Antonio Possevino was a Jesuit protagonist of Counter Reformation as a papal diplomat and a Jesuit controversialist, polemicist, encyclopedist, and bibliographer.
20 Facts About Antonio Possevino
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Antonio Possevino was the first Jesuit to visit Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, Livonia, Hungary, Pomerania, and Saxony in amply documented papal missions between 1578 and 1586 where he championed the enterprising policies of Pope Gregory XIII.
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Antonio Possevino's father was Piedmontese from Asti and moved to Mantua where he joined the guild of goldsmiths.
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Antonio Possevino's mother nursed her son Antonio in 1533 together with Francesco III Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.
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In 1549 at seventeen Antonio Possevino came to study with his brother in Rome and met the leading intellectuals at the Renaissance court of pope Julius III, the patron of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and the builder of Villa Giulia.
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Antonio Possevino moved with them to the literary capital of Italy, the city of Ferrara ruled by the House of Este.
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Antonio Possevino was connected with the Aristotelian revival associated with Francis Robortello and Vincenzo Maggi that generated many treatises on literary and courtly matters including his brother's Dialogo dell'honore and his early works.
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Antonio Possevino had become an expert in the historical training of princes and was writing commentaries on this battle exalting the victory of Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy.
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In 1560 Antonio Possevino was accompanied by Jesuit General Diego Lainez to the Savoy of Emanuele Filiberto where he bolstered the Catholic Church against heretics and he founded the Jesuit schools at Chambery, Mondovi and Turin.
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Antonio Possevino published a treatise on the Mass, Il sacrificio dell'altare and debated such Geneva reformers as Pierre Viret and the Italian Calvinist, Niccolo Balbani.
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Antonio Possevino served as the rector of the Jesuit college of Avignon and then of Lyons where he received the Jesuit General Francis Borgia in 1571 on a journey from Spain to Rome.
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Antonio Possevino was there during the St Bartholomew's Day massacre.
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When Borgia died, Antonio Possevino returned to Rome for the third Jesuit General Congregation and stayed on as the Latin secretary to Everard Mercurian, Jesuit general from 1572 until 1578.
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Antonio Possevino left a valuable account of his nunciature in his description of the Tsardom of Muscovy.
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Antonio Possevino wrote accounts of his travels in Transylvania and Livonia.
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Antonio Possevino was banned from Rome as too political and exiled to Venetian territory.
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In Padua Antonio Possevino continued to conduct the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises thus influencing the vocation of the Bishop and Saint Francis de Sales there as a student of law.
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Antonio Possevino's sections were carefully reviewed by the leading professors of the Roman College including Christopher Clavius and Robert Bellarmine.
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Antonio Possevino was sent to relative obscurity in nearby Ferrara where he wrote several polemical tracts under various pseudonyms concerning the pro-Catholic False Dmitriy I, the Venetian Interdict and other controversial issues.
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Antonio Possevino appears in the early chapters of Alison Macleod's historical novel "Prisoner of the Queen", in which he is the beloved and admired mentor of the protagonist.