Daniello Bartoli

An historian and littérateur , born at Ferrara, 12 February, 1608; died in Rome, 12 January, 1685. After a brilliant course of studies under the Jesuits, he entered the novitiate of San Andrea, Rome, in 1623, before the completion of his sixteenth year. The story of the labors and sufferings of the members of the Society of Jesus in the Indies and Japan awakened in the youthful religious an ardent desire to emulate the zeal and devotion of the missionaries. He asked to be sent on the foreign missions, but Father Mutius Vitelleschi, the General of the Order, kept him in Italy. After some years of teaching, Father Bartoli began his apostolic career as a preacher, his sermons meeting with extraordinary success in Ferrara, his native place, Genoa, Lucca, Florence, and Rome. He was engaged in this fruitful ministry when the contemplation of the evils to youth, caused by the reading of romances, suggested one of his first books, "The Learned Man ". This work was received with great applause and is said to have gone through eight editions in the first year of its publication; it was translated into French, German, and English.

The success of this venture decided the vocation of Father Bartoli as a writer. He was called to Rome by his superiors in 1650, and from that time until his death he published many works in history as well as other departments of literature, all of them written in Italian. The best known and the most important is a history of the Society of Jesus, which appeared in Rome from 1650 to 1673, in six volumes folio, and was translated into Latin by Father Janin, S.J. Bartoli's works were collected and published in Florence in 1826, in 50 volumes, 16mo. He is universally esteemed for his erudition, as well as for the purity and elegance of his style. His fellow countrymen have honored him with a place among the classical writers of the Italian language.