MANSI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO: Italian prelate and scholar; b. at Lucca Feb. 16, 1692; d. there Sept. 27, 1769. In 1708 he joined the "Regular Clerks of the Mother of God," founded at Lucca in 1583 by Giovanni Leonardi, devoted himself to theological teaching and writing, and became archbishop of Lucca in 1765. His literary productions are partly original, partly new and revised editions of famous older works. He issued new editions of Baronius' Annales together with the continuation of Raynaldus and the criticisms of Pagi (38 vols., Lucca, 1738-56), of Natalis and Graveson's Historia ecclesiastics, of Reiffenstuel's and later of Laymann's Theologia moralis, of the Vetus et nova ecclesim diseiplirut of Thomassin, and a number of others. He began his original work with a treatise on reserved cases in 1724; and his Epitome doctrinte moralis et canonicce (Venice, 1770), taken from the works of Benedict XIV., has been often reprinted. But his most celebrated works were concerned with the councils of the Church. In 1746 he published a chronological investigation of the councils of Sirmium and Sardica, and not long afterward began his renowned SartctoruM coneiliorum et decretorum collectio nova (6 vols., Lucca, 1748-52), intended as a supplement to the collection of Labbe, Cossart, and Coleti. It contains 320 papal briefs, the acts of 200 councils previously omitted, and notes on 380 councils whose acts are lost. At the request of the Venetian publisher Zatta, he undertook to reduce to unity and further supplement and annotate the labors of his predecessors; and the Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio was the result. He delivered the complete manuscript to the printer in 1765; thirty-one folio volumes appeared up to 1798, when its publication ceased with the Council of Florence (1439). Beginning in 1900, a facsimile of the earlier part has been coming out in Paris, which is intended to bring the work down to the end of the nineteenth century in forty-five volumes.

(G. Laubmann†.)

Bibliography: The biography by his associate Franceschini is in vol. xix. of Mansi's collection of councils; that by Dominic Pacchi is in J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca latina medic; et infimm oetatis, i., pp. xi.-xix., Florence, 1858. Consult also: A. Zatta, Commentarius de vita et scriptis J. D. Mansi, Venice, 1772; Lichtenberger, ESR, viii. 634-635; KL, viii. 626-627.