Borromeo, Federico (2)
Borromeo, Federico
(1564 -1631 ) Cardinal , Archbishop of Milan, born Milan; died there. He was a cousin of Saint Charles Borromeo, possessed extraordinary erudition, and was a model of episcopal zeal, an indefatigable preacher, a reformer of abuses, and an apostle of religious education. During the famine and pest at Milan, 1627 -1628 , he fed 2,000 poor daily, and inspired his clergy with a devotion immortalized in Manzoni’s “Betrothed.” He founded the Ambrosian Library , and wrote numerous works on various ecclesiastical sciences.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Borromeo, Federico
Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, cousin and successor of St. Charles Borromeo, born at Milan 16 August, 1564; died there, 22 September, 1631. He was the son of Giulio Cesare Borromeo and Margherita Trivulzio, members of the Milanese aristocracy. He studied successively at Bologna and Pavia, in which latter city he was the first pupil of the Borromeo College. Eater he went to Rome for higher studies and was there strongly influenced by St. Philip Neri, Cardinal Baronius, and Cardinal Bellarmine. In 1580 he began his ecclesiastical career under the guidance of St. Charles Borromeo. He was made cardinal at the age of twenty-three, in 1587, by Sixtus V; and, in 1595, Archbishop of Milan by Clement VIII, who personally consecrated him to this high office. During thirty-six years he gave the world an example of episcopal virtue, zeal, and dignity. He was tireless in preaching and in instructing both clergy and people, was anapostle of religious education and persistent reformer of all abuses, both lay and ecclesiastical. An almost constant conflict with the local Spanish authorities, suspicious and haughty by nature, did not diminish his sweetness of temper nor his patience; the traditional immunities and authority of the ecclesiastical order were defended as an inheritance of his see that he dared not abandon. Von Reumont thinks that, though often right, he went at times too far, e.g. in the assertion of minute ceremonial rights; it may be said, however, that in all probability it was the principle and substance of customary ecclesiastical rights that the fearless pastor ever intended to preserve and hand down. His affection for the people of Milan was made evident during the great famine and pest of 1627-28,when he fed daily 2,000 poor at the gates of his residence, and was personally an example of such absolute heroism that nearly one hundred of hisclergy (sixty-two parish priests and thirty-three vicars) gave up their lives in attendance on the perishing multitudes. Allessandro Manzoni has immortalized this extraordinary devotion in his “I Promessi Sposi” (The Betrothed). If Cardinal Borromeo shared the current excessive credulity in witchcraft and magic, he was in every other way far in advance of his time as a friend of the people and a promoter of intellectual culture and social refinement based on a practical religious life. He is the founder of the famous Ambrosian Library opened by him in 1609, as a college of writers, a seminary of savants, a school of fine arts, and after the Bodleian at Oxford the first genuinely public library in Europe. The cares of a thickly populated diocese did not prevent him from acquiring great ecclesiastical erudition or from composing some seventy-one printed andforty-six manuscript books written mostly in Latin that treat of variousecclesiastical sciences. The universal approbation of his own and later times is echoed in the following words from the above-mentioned work of Manzoni, engraved on the pedestal of the marble statue that the citizens of Milan erected in 1685 before the gates of the Ambrosiana Library; “He was one of those men rare in every age, who employed extraordinary intelligence, the resources of an opulent condition, the advantages of privileged station, and an unflinching will, in the search and practice of higher and better things.”
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His life was first written by Francesco Rivola (Milan, 1656), later by G.Ripamonti. Cantu, La Lombardia nel secolo XVII (Milan, 1882), which icludes a catalogue of his works; Roberti, Apologia del Card. Federigo Borromeo (Milan, 1870); Von Reumont in Kirchenler., II, sqq.; BouQuillon in Catholic University Bulletin (Washington, 1895), I, 566-572.
THOMAS J. SHAHAN Transcribed by Matthew Dean
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Borromeo, Federico
cousin of Cardinal Borromeo, was born at Milan in 1564. ” He resided first at Bologna and then at Pavia, and afterward went to Rome, where he was made a cardinal in 1587. He was both a classical and Oriental scholar, and was intimate at Rome with Baronio, Bellarminec and the pious philanthropist Filippo Neri. In 1595 he was made archbishop of Milan, where he adopted the views of his cousin and predecessor St. Charles, and enforced his regulations concerning discipline with great success. He used to visit by turns all the districts, however remote and obscure, in his diocese, and his zealous labors have been recently eloquently eulogized by Manzoni in his ‘Promessi Sposi.’ He was the founder of the Ambrosian Library, on which he spent very large sums; and he employed various learned men, who went about several parts of Europe and the East for the purpose of collecting manuscripts. About 9000 manuscripts were thus collected. Cardinal Borromeo established a printing-press, annexed to the library, and appointed several learned professors to examine and make known to the world these literary treasures. He also established several academies schools, and charitable foundations. His philanthropy, charity, and energy of mind were exhibited especially on the occasion of the famine which afflicted Milan in 1627-28, and also during the great plague of 1630 He died September 22, 1631.”-English Cyclopedia, s.v.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Borromeo, Federico (2)
cousin of Cardinal Borromeo, was born at Milan in 1564. ” He resided first at Bologna and then at Pavia, and afterward went to Rome, where he was made a cardinal in 1587. He was both a classical and Oriental scholar, and was intimate at Rome with Baronio, Bellarminec and the pious philanthropist Filippo Neri. In 1595 he was made archbishop of Milan, where he adopted the views of his cousin and predecessor St. Charles, and enforced his regulations concerning discipline with great success. He used to visit by turns all the districts, however remote and obscure, in his diocese, and his zealous labors have been recently eloquently eulogized by Manzoni in his ‘Promessi Sposi.’ He was the founder of the Ambrosian Library, on which he spent very large sums; and he employed various learned men, who went about several parts of Europe and the East for the purpose of collecting manuscripts. About 9000 manuscripts were thus collected. Cardinal Borromeo established a printing-press, annexed to the library, and appointed several learned professors to examine and make known to the world these literary treasures. He also established several academies schools, and charitable foundations. His philanthropy, charity, and energy of mind were exhibited especially on the occasion of the famine which afflicted Milan in 1627-28, and also during the great plague of 1630 He died September 22, 1631.”-English Cyclopedia, s.v.