of the cathedral of Viterbo, where M. was buried.
Very learned and knowledgeable in Semitic languages, M. published, besides a commentary on the hymns of the Breviary (Viterbo, under the anagram Nicodemo Grima) and the Breviary of the journey to Mount Lebanon (Viterbo 1654, Rome 1655), two famous works: 'Avvoltozi seu contradictiones apparentes S. Scripturae (Venice 1645, 1653, Paris 1665; among the many editions, the best is the one enlarged by the theologian Jacques Lefèvre, archdeacon of Lisieux [1645-1716], Paris 1685); Notitia de' vocaboli ecclesiastici con la dichiarazione delle ceremonie, dell'origine dei riti sacri, voci barbare e frasi usate dai SS. Padri, concili e scrittori ecclesiastici (Messina 1644, Rome 1650, 2nd ed. 1669), a work based on the Bibliotheca sacra of Latino Latino of Viterbo (1513-93), rich in useful information even today, which his brother Carlo, prefect of the Library of the Sapienza in Rome, translated into Latin, expanding it under the title Hierolexicon sive sacrum dictionarium (Rome 1677, Bremen 1692, Venice 1712 and 1765); the 6th edition (2 vols., Bologna 1765-67), enriched by Stefano Sciuglià, contains about 8,000 entries. M. corrected and provided with indices the Roman edition of the Martyrology (1688).