GOTTI, VINCENZO LODOVICO

Dominican philosopher, theologian, apologist, cardinal priest of St. Sixtus, and patriarch of Jerusalem; b. Bologna, Sept. 5, 1664; d. Rome, Sept. 18, 1742. The son of Jacob Gotti, professor of law at the University of Bologna, he entered the order at 16 and studied philosophy at Forli and theology at Salamanca. He lectured in philosophy at Mantua, the Roman College of St. Thomas (Minerva), and Bologna, and in theology at Faenza and Bologna. Gotti was three times prior of the Dominican convent at Bologna and twice provincial of the Lombardy province. His first significant work in apologetics dates from his two-year sojourn in Milan (1715–17) as inquisitor general; entitled La vera chiesa di Cristo (Bologna 1719, 1750; Milan 1734), this is a systematic treatise refuting the errors of the Swiss Calvinist minister Jacques Picenini. On April 30, 1728, Pope Benedict XIII named him titular patriarch of Jerusalem and added him to the college of cardinals, conferring the red hat on June 10 of the same year. In addition to his administrative duties as a member of no fewer than ten sacred congregations, Gotti continued writing on questions of clerical reform and in defense of the authority of the pope. In all his works the apologetical method predominated; he drew his dogmatic defense against Jansenistic, sectarian heresies from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Bibliography: v gotti, Colloquia theologica polemica in tres classes distributa (Bologna 1727); Theologia scholasticodogmatica juxta mentem Divi Thomae Aquinatis ad usum discipulorum (Bologna 1727–35; 2d ed. Venice 1750; 3d ed. 1783); De eligenda inter dissentientes Christianos sententia adversus Joannem Clericum reformatae…, 2 v. (Vienna 1750). r. coulon, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique., ed. a. vacant et al. (Paris 1903–50) 6.2:1503–07. h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiaea catholicae (Innsbruck 1903–13) 4:1353–57. j. quÉtif and j. Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum (New York 1959) 2.2:814. a. walz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 4:1142. t. a. ricchini, De vita et studiis Pr. Vincentii Ludovici Card. Gotti… (Rome 1742).

[f. j. roensch]