WADDING, Luke (1588-1657), ecclesiastical historian, born at Waterford in 1588, emigrated with his parents to Spain in early youth, and from Spain passed to Portugal, to study at the Irish College in Lisbon. While still a student, he entered the order of Cordeliers, or Friars Minim, in 1604, taking the name Michael Angelo of St Romulus, and his early reputation for learning soon obtained for him a professorship of theology at Salamanca. Philip III. of Spain was anxious to procure the formal definition of the Immaculate Conception B. V. M., which had been left open by the council of Trent, and sent Diego de Torres, bishop of Cartagena, as ambassador to the pope for that purpose. Torres, being himself a Cordelier, made choice of Wadding to accompany him on his embassy, and the young divine created so favourable an impression at Rome that another chair of theology was bestowed upon him there, and he was made vice-commissary and procuratorgeneral of his order. He made Rome his headquarters for the remainder of his life, dying there as principal of the Irish College of St Isidore in 1657....
His earliest publication was an account of the embassy in which he had taken part, ∏ ρεσβεία , sive Legatio Philippi III. et IV., Ηispaniarum Regum, ad Summos Pontifices Paulum V., Gregorium X V., et Urbanum VIII., pro definienda Controversia Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae Virginis (Louvain, 1624, fol.). He contributed, many years later, a work to this question himself, Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae Opusculum (Rome, 1655, 8vo), now of extreme rarity. He was also author of a treatise on the Hebrew language and other occasional writings, but his literary reputation rests chiefly upon the important works he published in connexion with the Franciscan order. The principal of these are Annales Ordinis Minonιm, 8 vols. folio (Lyons and Rome, 1628- 1654), a book of high repute, recast and enlarged by Fonseca, 19 vols. folio (Rome, 1731-1745), and since continued by Michelesi, 1794, and Melchiori de Ceretto, 1844; Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (Rome, 1650), to which is subjoined a reprint of a Syllabus FF. Minorum, a list of the English Franciscans who were put to death in Tudor days, which had become extremely rare, because most of the original impression was sent to England during the legateship of Cardinal Pole, and was seized and destroyed by order of Queen Elizabeth, because of its reflexions upon the character of Henry VIII.; an edition of the Concordantiae Bibliorum Hebraicae of Calasio, 4 vols. folio (Rome, 1621); Opera Omnia Joannis Buns Scoti, 12 vols. in 11, folio (Lyons, 1639); Sti Francisci Assisiatis Opuscula (Antwerp, 1623); and Sti Antonii Paduani Concordantiae Morales (Rome, 1624).
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