TROMBELLI, JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Theologian; b. Galeazza near Nonantola, March 5, 1697; d. Bologna, Italy, Jan. 7, 1784. Educated at Bologna, he joined the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Savior in 1713. He taught philosophy at Candiana (Padua) and, for 15 years, theology at Bologna. In 1746 he was named academician of the Bologna Institute of Sciences. In 1737 he was elected abbot and subsequently held the highest offices of his Congregation: superior in Bologna (1739), secretary to the abbot-general (1751), and abbott-general (1760). In 1740 he published the six-volume theological work, De cultu sanctorum dissertationes decem (Bologna), attacked by the Protestants and praised by Benedict XIV. In reply to the criticisms of the Protestant J. Kiesling, he published Priorum quatuor de cultu sanctorum dissertationum vindiciae (Bologna 1751). He has left numerous theological and historical works: Trattato degli Angeli Custodi (Bologna 1747), Vita e culto di S. Giuseppe (Bologna 1767), and B.M.V. vita ac gesta, 6 v. (Bologna 1761), reprinted in J. Migne, Summa Aurea (Paris 1866). He also wrote a history of his own institute, Ricerche istoriche concernenti le due canoniche di S. Maria di Reno e di S. Salvatore (Bologna 1752). The two-volume Veterum Patrum Latinorum opuscula (Bologna 1751), containing some doubtful and apocryphal writings, is characteristic of his interest in patristics.

Bibliography: De vita J. C. Trombelli commentarius [by v. garofalo] (Bologna 1788). h. hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae, 5 v. in 6 (3d ed. Innsbruck 1903–13) 5.1:331–334.

[l. loschiavo]