MALVENDA, TOMÁS

Dominican theologian, historian, and exegete; b. Játiva, Spain, May 1566; d. Valencia, May 7, 1628. While still a young professor of sacred sciences, Malvenda so impressed C. baronius with his critique (published in 1600) of that scholar's Annales Ecclesiastici that he was invited in the following year to Rome, where he assisted in emendations on this work and on Baronius's recension of the Roman Martyrology. At Rome Malvenda was the principal reviser of the Dominican Breviary, Martyrology, and Missal; and here he annotated Brasichelli's Librorum prohibitorum index expurgatorius, edited M. de La Bigne's Biblotheca SS. Patrum, gathered material for his Annales O.P. (published in 1627 without his approval), and wrote De Antichristo libri XI (1604) and De paradiso voluptatis (1605). After returning to Spain in 1608, when he was made provincial of the Aragon Dominican province, he undertook a literal Latin translation of the Hebrew OT, with commentary, which reached Ez 16.16 at the time of his death. It was later published as Commentaria in S. Scripturam, una cum nova de verbo in verbum ex hebraeo translatione … (5 v. Lyons 1650).

See Also: martyrologies.

Bibliography: j.quÉtif and j. Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum (New York 1959) 2.1:454–457. Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 11:62, 77, 84. h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae l33:763–767.

[l. f. hartman]