MONTANARI, GIACOMO. - Minister General of the Conventual Friars Minor, b. at Bagnacavallo (Romagna) in 1570, d. at Venice on 4 Nov. 1631. Master of students and bachelor at Bologna (1593-96), doctor of the College of St. Bonaventure in Rome (1596-99), he taught metaphysics at the University of Bologna (1600-1603), but was soon taken up for the various offices of the Order: provincial minister of Hungary (titular, 1607-16), procurator general (acting, 1611), vicar apostolic (15 Sept. 1612-17), and 65th minister general (May 1617-23).

He visited the provinces of the Order, mostly on foot, promoting discipline, for which he had a special Manual of formation and history compiled, as well as the urban Constitutions (approved in 1628), and gave impetus to studies with his famous Reformatio studiorum, which he issued from Cologne, after having carried out the solemn recognition and translation of the bones of the Bl. Duns Scotus (13-15 Jan. 1619). Under his generalate, in 1619, the Capuchin Friars Minor received full autonomy from Paul V, with their own minister general. After 1623, M. retired to Venice, where he was also theologian of the Most Serene Republic and where he was buried in the basilica of the Frari.

Learned and most pious, M. left numerous ascetical theological writings, among which are remembered: De divinae sapientiae triumpho (Rome 1599); De S. R. Ecclesiae principatu et monarchia, dedicated to Paul V (ibid. 1608); Reformatio studiorum Ord. FF. MM. Conv. S. Francisci (Perugia 1620; later codified in the urban Constitutions); Modo di far l'Oratione mentale (Mondovì 1619); Exercitiorum spiritualium liber, qui etiam mystica theologia nuncupari potest... (Terni 1620; a collection from the writings of St. Bonaventure); manual books of formation and piety.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Regesta Ordinis, cod. A. 22, ff. 28, 194v. 201, 220 (Rome, convent of the SS. Apostoli); G. Franchini, Bibliografia di scrittori franc. conventuali, Modena 1693, pp. 286-90; Sbaralea, II, pp. 15-16; M. Knälsz, Chronologio-provinciale O.F.M. Conv. prov. Hungariae..., Posen 1803, pp. 305-306; L. Caratelli, Manuale... dei Min. Conv., Rome 1897, pp. 270-71, 296, 320; F. A. Benoffi, Memorie minoritiche dal 1560 al 1776, in Miscell. franc., 33 (1933), p. 99; 101; 356; G. Abate, La tomba del ven. Dans Scoto a Colonia, ibid., 45 (1945), pp. 57-60.

Lorenzo Di Fonzo

@incollection{ec8_montanari_giacomo, author = {Di, Fonzo Lorenzo}, title = {Montanari, giacomo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1340--1341}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/montanari-giacomo} }

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Montanari, Giacomo

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