CAJETAN (GAFTAmcs), CARDINAL , was born at Gaeta in the kingdom of Naples. His proper name was Tom maso de Vio, but he adopted that of Cajetan from his birthplace. When 16 he became a Dominican, and in received his B.A. from Padua, where he was subsequently professor of metaphysics. In 5508 he was made general of his order, and for his defence of the papal claims against the Council of Pisa (i 511) Leo X. made him a cardinal and archbishop of Palermo in 1517. The year following he went as legate to Germany, to quiet the commotions raised by Luther. It was before him that the Reformer appeared at the diet of Augsburg; and it was he who, in 1519, helped in drawing up the bull excommunicating Luther. In April 1519 he was made bishop of Gaeta. Among other negotiations, Cajetan was able to secure the election of Adrian VI. in 1521-22. Nomi nated by Clement VII. a member of the committee of cardinals appointed to report on the "Nuremberg Recess," he recom mended, in opposition to the majority, certain concessions to the Lutherans, notably the marriage of the clergy, as in the Greek Church, and communion in both kinds according to the decision of the council of Basel. He died on Aug. 9, Cajetan was a zealous Thomist but reflects the humanism and the controversies against Averroism and Scotism which he had encountered at Padua. He wrote commentaries upon Aristotle's Categories, Post. An., De Anima and upon the Summa and De Ente et Essentia of Aquinas and also many opuscula. These have passed through a number of editions, the important com mentary on the Summa being adjoined to the Leonine edition of Aquinas.
See Mandonnet, in Dict. of Cath. Theol. (1904) ; and T. M. Lindsay, History of the Reformation, vol. i. (1906).