VENDVILLE, JEAN. - Bishop of Tournai, b. 24 June 1527 at Lille, d. at Tournai on 15 Oct. 1592. At the age of 15 he went to Paris to follow courses in civil law, obtained his degree at Louvain and was then a professor at Douai. John of Austria called him as a councillor of state.
Together with his friend Allen, in 1567 he made a pilgrimage to Rome, presenting to Pius V a memorial for the union of Christendom against the Turks and another on the founding of a missionary seminary. Having returned to his homeland, he founded at Douai together with Allen the celebrated English Seminary, destroyed by the French Revolution. Having been left a widower, he became a priest in the winter of 1580-81. On 29 May 1588 he was promoted bishop of Tournai. He was the first to propose a concrete plan for a general Roman college "de Propaganda Fide" for the formation of missionaries, which Pius V had examined. V. presented again in 1578 to Gregory XIII the memorial that the Jesuit father Antonio Possevino examined. On the occasion of his visit ad limina in 1589 V. for the third time proposed his plan to Sixtus V and in 1592, a short time before his death, to Clement VIII. The death of the Pope and the vicissitudes of the time prevented its realization for the moment.
The memorial was published only in 1870 at Tournai through the work of Prof. Reussens under the title: La première idée du Collège de la Propagande, ou mémoire présenté en 1589 par J. V., évêque de Tournai, au souverain pontife Sixte V.
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Nicola Kowalsky