Giovanni Dominici

Giovanni Dominici
Personal details
Born	1356 Florence
Died	July 10, 1419(1419-07-10) (aged 63) Buda

Giovanni Dominici (1356 – 10 June 1419^[1]) was an Italian Cardinal, statesman and writer. His ideas were a profound influence on the art of Fra Angelico.

Life

Dominici was born in Florence.

He entered the Dominican Order at Santa Maria Novella in 1372 after having been cured, through the intercession of St. Catherine of Siena, of an impediment of speech for which he had been refused admission to the order two years before. On his return from Paris, where he completed his theological studies, he was professor and preacher for twelve years at Venice.

With the sanction of the master general, Raymond of Capua, he established convents of strict observance of his order at Venice (1394) and Fiesole (1406), and founded the convent of Corpus Domini at Venice for the Dominican Nuns of the Strict Observance; a contemporary account of his life is found in the chronicle and necrology of that convent by Bartolomea Riccoboni^[2]. He was sent as envoy of Venice to the conclave of 1406 in which Pope Gregory XII was elected; the following year the pope, whose confessor and counsellor he was, appointed him Archbishop of Ragusa, created him cardinal in 1408 and sent him as ambassador to Hungary, to secure the adhesion of Sigismund to the pope.

At the Council of Constance Dominici read the voluntary resignation which Gregory XII had adopted, on his advice, as the surest means of ending the schism. Pope Martin V appointed him papal legate to Bohemia on 19 July 1418, but he accomplished little with the followers of John Hus, owing to the supineness of Wenceslaus IV.

Dominici died at Buda in 1419. He was beatified by Pope Gregory XVI in 1832 and his feast is observed on 10 June.

Works

Dominici was not only a prolific writer on spiritual subjects but also a graceful poet, as his many vernacular hymns, or Laudi, show. His Regola del governo di cura familiare, written between 1400 and 1405, is a pedagogical work which treats, in four books, of the faculties of the soul, the powers and senses of the body, the uses of earthly goods, and the education of children. .

His Lucula Noctis, in reply to a letter of Nicola di Piero Salutati, is the most important treatise of that day on the study of the pagan authors. Dominici did not completely condemn classical studies. He did however express very strong criticism of some humanist tendencies, such as the use of rhetoric in politics and the rise of the professional politician.

Notes

1. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia; however this erroneously gives his date of death as 10 July 1420.
2. ^ Christian Bratu (2010). "Riccoboni, Bartolomea". In Graeme Dunphy. Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1274-1275. ISBN 90 04 18464 3. 

References

•  "Bl. Giovanni Dominici". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• "Political Views in the Preaching of Giovanni Dominici in Renaissance Florence, 1400-1406" by Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 55, Number 1
• Encyclopedia Britannica article on Fra Angelico

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). "Bl. Giovanni Dominici". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

Persondata
Name	Dominici, Giovanni
Alternative names
Short description	Cardinal, writer and poet
Date of birth	1356
Place of birth	Florence
Date of death	1419-7-10
Place of death	Buda