Caesar Baronius

Cesare Baronio was born in the Duchy of Sora (present day Sora in Italy) on 31 October 1538, the only child of Camillo Baronio and his wife Porzia Febonia. His family was of Neapolitan origin.[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02304b.htm Peterson, John Bertram. "Venerable Cesare Baronius." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907 {{PD-notice}}

Baronio was educated at Veroli and Naples, where he commenced his law studies in October 1556. Because of the fear of an imminent French invasion, he left Naples on 29 October 1557, and traveled to Rome, where he continued his legal studies and obtained a doctorate in utroque iure in 1561.{{sfn|Pincherle|1964}} He took up residence in a house on the Piazza Duca, now the Piazza Farnese, not far from the church of San Girolamo della Carità, where Philip Neri lived. Baronio was soon drawn to the circle of Philip Neri, who opened a meeting place for churchmen and laity who were interested in intellectual discussions on religion and philosophy. The Bible, church reform, ethics, and liturgy were some of the main themes of their evening discussions. Among those who frequented the evening meetings at Neri's residence were some of the most influential church leaders of the Counter-Reformation - Charles Borromeo, Federico Borromeo, Jacopo Sadoleto, and Gian Matteo Giberti, to name a few.

Contacts with such illustrious humanist-reformers and the charismatic Neri brought about a dramatic change in the young Baronio. As a result he switched his main interest from law to theology. In 1557 Baronio became a member of the Congregation of the Oratory founded by Philip Neri,[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caesar-Baronius Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Caesar Baronius". Encyclopedia Britannica] and was ordained to the subdiaconate on 21 December 1560 and to the diaconate on 20 May 1561. Ordination to the priesthood followed in 1564.

Neri directed Baronius to focus his attention on the study and explanation of Church History. Baronius spent the next few years balancing his studies, lectures, and continued involvement in apostolic work. In 1588, he began to publish the Annales.[https://raritanoratory.org/documents/2019/6/Caesar%20Baronius.pdf "Venerable Caesar Cardinal Baronius, C.O.", Raritan Oratory] He succeeded Philip Neri as superior of the Roman Oratory in 1593.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}}

Pope Clement VIII, whose confessor he was from 1594, made him a cardinale on 5 June 1596 and also appointed him to head the Vatican Library.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}} Baronio was given the red hat on 8 June and on 21 June was assigned the title of Cardinal Priest of Santi Nereo e Achilleo. Baronio restored this titular church and in 1597 a procession was held to transfer there a number of relics.Cyriac K. Pullapilly, Caesar Baronius: Counter-Reformation Historian (1975), University of Notre Dame Press, p. 77. Baronius also renovated the Church of San Gregorio Magno al Celio.{{cite book |last1=Touber |first1=Jetze |title=Law, Medicine and Engineering in the Cult of the Saints in Counter-Reformation Rome: The Hagiographical Works of Antonio Gallonio, 1556-1605: The Hagiographical Works of Antonio Gallonio, 1556-1605 |date=30 January 2014 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-26514-1 |page=96 |language=en}}

At subsequent conclaves, Baronio was twice considered to be papabile – the conclaves which in the event elected Pope Leo XI and Pope Paul V. On each occasion, Baronio was opposed by Spain on account of his work "On the Monarchy of Sicily", in which he supported the papal claims against those of the Spanish government.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}} In 1602 he commissioned the Oratorio di Santa Silvia in San Gregorio Magno al Celio.[https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/oratorio-di-santa-silvia-al-celio "Oratorio di Santa Silvia al Celio", Turismo Roma]

Baronio's last days were spent in the Oratory at Santa Maria in Vallicella. He found solace in the humble surroundings of the Oratory and in the company of his fellow religious. There he died on 30 June 1607, and was buried in that same church. He was named "Venerable", an honor to which Pope Benedict XIV elevated him in 1745.

Baronio is best known for his Annales Ecclesiastici. It was after almost three decades of lecturing at Santa Maria in Vallicella that he was asked by Philip Neri to tackle this work, as an answer to a polemical anti-Catholic historical work, the Magdeburg Centuries.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}} Baronio was at first unwilling that the task should be given to him and tried to persuade Neri to entrust the work to Onofrio Panvinio, who was already working on a history of the Church. After repeated commands from Neri, however, Baronius changed his mind and spent the rest of his life devoted to this enormous task.

In the Annales, he treats history in strict chronological order and keeps theology in the background.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}} Lord Acton called it "the greatest history of the Church ever written".Lord Acton (1906). Lectures on Modern History, "The Counter-Reformation", p. 121. In the Annales, Baronio coined the term "Dark Age" in the Latin form saeculum obscurum,Baronius, Caesar. Annales Ecclesiastici, Vol. X. Roma, 1602, p. 647. to refer to the period between the end of the Carolingian Empire in 888 and the first inklings of the Gregorian Reform under Pope Clement II in 1046.

