SISTO, Sienese. - Biblicist, b. in Siena in 1520 to Jewish parents, d. in Genoa in 1569. As a young man S. converted and entered the Franciscan order. Accused of heresy or of relapsing into Judaism, he was condemned to the stake; but, persuaded by Card. Ghisleri, he recanted and was pardoned by Julius III. He then entered the Dominican order and enjoyed the trust of St. Pius V (Ghisleri), who entrusted him with various tasks concerning the Inquisition. In particular S. carried out his activity in Cremona, supervising Hebrew publications. There he saved not a few manuscripts and books in that language. S. carried out also an intense activity as an orator, especially in Genoa, where he lived for a long time.
There remains from him a fundamental work, namely Bibliotheca sancta... ex praecipuis catholicae Ecclesiae auctoribus collecta et in octo libros digesta (Venice 1566; often reprinted); it is the first complete biblical introduction (v.) and conducted with a true critical sense. In it he speaks of the number, the division and the authority of the Sacred Books (bk. I), of the various writings and writers mentioned in the Bible (bk. II), of hermeneutics (bk. III: De ratione exponendi sacra volumina, also reprinted separately, Cologne 1577), of Catholic exegetes (bk. IV), of the exegetical authority of those who had commented on the Old and New Testament
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SEVILLE, ARCHDIOCESE of - The bell tower of the Cathedral, called La Giralda (12th cent.).
(ll. V-VI), against the sacred writings, together with their refutation (ll. VII-VIII). In this work there appears for the first time the division of the biblical books into "protocanonical" and "deuterocanonical" (and "apocryphal").
S. speaks of various other writings of his, which have not come down to us: a book De usu concordanturum S. Bibliae, 4 books on biblical texts of an astronomical, geographical, scientific character (Astronomicarum, geographicarum, physicarum quaestionum) or more disputed ones (In varios Divisione Scripturae locos problematicarum epistolarum liber), a concordance or harmony of the 4 wisdom books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus), commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans and on various Gospel passages, as well as the first six chapters of Genesis and of Job, and on Ps. 1 and 51 (cf. Bibliotheca sancta [v. bibl.], pp. 475).