MAGRI (lat. Macer, Macri), DOMENICO. — Theologian and exegete of the Oratory, born at La Valletta (Malta) on 28 March 1604, died on 4 March 1672. He studied at Palermo, then at Rome, whence, at only 19 years of age, he was sent to the East to negotiate affairs of the Holy See with the Maronite patriarch. At Rome he was ordained a priest, then, commissioned by Cardinal Pallentito, occupied himself with the translation of the Bible into Arabic. Under Innocent X he was promoted secretary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide; he was consultor of the Sacred Congregation of the Index. Cardinal Francesco M. Brancaccio, bishop of Viterbo from 1654, esteemed and protected him greatly; he made him a canon of the cathedral of Viterbo, where M. was buried.
Highly learned and knowledgeable in the Semitic languages, M. published, besides a commentary on the hymns of the Breviary (Viterbo, under the anagram Nicodemo Grima) and the Breve racconto del viaggio al Monte Libano (Viterbo 1654, Rome 1655), two celebrated works: Ἀντίλογίαx seu contradicciones apparentes S. Scripturae (Venice 1645, 1653, Paris 1665; among the many editions, the best is that expanded by the theologian Jacques Lefèvre, archdeacon of Lisieux [1645–1716], Paris 1685); Notitia de' vocabolli 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 information still useful today, which his brother Carlo, prefect of the Biblioteca della Sapienza in Rome, transferred into Latin, expanding it, under the title Hierolexicon sive sacrum dictionarium (Rome 1677, Bremen 1692, Venice 1712 and 1765); the 6th ed. (2 vols., Bologna 1765–67), enriched by Stefano Sciugliaca, contains approximately 8000 entries. M. corrected and supplied indexes for the Roman edition of the Martirologio (1688).