Caesar Baronius

Cesare Baronius
Caesar Baronius
Born	August 30, 1538(1538-08-30) Sora, Duchy of Sora
Died	June 30, 1607(1607-06-30) (aged 68) Rome, Papal States
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church
Major shrine	Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome, Italy
Feast	January 12
Attributes	Cardinal's Hat

Cesare Baronio (also known as Caesar Baronius; August 30, 1538 – June 30, 1607) was an Italian Cardinal and ecclesiastical historian. His best known work are his Annales Ecclesiastici ("Ecclesiastical Annals"), which appears in twelve folio volumes (1588–1607).

Cardinal Baronius left a reputation for profound sanctity which led Pope Benedict XIV to proclaim him "Venerable" (January 12, 1745). In 2007, on the 400th anniversary of his death, the cause for his canonization, which had been stalled since 1745, was reopened by the Procurator General of the Oratory of St Philip Neri.^[1]

Life

Baronio was born at Sora, and was educated at Veroli and Naples. At Rome he joined the Congregation of the Oratory in 1557 under St. Philip Neri and succeeded him as superior in 1593. Pope Clement VIII, whose confessor he was, made him cardinal in 1596 and librarian of the Vatican. At subsequent conclaves he was twice nearly elected pope, but on each occasion was opposed by Spain on account of his work on the "Monarchy of Sicily," in which he supported the Papal claims against those of the Spanish government.

Baronius is best known for his Annales Ecclesiastici, undertaken at the request of St Philip Neri as an answer to the anti-Catholic history, the Magdeburg Centuries. He began writing this account of the Church after nearly thirty years of lecturing at Santa Maria in Vallicella. In the Annales he treats history in strict chronological order and keeps theology in the background. Another great historian, Lord Acton, called it "the greatest history of the Church ever written".^[2] It was in the Annales that Baronius coined the term "Dark Age" (saeculum obscurum)^[3] to refer to the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first inklings of the Gregorian Reform under Clement II in 1046. In spite of many errors, especially in Greek history, in which he had to depend upon secondhand information, the work of Baronius stands as an honest attempt to write history, marked with a sincere love of truth. Sarpi, in urging Casaubon to write a refutation of the Annales, warned him never to accuse or suspect Baronius of bad faith, for no one who knew him could accuse him of disloyalty to truth. Baronius made his own the words of St Augustine: "I shall love with a special love the man who most rigidly and severely corrects my errors."

He also undertook a new edition of the Roman martyrology (1586), which he purified of many inaccuracies. He is also famous for saying, in the context of the controversies about the work of Copernicus and Galileo, "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."^[4] This remark, which Baronius probably made in conversation with Galileo, was cited by the latter in his "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" (1615).

The restorations which Baronius made to his titular Church of Sts Nereus and Achilleus and in the Church of St Gregory's on the Caelian attest to his zeal for decorous worship. But the Annales constitute the most conspicuous and enduring monument of his genius and devotion to the Church.

References

1. ^ Zev, Elizabeth. "A Saintly Chef: Cardinal Baronio's Canonization Cause Revived"
2. ^ Lord Acton (1906). Lectures on Modern History, "The Counter-Reformation", p. 121.
3. ^ Baronius, Caesar. Annales Ecclesiastici, Vol. X. Roma, 1602, p. 647.
4. ^ Cerrato, Edoardo Aldo. "How to go to Heaven, and not how the heavens go"

Sources and external links

• Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. "Il cardinale Cesare Baronio. Nel terzo centenario della sua morte," in La Scuola Cattolica (Monza), XXXVI, 1908, no. 12, pp. 1–29. (Reprinted with preface and notes by Giuseppe De Luca, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma, 1961)
• Lady Amabel Kerr. The Life of Cesare Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Oratory, London, 1898 (Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish, Montana, 2007)
• Salvador Miranda. "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church - Biographical Dictionary - Consistory of June 5, 1596"
•  "Venerable Cesare Baronius". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Baronius, Caesar". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Articles relating to the 400th Centenary of the death of Venerable Cardinal Caesar Baronius from Oratoriani - Procura Generalis Confoederationis Oratorii S. Philippi Nerii

Persondata
Name	Baronius, Caesar
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 30, 1538
Place of birth	Sora, Duchy of Sora
Date of death	June 30, 1607
Place of death	Rome, Papal States