Luigi Mozzi

Luigi Mozzi

Controversialist, born at Bergamo, 26 May, 1746; died near Milan, 24 June, 1813. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1763, and on its suppression was received into the Diocese of Bergamo, where he was shortly made a canon, and appointed archpriest and examiner of candidates for the priesthood. The zeal and ability with which he opposed the progress of Jansenism in Italy gained him a well-merited reputation, and Pius VI called him to Rome, where he became an Apostolic missionary. He was elected a member of the Accademia degli Arcadi (see ACADEMIES, ROMAN). In 1804 he hastened to rejoin the Society, which had been restored in Naples. Worn out at length by his charitable labours and penitential practices, he retired to the residence of Marquis Scotti near Milan, where he died. Among his important writings are: "Vera idea del Giansenismo" (1781); "Storia compendiosa della scisma della nuova chiesa d'Utrecht" (Ferrara, 1785); "Storia delle revoluzioni della Chiesa d'Utrecht" (Venice, 1787); "Compendio storico-cronologico...sopra il Baianismo, Giansenismo e Quesnellismo" (Foligno, 1792), all against Jansenism; "Il falso discepolo di S. Agostino e di S. Tommaso" (Venice, 1779), a defence of Molinism. He translated from the English the Duke of Brunswick's "Fifty Reasons for preferring the Roman Catholic Religion" (Bassano, 1789); and from the French, "Les projets des incredules pour la ruine de la religion, dévoil;és dans les oeuvres de Frédéric, roi de Prusse" (Assisi, 1791).

HURTER, Nomenclator, III, 540; Vita del P.L. Mozzi (Novara, 1823).

A.A. MACERLEAN