TROMBELLI, GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO. — Scholar, theologian, and patrologist, born on 5 March 1697 at Galeazza near Nonantola, died at Bologna on 7 January 1784.
Having entered in 1713 the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Saviour, he taught philosophy at Candiana (Padua), theology at Bologna, and was elected a member of the Institute of Sciences in 1749. He also held important offices in his Congregation, becoming its Abbot General in 1760. T. wrote a great many works on various subjects with deep erudition, though not always with the necessary critical sense. He began by publishing the Fables of Phaedrus translated into the vernacular (Venice 1735), followed by other works of a similar nature. But already in 1740 there appeared in Bologna, in six volumes, the *De cultu Sanctorum dissertationes decem*, which was highly praised by Benedict XIV. In the second edition (1751) the work was accompanied by *Priorum quatuor de cultu Sanctorum dissertationum vindiciae*, a calm polemic against the Protestant Johann Rudolph Kiesling, who had attacked the work. Among his other historical-theological publications may be mentioned the *Trattato degli Angeli custodi* (Bologna 1747); *Vita e culto di s. Giuseppe* (ibid. 1767); no fewer than six volumes on the Virgin Mary (*B. V. M. vita ac gesta* [ibid. 1761]), partly reprinted in Migne’s *Summa aurea* (Paris 1866); and at the age of 85 he completed his thirteen volumes on the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony (*Tractatus de Sacramentis per polemicas et liturgicas dissertationes dispositi* [Bologna 1769–83]), a work of considerable value, especially for liturgy, despite its prolixity.
T. also took a great interest in patristics. In 1751 he published two volumes of *Veterum Patrum Latinorum opuscula*, which included various apocryphal works of St Jerome, the *Exhortatio ad poenitentiam* attributed to St Cyprian, the *De benedictionibus Patriarcharum* attributed to St Paulinus of Milan (cf. A. Wilmart, *Le commentaire des bénédictions de Jacob attribué à Paulin de Milan*, in *Revue bénéd.*, 32 [1920], pp. 57–63), and other works by Bede, Leo the Great, and St Hilary, though more than one of these is spurious or doubtful. The little book *Arte di conoscere l’età de’ codici latini e italiani* (Bologna 1756), concise—an unusual feature in the author—is a fine contribution to the study of palaeography, which was much cultivated in that century. For local history and that of his Congregation, his *Ricerche istoriche concernenti le due canoniche di S. Maria in Reno e di S. Salvatore* (ibid. 1752) is still useful.
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