Possevino, Antonio - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IX, p. 1096

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

POSSEVINO, ANTONIO. — Jesuit, diplomat, born at Mantua on 10 July 1533, died at Ferrara on 26 February 1611.

Having gone to Rome in 1550, he was chosen as tutor to the nephews of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and in 1559 received from him a commandery of the military Order of S. Antonio at Fossano (Cuneo). In the same year he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome; but as early as the following year, 1560, he was sent to Piedmont to Duke Emanuele Filiberto to stem the Waldensian heresy in the Valleys and promote the founding of colleges for young people. Ordained a priest in 1561, he continued his apostolate in the valleys of Luserna and Angrogne, and then at Chambéry and Lyon. Rector of Avignon (1565–1570) and of Lyon (1571–73), from 1573 he was engaged in his first diplomatic mission, as secretary to the superior general Ev. Mercuriano.

In 1577 Gregory XIII sent him as his legate to Sweden, where he succeeded in converting King Giovanni III, but not in reuniting Sweden with Rome. In 1581 he went as legate to Russia and Poland, to make peace between Stefano Báthori, king of Poland and voivode of Transylvania, and Ivan IV the Terrible, king of Russia, and at the same time to promote the union of the Russian Church with that of Rome. But he achieved only the conclusion of the peace of Jam Zapolski (1582); as for reunion with Rome, he obtained merely certain concessions for Catholics. More successful was his work directed toward the union of the Ruthenians, encouraging the dissemination of Catholic writings, the founding of a Russian-Ruthenian Seminary, and freedom of schooling for Catholic Ruthenians. Deprived of his position as legate because of jurisdictional disputes with the nuncio to Poland, A. Bolognetti, P. devoted himself to missionary activity throughout Poland, Bohemia, and Upper Hungary, founding papal seminaries at Erlam, Mähren, and Siebenburg. A further mission to King Báthori, entrusted to him by Sixtus V, failed because of the King’s death. P. then turned to teaching theology at Padua (1587–91), where he had s. Francesco di Sales as a pupil. He was also involved in the reconciliation of Henry IV of France with the Church.

Also noteworthy is his publishing activity: Trattato del sacrificio dell'altore (Lione 1563); Il soldato cristiano (Roma 1569), written at the command of Pius V for the troops sent to France and for the fleet dispatched to Lepanto; Transsilvania (Vilno 1584; republished by J. Veresz in Pontes rerum Transsilvanicarum, III. Budapest 1913); Moscovia (ivi 1586), which earned him the title of “discoverer of Russia”; Bibliotheca selecta, qua agitur de ratione studiorum (Roma 1593; ed. in Biblioth. der Kathol. Pädagogie, XI, Friburgo in Br. 1901); Apparatus ad omnium gentium historiam (Venezia 1602) and, more renowned still, Apparatus sacer ad scriptores V. ac N. Testamenti (3 voll., Venezia 1603–1606).

BIBL.: the principal source for his life is the unpublished autobiography, written by P. when already advanced in age, in the third person, at the request of Cardinal C. Baromo and on the commission of Paul V: Annalium quinquecipita annorum. (3 voll., Arch. rom. S. J., Opp. NN., 336). Biographies: J. Dorigny, La vie du p. A. P., Parigi 1712; N. Chezzi, Vita del p. A. P., vers. dell'opera del Dorigny con note, molte lettere inedite e parecchi momenti aggiunti alla fine, Venezia 1759; L. Karttunen, A. P., un diplomato pontifical au XVIe siècle, Losanna 1908. — Studies: P. Pierling, Possevini misio nosocotica, Parigi 1882; id., Un nonce du Pape en Moscovia, ivi 1884; id., Bithory et P., ivi 1887; id., La Basse et le St Siège, II, ivi 1897; H. Briandet, Le Ni Siège et la Suède durant la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle, 2 voll., Parigi-Ginevra 1907–13; Monumenta Poloniae Viticana, V. Alberti Belognetti sunti ap. in Polonia Epist. et acta, 1581–82, parte 1°, Cracovia 1933 (con più di 70 lettere e memoriali di P.), V. indice; I. Poplatek, Geneza Seminarium papieskiego w. Wilnie, in Oricus, 1 (1933), pp. 47–50; K. Derks, P. A. P., I. De contra-reformist, II. In sending near Sweden; III. De vredesbemiddelaar, in Studien, 119 (1933), pp. 314–32, 405–31, 419–27; G. Soranzo, II p. A. P. e l'ambasciatore inglese a Venezia (1604–1605), in Accum, 7 (1933), pp. 385–422; C. Crivelli, La disputa di A. P. con i Valdesi (16 luglio 1566), in Arch. Hist. S. J., 7 (1938), pp. 79–91; G. Castellani, La creazione della C. d. G. del p. A. P. da una relaz. ined. del medesimo, ibid., 14 (1945), pp. 102–24; H. Fouqueray, Hist. de la Comp. de J. en France, I, Parigi 1910, pp. 335–41, 441–51, 542–50; II, ivi 1913, pp. 251–55; Sommervogel, VI, 1061–93; IX, 781; Pastor, IX–XII, V. indice.

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