NOVATI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Theologian of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick (Camillians), born in Milan in 1585, died there on 30 Aug. 1648. For many years he taught philosophy and theology in the houses of his Order, and was its Superior General (1640–46).
Among the numerous mariologists of the seventeenth century, N. perhaps occupies first place for the classic work De eminentia Deiparae Virginis Mariae (2 vols., Rome 1630; Bologna 1639, there 1650), in which the subject is treated with breadth and scholastic rigor. He also wrote: Eucharistici amores ex Canticis Canticorum enucleati (I, Milan 1645; II, posthumous, Vittoria 1726), the first attempt at a Eucharistic interpretation of the Cantica; Adnotationes et decisiones morales pro opportuno infirmis et moribundis auxilio praestando (Bologna 1638); Dilucidationes de illibata conceptione B. M. V. (manuscript).