Bonaventura Baron

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Bonaventura Baron was a distinguished Irish Franciscan theologian, philosopher, teacher and writer of Latin prose and verse.^[1]

[edit] Biography

He was born at Clonmel in County Tipperary, in 1610; died at Rome on 18 March, 1696. His mother was a sister of the well-known Franciscan Luke Wadding and his brother Geoffrey Baron was a trusted 'ambassador' of the Irish Confederates in their negotiations with the continental rulers. He himself joined the Franciscan community of Clonmel, pursued his studies in philosophy at the university of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium.

Afterwards he proceeded to Rome, where he took up his residence in the Irish College of St. Isidore founded by his uncle, Father Wadding. Here, on the completion of his theological course, he was appointed professor and devoted himself specially to a defence of the Scotist system then generally assailed. During his stay in Rome he published numerous works on theology, philosophy and history, all listed below.

About the year 1651 he left Rome, owing, it is said, to some difficulty with the papal Master of the sacred palace, and went first to a house of his order at Schwaz in Tyrol, and then to Salzburg, where he was kindly received by Archbishop Guidobald. He was sent as provincial commissary into Habsburg Hungary (about 1656), was again in Schwaz (1661), went to Paris, taught for some time at Würzburg, where he published a volume of his "Opuscula" (1668), taught theology at Lyon in southern France and finally returned to Italy. It is said that representations were made to secure his appointment to the Archbishopric of Cashel, but that he declined the office. He was appointed historiographer in 1676 by Cosmo I de' Medici, Grand-duke of Tuscany and was elected a member of the Academy of Florence.

He died on 18 March, 1696, and was buried at St. Isidore's in Rome, where his tomb with the inscription, written by John De Burgo, a rector of the college, still exists.

Two contemporary oil paintings of him have come down to us, one preserved in St. Isidore's, the other in the Franciscan house, Dublin.

[edit] Writings

While under the patronage of the grand-duke he published the "Trias Tuscia", in honour of three remarkable religious of Tuscany, and in the same year the "Orbes Medicei".

His principal works are:

"Panegyrici Sacroprophani" (Rome, 1643; Lyon, 1656)
"Obsidio et expugnatio Arcis Duncannon sub Thoma Preston"
"Praelusiones Philosophicae" (Rome, 1651; Lyon, 1661); "Boetius Absolutus" (Rome, 1653)
"Scotus defensus et amplificatus" (3 volumes, Cologne, 1664)
"Cursus Theologicus" (6 volumes, 1670)
"Opuscula" (4 volumes of 'small works', 1666-71)
"Annales Ordinis Sanctae Trinitatis pro redemptione captivorum ab anno 1198 usque ad annum 1297" (Rome, 1864), his last work, a history of the Order for Redemption of Captives (Trinitarians), from 1198 till 1297.