Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/296

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244

FRASSEN


244


FRATICBLLI


title of Patrician and Senator, and obtained from the Romans the assurance that after his death his son Octavian should be made jiope (John XII). When Jolin XII was deposed ('J(i:i), the Counts of Tusculum yielded for a time to the Orescenzi, but their power was soon restored to them. From 1012 to 1044 tliree popes of the great Tusculan family succeeded one an- other: Benedict VIII, his brother John XIX, and their nephew Benedict IX. The Tusculan domina- tion, it is well known, was far from creditable to the Roman Church. Benedict VIII alone has a claim to our respect (Kleinermanns, "Papst Benedict VIII", in "Der Katholik", 1S87, II, 407, 4S0, 624). It was Count Gregory I, father of Benedict VIII, who gave to St. Nilus (1002) the monastery of Grottaferrata. In the conflict over Investitures between Paschal II and Henry V (1111), while Tolomeo, Count of Tusculum, was on the emperor's side, Cardinal-Bishop Giovanni led the Roman opposition to Henry. Under Alexan- der III, however, Bishop Imaro sided withAntipope Victor IV, though Tusculum itself was in favour of Pope Alexander. The town also opposed the Roman Senate in its attempt to deprive the popes of their tem- poral power. In 1182 the Romans made war on Tus- culum, whereupon Archbishop Christian of Mainz was called in by Pope Lucius III and defeated the Romans. In 1191, Henry VI recalled the German garrison from Tusculum and, as a result, the town was soon de- stroyed by the Romans and never regained its former prestige (Lugari, L'origine di Frascati e la distru- zione di Tivoli, Rome, 1891).

In time the people of Tusculum gathered around the Castello di San Cesario, and the village thus begun was called Frascati, either because of the fraschc (wat- tles) of which the first huts were built, or because the locality had already been known as Frascaria, which in Low Latin means a place covered with underbrush. From the fifteenth century Frascati once more be- came a favourite health resort of Roman cardinals and nobles. Foremost among the edifices that soon orna- mented Frascati are the Villa Mondragone, built by Cardinal Marco Sittico d'Altemps, a nephew of Pius IV, a vast structure with a splendid portico, now used as a Jesuit college; Villa Taverna, now Borghesiana, founded in 1614; Villa Falconieri, the work of Bor- romini (1648), with paintings by Carlo Marat ta (The Birth of Venus), Giro Ferri, and Pierleone Ghezzi (caricatures and portraits of himself); in 1901 it was bought by the Trappists and now belongs to the Ger- man Emperor; Villa Lancellotti with its glorious forest drives, where may be seen the little church of San Michele, over which is a small room in which Car- dinal Baronius wrote his "Annales Ecclesiastici"; Villa Rufinella, higher up the hill, a Jesuit college from 1740 to 1773, which later belonged to the House of Savoy, and is now united to the Villa Lancellotti; Villa Aldobrandini (or Belvedere), the most beautiful of the Frascati villas, built in 1603 by Pietro Cardinal Aldobrandini from designs by Giovanni Fontana, with paintings by II Cavaliere d'Arpino and by Domeni- chino (the Myth of Apollo); Villa Torlonia, with its numerous fountains; Villa Sora, built by (Jregory XIII, now used as a Salesian boarding school. Among the important churches are: the cathedral, the work of Girolamo Fontana; the Gesil, with its imitation cupola painted by the Jesuit Oblate Pozzo; San Rocco, formerly known as S. Maria in Vivario, the cathedral until 1700; Madonna di Capo Croce, and Madonna delle Scuole Pie.

