BELLARMINE (Ital. Bellarmino), Robert Francis Romulus, Cardinal, Catholic theologian and polemic, was born, October 4, 1542, at Montepulciano, in Tuscany. He was destined by his father for state service, but his inclinations were too strong to be restrained, and at the age of eighteen he entered the Society of Jesus. After studying in various colleges for some years, he was appointed by the order to lecture on theology at the famous university of Louvain. His seven years’ residence in the Low Countries brought him into close relations with modes of thought differing essentially from his own, and so compelled him to define his theological principles more clearly and sharply than before. On his return to Italy he received from Gregory XIII. an appointment in the newly-founded Collegium Romanum, and began to deliver lectures on the principal points of difference between the Roman Catholic and other forms of faith. Out of these lectures grew his famous work, Disputationes de Controversiis Christianes Fidei adversus hujus temporis Hoereticos (3 vols., 1581, 1582, 1593), for long the finest polemical writing on the Catholic side, and still worthy of consideration. It was replied to at the time by Chemnitz, Gerhard, and Charnier, and continued for many years to furnish occasions of attack to Protestant theologians. So highly were Bellarmine’s abilities rated, that he was selected to accompany, in the capacity of divine or theologian, the legation sent into France in 1590 by Sixtus V. In 1599 he was, much against his will, raised to the dignity of cardinal, and two years later was made archbishop of Capua. He resigned the archbishopric in 1605, being detained in Rome by the desire of the newly-elected Pope Paul V. About the same time he had a con- ∙oversy with James I. of ...