BELLARMINO, bel-lar-menii, or BEL LARMINE, Roberto Francesco Romolo, Italian cardinal and controversialist: b. Monte Pulciano in Tuscany, 4 Oct. 1542; d. Rome, 17 Sept. 1621. At the age of 18 he entered the College of Jesuits, where he soon distinguished himself ; and his reputation caused him to be sent into the Low Countries to oppose the prog ress of the reformers. He was ordained in 1569 by Jansenius, bishop of Ghent, and placed in the theological chair of the University of Louvain. After a residence of seven years he returned to Italy, and was sent by Sixtus V to France, as companion to the legate. He was made a cardinal on account of his learning, by Clement VIII, and in 1602 created archbishop of Capua. At the elections of Leo XI and Paul V he was thought of for the pontificate, and might have been chosen had he not been a Jesuit. Paul V recalled him to Rome; Bel larmino had the double merit with the court of Rome of supporting her temporal power and spiritual supremacy to the utmost, and of strenuously opposing the reformers. The talent he displayed in the latter controversy called forth similar ability on the Protestant side; and for a number of years no eminent divine among the reformers failed to make his arguments a particular subject of refutation. The great
work which he composed in this warfare is entitled 'A Body of Controversy,' written in Latin, the style of which is perspicuous and precise, without any pretension to purity or elegance. He displays a vast amount of Scrip tural learning, and is deeply versed in the doc trine and practice of the Church in all ages.
His maxims on the right of pontiffs to depose princes caused his work on the temporal power of the Popes to be condemned at Paris. On the other hand, it did not satisfy the court of Rome, because it asserted, not a direct, but an indirect, power in the Popes in temporal mat ters; which reservation so offended Sixtus V, that he placed it among the list of prohibited books. His controversial works were published at Prague in 1721, and again at Mayence in 1842. Of his other works the most important is his (Christianz Doctrinae Applicati& (1603) — a work originally composed in Italian, but since translated into all European languages. He left an autohiography, which was reissued and annotated by Dollinger and Reusch (1887).