Lorenzo Card. Brancati, O.F.M. Conv. (†1693)

Life

Lorenzo Card. Brancati was born in 1612 at Lauria, in the province of Potenza.1 He was given four names at Baptism, and called Gianfrancesco from the first two of them. At sixteen, he received the tonsure and became part of the diocesan clergy. In 1630 he entered the Conventuals after coming into contact with a friar who was his mother’s cousin and making a vow to enter the Order if he was cured of asthma. In religion he was called Lorenzo, which was also his fourth baptismal name. After rapidly completing the necessary preliminary studies, he was admitted to the College of St. Bonaventure in 1634, and became a master of arts and theology after the usual three years. During his time there, he read the first three volumes of Angelo Volpe’s Summa on his own because he was dissatisfied with the instruction he was receiving.2 He then taught in various colleges and gymnasia of the Order, including a few months with Volpe at Naples (1638), until in 1647 he was named Secretary General. He also served the Order in other offices, but in 1651 he was able to resume teaching and begin writing books. His first work attracted the attention of the Roman Curia and got him named lector of theology at the Roman university La Sapienza (1654–1681). When his friend became Pope Alexander VII in 1655, he was appointed a consultor of the Holy Office, and numerous other positions in the Curia followed in the course of his life. A collaborator of six popes, his outstanding learning proved useful in dealing with the controversies surrounding the Immaculate Conception, Jansenism, quietism, Gallicanism, and moral rigorism and laxism. Bl. Innocent XI created him a cardinal in 1681, and he died in Rome in 1693.

Works

His principal work is a Scotist commentary on books III and IV of the Sentences. The four volumes on book IV were the first to be published, as a continuation (though in a different style) of Volpe’s Summa.3 He then published another four volumes on book III: the last published (volume I) treats the Incarnation.

  • Book III of the Sentences
    • vol. 1 (1682): the Incarnation
    • vol. 2 (1668): the virtues in general, the cardinal virtues, and heroic virtue
      • His treatment of heroic virtue would become classic and, via Benedict XIV, the basis for evaluating the causes of saints.4
    • vol. 3 (1673): the theological virtues in general and Faith, including missiology, heresy, and punishment of heretics
    • vol. 4 (1676): Hope, Charity, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Beatitudes, habitual grace, graces gratis datae, and miracles in particular
  • Book IV of the Sentences
    • vol. 1 (1653): the Sacraments in general, Baptism, and the Eucharist
    • vol. 2 (1656): Penance, the sacrament and the virtue
      • Brancati admits in his autobiography that he worked too hastily in composing vols. 1 and 2. By 1665 he had already retracted the opinion that the conjugal debt can be satisfied in bad faith.
    • vol. 3 (1662): Confirmation, Holy Orders, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony
    • vol. 4 (1665): the Last Things
  • Numerous editions of his Epitome canonum can be found in Google Books.
  • Google Books also has editions of his “opuscula,” which Costa says are actually large volumes.

  1. On his life and works, see Francesco Costa, “Il cardinale Lorenzo Brancati OFMConv (1612–1693): L’uomo, lo scrittore, ritratto morale,” Miscellanea Francescana 93 (1993): 631–65.↩︎

  2. Cf. Lucianus Ceijssens, “Cardinalis Laurentii Brancati de Laurea Ord. Fr. Min. Conv. Autobiographia, Testamentum et alia documenta,” Miscellanea Francescana 40 (1940): 83.↩︎

  3. Cf. Ceijssens, 84.↩︎

  4. Cf. Costa, “Il cardinale Lorenzo Brancati,” 651.↩︎