Niccolò Riccardi
Niccolò Riccardi (born at Genoa, 1585; died at Rome, 30 May 1639) was an Italian Dominican theologian, writer and preacher, known today mostly for his role in the Galileo affair.
Life
Physically he was unprepossessing, but he was encouraged by his parents who sent him to study with Tomas de Lemos (1545-1629) at University of Valladolid.[1] He entered the Dominican Order and was invested with its habit in the Convent of St. Paul, where he studied philosophy and theology. After completing his studies he was made a professor of Thomistic theology at Pincia. While discharging his academic duties, he acquired a reputation as a preacher: Philip III of Spain named him "padre Mostro" ("The Marvel-Priest" or "the Monster-Priest"), a sobriquet by which he was subsequently known in Spain and at Rome. Whether this was due to his prodigious learning and culture, or to his obesity, is not certain.[2]
In Rome from 1621, he acquired the confidence of Pope Urban VIII. He was made regent of studies and professor of theology at the College of St. Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.[3] On 13 January 1622 he was also made consultant to the Congregation of the Index.[2]
Under Pope Urban VIII Riccardi's prestige as a man of culture continued to grow. He took part in the activities of the Accademia degli Umoristi and both Giovanni Andrea Rovetti and Marcello Giovanetti dedicated collections of sonnets to him, in 1625 and 1626 respectively. His literary activities overlapped significantly with his church responsibilities; In 1622 he was in charge of revising Tommaso Stigliani's Canzoniero to pass censorship, and in 1626 he was chosen to supervise the corrections to Giambattista Marino's Adone, which the Accademia degli Umoristi wanted to publish. After rejecting this censored version for printing, he worked on a further revised version in 1628 and 1629, collaborating with Roberto Ubaldini, but this work was apparently never finished.[2]
Virginio Cesarini tried to arrange a meeting between him and Galileo, but although he enthusiastically endorsed "Il Saggiatore" for publication in 1623, he only met Galileo for the first time in May 1624. The two men corresponded thereafter - although no direct trace of their letters to each other remains, Galileo's surviving letters to Mario Guiducci and Giovanni Faber, include pleas to them to ask Riccardi to reply to him.[2]
In 1629 Urban VIII appointed him Master of the Sacred Palace to succeed Niccolò Ridolfi, recently elected Master General of the Dominicans. Shortly after this the same pontiff appointed him pontifical preacher. Following these promotions he gave up his literary interests to concentrate on on liturgical and historic matters. He began the research for his history of the Council of Trent, of which there remains today only a synopsis and some notes. Between 1629 and 1631 he thought of k part in the Congregatn for the reform of the breviary. In 1635 he joined the newly-founded Accademia Basiliana, which explored links with the Greek church, and joined the Congregatio super Correctione euchologii Graecorum, which issued revised texts for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. In 1638 he joined the congregation charged with drafting an authorised version of the Holy Scriptures in Arabic.[2]
Dispute with Tommaso Campanella
Riccardi maintained generally amiable relationships with the authors whose work he had to revise before the Church would authorise their publication; an exception was with fellow-Dominican Tommaso Campanella. Campanella was a man of outspoken heterodox beliefs; denounced to the Inquisition, he was arrested in Padua in 1594 and cited before the Holy Office in Rome, he was confined in a convent until 1597.[4] He was soon in prison again, this time for rebellion against Philip IV of Spain, King of Naples, where he remained for twenty-seven years until the personal intercession of Pope Urban VIII had him released. He was brought to Rome in 1626, where he became Urban VIII's consultant on astrology.[5]
Riccardi first came into contact with Campanella's work in 1621, when he was called on to examine, with several other consultants, Atheismus triumphatus. The work was ostensibly an account of Campanella's personal journey from rationalism to sincere Christian belief, but the Church considered the arguments he put forward for atheism - before then refuting them - to be strongly persuasive.[5] The Church thus feared that the work in fact promoted heresy while appearing to argue for orthodoxy.[6] Permission to print was denied.
When Campanella came to Rome several years later, he renewed his attempt to have the work printed. Riccardi was once again called on to work with othrs to review the manuscript, and again their response was negative. This time however Urban VIII intervened personally and ensured that Atheismus Triumphatus, together with Campanella's other works, were authorised for printing. Riccardi continued to work on revisions, but there were more delays before the work finally appeared in 1631, whereupon it was immediately seized and banned. Campanella now embarked on a campaign of vengeance against Riccardi, accusing him of being the cause of all the delays in publishing; exiled to France, he continued his harassment from there, writing directly to the Pope and to other people of influence, making ever wilder accusations about Riccardi for several years. There is no evidence that anyone took his claims seriously, but Riccardi could do nothing but refuse to release the manuscripts Campanella had entrusted to him.[2]
Galileo’s Dialogue
Death
Riccardi died of a stroke in Rome on 30 May 1639 and was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The funeral oration was delivered by Melchior Inchofer, member of the commission revising Galileo’s Dialogue.[2]
Works
His extant works number twenty. Besides several volumes of sermons for Advent, Lent, and special occasions, his writings treat of Scripture, theology, and history. One of his best known works is the "History of the Council of Trent" (Rome, 1627). His commentaries treat of all the books of Scripture; two other commentaries treat of the Lord's Prayer and the Canticle of Canticles.
References
- ^ https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00453325/document Accessed 18 January, 2015
- ^ a b c d e f g Cavarzere, Marco. "Riccardi, Nicolo". Dizionario Biografico. Treccani. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ The Trial of Galileo, 1612–1633, edited by Thomas F. Mayer, p. 33 https://books.google.com/books?id=dNa-zidSXGYC&pg=PA33#v=onepage&q&f=false Accessed, 10 August 2013
- ^ "Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)", The Galileo Project, Rice University
- ^ a b Germana Ernst, "Tommaso Campanella 6: Natural Religion: Atheism Conquered", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2014 ed., accessed 6 May, 2018.
- ^ Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, New York: Penguin, 1998, ISBN 9780670881468, pp. 320–21 (online at the Internet Archive).
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Nicholas Riccardi". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
