THE'ATINES, one of the more modern religious brotherhoods of the Roman Catholic church; which played a very important part in the well-known internal movelnent for reformation which took place in central and southern Italy toward the middle of the 16th c., and which Rank() has described in his History of the Popes. The founders of this association were a party of friends: Cajetan di Thiene; Johu Peter Caraffa, at that time bishop of "'Mate (from which the congregation took the name Theatine); Paul Consiglieri; and Bonifazio di Colle. Cajetan and Caraffa, in concert with the two other friends named above, having resigned all their preferments, obtained a brief of Clement, dated June 25, 1524, formally constituting the new brotherhood, with the three usual vows, and with the privilege of electing their superior, who was to hold office for three years. One peculiarity of their vow of poverty deserves special notice: they were forbidden to possess property, and were to subsist entirely upon the alms of the faithful; anti yet they were strictly forbidden to beg, or in any way to solicit charita ble contributions. Their first convent was opened in Rome, and F. Caraffa was chosen as the first superior. He was succeeded in 1527 by Cajetan, and the congregation began to extend to the provinces. After a time, however, it was thought advisable to unite it
with the somewhat analogous order of the Somaschans; but this union was not of long continuance; Caraffa, who was elected pope, under the name of Paul IV., having restored the original constitution in 1555. By degrees, the Theatines extended themselves, first over Italy, and afterward into Spain, Poland, and Germany, especially Bavaria. They did not find an entrance into France till the following c., when a house was founded in Paris under cardinal Mazarin in 1644. To their activity, devotedness, and zeal, Ranke ascribes much of the success of that remarkable reaction against Protestantism which took place in the latter half of the 16th century. In later times, however, they do not appear to have played any notable part. Their most remarkable member in modern times has been the celebrated Sicilian, Father Ventura, author of the well-known work Bellezze della cede, and familiar to Englishmen by the part which he took in the Italian revolution of 1849. At present, the Theatine order is confined to Italy and Sicily.