TOMMASI, Giuseppe Maria, Blessed. - Cardinal, liturgist, historian and Theatine theologian, b. at Licata (Sicily) on 12 Sept. 1649, d. at Rome on 1 Jan. 1713.
Firstborn of the dukes of Palma and princes of Lampedusa, he renounced his primogeniture in favor of his brother and entered the Theatines of Palermo, where he professed on 25 March 1666. Ordained priest at Christmas of 1673, he lived in Rome for 40 years, almost always at S. Silvestro al Quirinale, devoting himself to the study of the Roman liturgy, the Bible, ecclesiastical history and the Fathers. To his knowledge of the classical languages he joined the study of the Oriental ones, Arabic, Ethiopic, Syro-Chaldean and Hebrew, learned from the learned rabbi Moses of Cave, whom he converted to the Christian faith. For his studies, for the important research carried out in archives and libraries and for the publication of his works (codices Tommasini) he was celebrated, even by Protestants, as one of the most learned men of his century and remains, even today, especially in the field of the Roman liturgy, an authority of the first rank. His efforts for a liturgical reform aimed, more than at innovating, at restoring and maintaining the ancient. He discharged various offices in the Roman Congregations; in 1712 he was created cardinal. He was beatified in 1803; feast on 1 Jan.
Among his principal publications, most of which appeared under the pseudonym of Giuseppe Maria Caro, the following should be remembered, in chronological order: Codices Sacramentorum nongentis annis antiquiores (1680: they are four very ancient sacramentaries of the 7th-8th centuries, namely the Missale Gelasianum, Missale Gothicum, Missale Francorum and Missale Gallicanum vetus; this edition, first in date and in importance, retains, even today, all its value); Psalterium iuxta duplicem editionem... Romanam et Gallicanam una cum Canticis et Hymnarium atque Orationale (1683: with this edition T. restored the use of the obeli and asterisks, already lost for a thousand years or nearly so); Responsorialia et antiphonaria Romanae ecclesiae (1686, according to the manuscripts of the 9th-12th centuries of the Vatican Library and of the monastery of St. Gall); Antiqui libri Missarum Romanae ecclesiae (1691; that is, the Antiphonary of St. Gregory the Great, called Comes, already emended by Alcuin, plus the Lectionary and the chapters of the Gospels; thus T. completed the Missale plenarium of the Roman liturgy). Important, then, are the Institutiones theologicae antiquorum Patrum (1709-12), which comprise a series of dogmatic-moral works of the holy Fathers arranged according to an Indiculus (1701) or plan of studies with which T. wished to give the clergy a complete course of patristic theology. He also left other original works and numerous opuscules of historical and biblical criticism, among which those on the reform of the liturgical books of the Roman Church are of current relevance.
Works: Opera omnia, ed. A. Vezzosi (11 vols., Rome 1747-69). Other opuscules published by Vezzosi, in Scrittori dei Chierici Regolari (II, Rome 1780, pp. 409, 416-27) and by G. Mercati, Opuscoli inediti del beato card. G. T. (Rome 1905).
Bibliography2 works
Francesco Andreu