**MERTEL, TEODOLFO** – Cardinal, born at Allumiere (Lazio) on 6 Feb 1806, died there on 9 July 1899. Having graduated in law at Rome, he gained such a reputation in the practice of law that Monsignor Antonelli, then substitute of the Secretariat of State, invited him to enter the magistracy, which at that time implied admission to one of the prelatial colleges of the Roman Curia. MerteI at first firmly refused, but yielded to the express wish of Gregory XVI; he was then appointed auditor of the Sacred Rota and entrusted with the presidency of the civil tribunal of Rome, without having to embrace the ecclesiastical state (1843).
Secretary of the cardinalial commission charged in 1848 with drafting the Statute of Pius IX, it was he who, in a night of feverish work, formulated the 69 articles: the text he proposed was accepted in its entirety by the Pope, who made no modification whatsoever. It is in fact a true masterpiece of juridical wisdom, harmonizing constitutional principles with the inalienable prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff. Monsignor MerteI played a major part in the government of the ecclesiastical state after the return of Pius IX from Gaeta in 1853, serving as Minister of Grace and Justice, and later as head of the Interior Department. In recognition of services rendered with profound learning and enlightened zeal, he was created cardinal in February 1858. As deacon of Sant’Eustachio, he was the last, in chronological order, of the laymen raised to the cardinalate. Indeed, he outlived Randi, who had been admitted to the Sacred College by Pius IX in 1875, and Cristofori, named by Leo XIII in 1885, who were the last in order of creation (cf. S. Negro, Seconda Roma, Milano 1943, p. 152).
A trusted counsellor of the Pope, he drafted the protest of Pius IX addressed to the Catholic world after 20 Sept 1870 and other important documents of that turbulent period. Pius IX appointed him Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church and named him his executor; in this capacity, he organized and directed the transfer of the remains of Pope Mastai to San Lorenzo al Verano on the dramatic night of 13 July 1881 (cf. P. Vigo, Storia degli ultimi trent’anni del sec. XIX, III, Milano 1909, pp. 270-275). Held in great esteem also by Leo XIII, he directed for many years the Apostolic Chancery and was the most authoritative canonist of the Curia, as evidenced by the lucid *Decisiones* he compiled and which were widely used in the drafting of the Code of Canon Law, the glory of Cardinal P. Gasparri, who had been MerteI’s chaplain, secretary, and confidant. A distinguished humanist, MerteI left, besides weighty juridical works, notable literary compositions in prose and verse, written in fluent Latin, as well as a vast and well-documented historical account of the region of Tolfa, which remained unpublished.
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**MERSENNE, MARIN** – Engraved portrait by Duflos.
As recent studies have shown (Lenoble), the scientific-theological activity of Mersenne belongs to the “naissance du mécanisme.” Among the philosophies of the 17th century—Aristotelianism and Cartesianism—there is a third, the naturalism of the Renaissance (Pomponazzi, Bruno, Cardano, Paracelsus [q.v.]), which still rests on the old magical theme of the World Soul, to the grave detriment of religion and science. Mersenne, like Galileo and Roberval, combats magic and animism and establishes the new mechanism (distinct from that of Descartes), namely, “he reads nature by the rule of mathematics.” Indeed, in *L’Impieté* (p. 374), Mersenne writes, always against Bruno, that he preferred to say “that there are in the world only contingent effects and that God is the universal agent in all things and maintains individual natures united, rather than introduce a universal soul.” Moreover, as a sincere believer, he bases the apologetic motive on the justification of the “miracle,” which, precisely because it is a derogation from the laws of nature, presupposes such laws, without which it would not exist; hence, to preserve the natural law is to preserve the miracle. He is convinced that the new mechanical physics is a surer guarantee of the law of nature than the Aristotelian one. Thus Mersenne contributes to the birth of modern or quantitative physics, as a description of phenomenal nature according to the mathematical rule, without pretensions to apodictic explanation or the construction of metaphysical systems upon II. It is, in the end, the scientific definition of “phenomenon,” for which Mersenne’s doctrine has rightly been called “critical empiricism.”
Mersenne, Marin – Engraved portrait by Duflos.