Lorenzo Cozza

Cozza, LORENZO, Friar Minor, cardinal, and theologian, b. at San Lorenzo near Bolsena, March 31, 1654; d. at Rome, January 18, 1729. He filled the position of lector at Naples and Viterbo, where he became guardian of the convent. Cardinal Sacchetti chose Cozza as his confessor and adviser, thus giving rise to a friendship that lasted through life. While in the Orient, whither he had been sent as superior of the Franciscan monastery in Jerusalem, Cozza found leisure to compose several important works, and as legate of the supreme pontiff he reconciled the Maronites and the Patriarch Jacobus Petrus of Antioch, who had long been at variance with the Holy See. In 1715 he returned to Rome, in 1723 was elected minister general, and on December 9, 1726, was made cardinal by Benedict XIII. The remaining years of his life were passed at Rome in quiet and study in the little convent of St. Bartholomew on the Island. His writings include “Historia polemica de Graecorum schismate” (Rome, 1719-20); “Commentarii historico-dogmatici” (Rome, 1707); and “Terra Sancta vindicata a calumniis”, the last still unpublished.

STEPHEN M. DONOVAN