Among the Tusculum bishops of note are Egidius, sent by John XII to Poland in 964; the learned Jac- ques de Vitry (1228), who preached against the Al- bigenses; Pietro di Lisbona (1276), chief physician of Gregory IX, and afterwards pope as John XXI; Ber- engarius of Frddol (1309), who collaborated on the "Liber Sextus Decretalium" of Boniface VIII; Bal- dassare Cossa (1419), after his submission to Martin


V; Giuliano Cesarini (1444); Bessarion (1449); Ales- sandro Farnese (1519), afterwards Paul III; Giovanni Pietro Caraffa (1550), afterwards Paul IV; Giovanni Antonio Serbelloni (1583); Lorenzo Corsini (1725), afterwards Clement XII; Henrv Benedict, Duke of York (1761-1807), son of James'lII, the English Pre- tender (Cardinal York left his rare collection of books to the seminary library); Bartolomeo Paeca (1818); Francesco Xaverio Castiglione (1821), afterwards Pius VIII; Luigi Micara, the Capuchin (1837); Jean-Bap- tiste Pitra (1879); and Francesco di Paola Satolli (1904), for several years the first Apostolic Delegate at Washington, U. S. A. In the Diocese of Frascati is situated Monte Compatri, the ancient Labicum, whose cardinal-bishops are often mentioned in medieval his- tory. The diocese has 8 parishes and 16,000 souls, 9 monasteries for men (among them the famous Abbey of Grottaferrata, and one Camaldolese monastery) .

ToMMASSETTi, Delta campagna Honmna in Archivio della Realc Societa Romana di Storia Patria, IX, sqq.; Cappelletti, Le Chiese d' Italia (Venice, 1844), I, 625-51; Mattei, Memorie isloriche dell' anlico Tuscolo (Rome, 1836); Grossi-CJondi, Le ville tusculane del rinascimento (Rome, 1901); Idem, Le ville tusculane deli etii classica (Rome, 1907).

LT. Benigni.

Frassen, Claude, celebrated Scotist theologian and philosopher of the Order of Friars Minor; b. near P^ronne, France, in 1620; d. at Paris, 26 February, 1711. He entered the Franciscan Order at P^ronne in his seventeenth year; and after the year of novitiate was sent to Paris, where he completed his studies and remained for thirty years as professor of philosophy and theology. In 1662 he was made doctor of the Sorbonne, and as definitor general, to which office he was elected in 1082, he took part in the general chap- ters of the order at Toledo and Rome. Outside of the order his counsel was sought not only by ecclesiastics but likewise by secular dignitaries. King Louis XIV of France, in particular, holding him in high esteem. He died at the ripe old age of ninety-one years, seventy- four of which he had spent in religion. Of the writings of Frassen the best known is his " Scotus Academicus ' '. This work is rightly considered one of the most impor- tant and scholarly presentations of the theology of Duns Scotus. Few% if any, of the numerous interpre- ters and commentators of Scotus have succeeded so well as Frassen in combining simplicity of style and clearness of method with that subtleness of thought which characterizes Scotistic theology as a whole. The value of the work is enhanced by frequent quotations from the Fathers, and by an impartial statement of all controverted questions in scholastic theology. The first volume is prefaced with a chronological list and a brief historical and dogmatical account of the different heresies from the beginnings of Christianity to the fif- teenth century. The latest edition of the "Scotus Academicus", published by the Friars Minor (Rome, 1900-02) in twelve volumes, was prepared from notes left by the author himself and preserved in the Biblio- theque Nationale of Paris. Earlier editions w-ere those of Paris (1672-77), Rome (1721), and Venice (1744). Frassen is also the author of a "Cursus Philosophite", published at Paris in 1688 and at Venice in 1767. On Scripture, he wrote " Disquisitiones Biblicae", vol. I (Paris, 1682); vol. II: "Disquisitiones in Penta- teuchum" (Rouen, 1705).

HuRTER, Nomenclator.

Stephen M. Donovan.

' Fraticelli (or Fratricelli), a name given to vari- ous heretical sects which appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, principally in Italy. The word being frci|viently a misnomer, a definition is apposite. Considered ])hil(>logieally, FruliccUi is a diminutive derived from tlio Italian jrulc (plural Jrati). Friiti was a designation of the ineinl)ers iif the mendicant orders founded during the thirteenth i-cntury, principally the Franciscans or Friars Minor. The Latin Fratcrndus