SHGUANIN, CESARIO. - Theologian of the Order of the Servants of Mary, b. at Schöntal on 11 June 1692, d. at Rome on 4 Feb. 1769. A religious in the convent of Frohnleiten in Styria on 25 June 1713, ordained a priest on 19 Sept. 1716, he was professor of philosophy and theology first at Innsbruck, then at Rome in the Collegio Gandavense, near S. Marcello al Corso.
He left many writings of a philosophical, juridical, hagiographic, ascetic and historical nature. Among the most valuable are: the Epitome scientiae animasticae seu asseritones philosophicae de praecipua microcosmi parte, nempe de anima rationali (Innsbruck 1724); De anatomia probabilismi (ibid. 1725, later reprinted in Germany and twice in Rome); Arcanum tribunal poenitentiae (Ratisbon 1730); Scientia Sanctorum (in German, published at Vienna in 1736, later translated by the author into Latin and published at Rome in 1759); Manuale clericorum saecularium, and various other short works, published at various times. He left other volumes unpublished, for the most part preserved in the general Archive of the Order, among which are to be noted: Processus ab orbe condito novi et maximi
(4 vols.); Libri duodecim relationum super mysterio de universali reformatione (9 vols. in-fol.); Vita, passio et triumphus Mariae sine labe conceptae et Sanctissimae Dei Genitricis (4 vols. in-fol.); Opus universalis reformationis (7 vols. in-fol.); Opus pro resuscitanda fide ad vitam.
For about eight years he was confessor and director of the monastery of the Serve di Maria Claustrali of Munich, where various extraordinary events occurred which he narrated in the Processus. Having gone to Rome in 1736, he remained there until his death. He had been created cardinal, but reserved in pectore. He was the first, in 1762, to ask Pope Clement XIII for the dogmatic definition of the bodily Assumption of the Most Holy Mary.
Bibliography
Gabriele Roschini