1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pallavicino, Pietro Sforza

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20816711911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 20 — Pallavicino, Pietro Sforza

PALLAVICINO (or Pallavicini), PIETRO SFORZA (1607–1667). Italian cardinal and historian, son of the Marquis Alessandro Pallavicino of Parma, was born at Rome in 1607. Having taken holy orders in 1630, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1638, he successively taught philosophy and theology in the Collegium Romanum; as professor of theology he was a member of the congregation appointed by Innocent X. to investigate the Jansenist heresy. In 1659 he was made a cardinal by Alexander VII. He died at Rome on the 5th of June 1667. Pallavicino is chiefly known by his history of the council of Trent, written in Italian, and published at Rome in two folio volumes in 1656–1657 (2nd ed., considerably modified, in 1666). In this he continued the task begun by Terenzio Alciati, who had been commissioned by Urban VIII. to correct and supersede the very damaging work of Sarpi on the same subject. Alciati and Pallavicino had access to many important sources from the use of which Sarpi had been precluded; the contending parties, however, are far from agreed as to the completeness of the refutation. The work was translated into Latin by a Jesuit named Giattinus (Antwerp, 1670–1673). There is a good edition of the original by Zaccharia (6 vols., Faenza, 1792–1799). It was translated into German by Klitsche in 1835–1837. He also Wrote a life of Alexander VII. and a tragedy (Ennenegildo, 1644), &c.

His collected Opere were published in Rome in 1844–1848.