Notwithstanding its errors, especially in Greek history where he was obliged to depend upon secondhand information, Baronio's work stands as an honest attempt at historiography. Sarpi, in urging Casaubon to write a refutation of the Annales, warned him never to accuse or suspect Baronio of bad faith.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}}

Baronio also undertook a new edition of the Roman Martyrology (1586), in the course of his work he applied critical considerations to removed entries he considered implausible for historical reasons, and added or corrected others according to what he found in the sources to which he had access.{{sfn|Taunton|1911}} He is also considered as saying, cited in the context of the controversies about the work of Copernicus and Galileo, "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."Cerrato, Edoardo Aldo. [http://www.oratoriosanfilippo.org/galileo-baronio-english.pdf "How to go to Heaven, and not how the heavens go"] This remark, which probably Baronio (according to some) made in conversation with Galileo, before the controversy, as he died before it, was cited by the latter (without precise attribution) in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615).

At the time of the Venetian Interdict, Baronio published a pamphlet, Paraenesis ad rempublicam Venetam (1606). It took a stringent papalist line on the crisis.{{cite book|author=William J. Bouwsma|author-link=William J. Bouwsma|title=Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uMLy6Ht7fxEC&pg=PA379|access-date=12 September 2012|date=29 August 1984|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-05221-5|page=379}} It was answered in the same year by the Antiparaenesis ad Caesarem Baronium of Nicolò Crasso.{{cite book|author=Niccolò Crasso|title=Antiparaenesis ad Caesarem Baronium Cardinalem pro S. Venetia republica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMlEAAAAcAAJ|access-date=12 September 2012|year=1606}}

A Latin biography of Baronio by the oratorian Hieronymus Barnabeus (Girolamo Barnabeo or Barnabò) appeared in 1651 as Vita Caesaris Baronii.{{cite book|author=Hieronymus Barnabeus|title=Vita Caesaris Baronii ex congregatione Oratorii S.R.E. Presbyteri cardinalis et Apostolicae Sedis bibliothecarii|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cyGtQAAACAAJ|access-date=12 September 2012|year=1651|publisher=Casoni}} Another Oratorian, Raymundus Albericus (Raimondo Alberici), edited three volumes of Baronio's correspondence from 1759.{{cite book|author=Gaetano Moroni|title=Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da S. Pietro sino ai nostri giorni ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Xs9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA141|access-date=12 September 2012|year=1846|publisher=Tipografia Emiliana|page=141|language=it}} There are other biographies by Amabel Kerr (1898),Lady Amabel Kerr. [http://www.liturgialatina.org/oratorian/baronius.htm The Life of Cesare Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Oratory, London, 1898] and by Generoso Calenzio (La vita e gli scritti del cardinale Cesare Baronio, Rome 1907).{{in lang|it}} [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/generoso-calenzio_(Dizionario_Biografico)/ treccani.it, Calenzio, Generoso.] The works of Mario Borrelli also contributed to the biographia of Baronius.

Baronio left a reputation for sanctity, which led Pope Benedict XIV to approve the introductions of his cause for canonization; Baronio was proclaimed "Venerable" on 12 January 1745.

In 2007, on the 400th anniversary of his death, a petition was presented by the Procurator General of the Oratory of St Philip Neri.Zev, Elizabeth. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110608005306/https://zenit.org/article-19105?l=english "A Saintly Chef: Cardinal Baronio's Canonization Cause Revived"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316160914/https://zenit.org/article-19105?l=english |date=2012-03-16 }} to reopen the cause for his canonization.

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• Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. "Il cardinale Cesare Baronio. Nel terzo centenario della sua morte," in La Scuola Cattolica (Monza), XXXVI, 1908, no. 12, pp. 1–29. (Reprinted with preface and notes by Giuseppe De Luca, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma, 1961) Roncalli's episcopal motto 'Obedientia et Pax' was taken from Baronio. [Peter Hebblethwaite JOHN XXIII: POPE OF THE CENTURY 2005 edition, p. 57.]
• {{cite web|authorlink=Salvador Miranda (historian) |last=Miranda |first=Salvador |title= Biographical Dictionary - Consistory of June 5, 1596 - BARONIO, Orat., Cesare (1538-1607)|url=https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1596.htm#Baronio|work=The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church |accessdate=|publisher=Florida International University|oclc=53276621}}
• {{EB1911 |wstitle = Baronius, Caesar |volume=3 |page=424 |first=Ethelred Luke|last=Taunton|author-link=Ethelred Taunton}}
• {{DBI |title= BARONIO, Cesare |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/cesare-baronio_(Dizionario-Biografico)|last= Pincherle|first= Alberto|volume= 6}}
• {{Catholic|wstitle=Venerable Cesare Baronius}}

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