Perrone, Giovanni

Perrone, Giovanni a noted Italian Jesuit, one of the ablest of modern Romanist theologians, was born in 1794, in Chieri, Piedmont. After studying in the college of his native city, he finished his theological course in the University of Turin, where he was finally received doctor. At the age of twenty-one he went to Rome, and entered the Society of Jesus. After one year of novitiate, he was sent to Orvieto to teach dogmatic and moral theology to the students of the society, to whom were added the pupils of the Germanic college. Being ordained priest, he taught in the Roman college, and was appointed, in 1830, rector of the college of Ferrara, from whence he was recalled, in 1838, to resume the teaching of theology in the Roman college. In 1848, at the time of the Roman revolution, he went to England for safety, and only returned to Rome in 1850. Three years afterwards he was made rector of all the Roman colleges. Father Perrone, who, with father Passaglia, is counted among the greatest theologians of Italy, thereafter took his seat in the congregation of bishops and regulars, and in the provincial councils, and was charged with the revision of the books of the Eastern churches. He was also counselor to the Propaganda, and the Ritual committee, etc. Indeed, Perrone was in scientific and literary relations with the most distinguished savans of Europe. He died at Rome in 1875. His works amount to more than sixty, and have been translated into Latin, French, German, English, and Armenian. The principal are, Proelectiones theologiam (Rome, 1835, 9 vols. 8vo). .This work has had more than twenty-five editions, and the different treatises of which it is composed have been translated into French and German. An abridged edition of it was made (ibid. 1845, 4 vols. 8vo), and was followed by seventeen others: — Synopsis historiae theologiae cum philosophia comnparatae (ibid. 1845, 8vo): — De immaculato B. V. Marice concepta, an dogmatico de crto deJiniripossit (ibid. 1847, 8vo); several editions in German, French, and Dutch: — Analyse et Considerations sur 1 t Symbolique de Moehler

(ibid. 1836, 8vo): — II Hermesianismo (ibid. 1838, 8vo); translated into French and Latin: — Analyse et Reflexions sur I'Histoire d'Innocent III, by Fred. Hurter (ibid. 1840, 8vo): — II Protestantismo (ibid. 1853, 3 vols. 8vo); translated into French by the abbe A. C. Peltier (Paris, 1854, 3 vols. 8vo). See F. Ed. Chassay, Notice sur la Vie et les Ecrits du R. P. Perrone, at the beginning of the last work quoted.