PIETRASANTA, SILVESTRO. — Jesuit apologist and scholar, born in Rome in 1590, where he died on 8 May 1647. He subsequently taught Letters at Fermo, served as theologian to Msgr. Luigi Carafa, apostolic nuncio in Cologne, and as apostolic visitor of the Institute of the Pious Schools. He was groundlessly credited with a significant role in the internal difficulties that troubled the Piarists after the apostolic visitation. He introduced the use of lines and dots to indicate colors in coats of arms.
Among his numerous writings, the following should be remembered: Racconto dell'elezione di mons. G. F. Greiffencias in arctiv. di Magonza (Liège 1626); Iter fuldense (ibid. 1627); Iter maguntinum (ibid. 1629); Legatio apostolica A. Carafae obita ad tractum Rheni (ibid. 1634): these little works are of particular interest for the religious history of Germany; Notae in epistolam Petri Molinaei ad Balzacum (Antwerp 1634); Calvinianus Verbero et in eum vindiciae vapulares (Loreto 1639); Breve esplicazione delle litorie della B. V.M. (Rome 1643); Thaumasia vierae religionis contra perfidiam sectorum (2 vols., Rome 1655).