Giovanni Perrone

Giovanni Perrone (11 March 1794 – 26 August 1876) was an Italian theologian born in Chieri (Piedmont). After studying theology and obtaining the doctorate at Turin, he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome at age 21, on 14 December 1815. The Society had been re-established by Pius VII only a year before, and Perrone was very soon appointed to teach theology at Orvieto. In 1823 he was made professor of dogmatic theology at the Roman College. In 1830 he was made rector of the Jesuit college in Ferrara, from which he returned to his teaching work in Rome. The Roman Republic of 1848 forced him to seek refuge in England. After an exile of three years, Perrone again took the chair of dogma in the Roman College, being made head of his old college in 1850. He taught theology till prevented by old age. He was consultor of various congregations, and was active in opposing the errors of George Hermes as well as the discussions which ended in 1854 in the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception (cf. "Annali delli scienze religiose", VII). From 1869 he was prominent on the Ultramontane side in the Vatican Council. Of Perrone's many writings the most important is the "Prælectines Theologicæ", which has reached a thirty-fourth edition in nine volumes. The compendium which Perrone made of this work has reached forty-seven editions in two volumes. His complete theological lectures were published in French and have run through several editions; portions have been translated into Spanish, Polish, German, Dutch, and other languages. Sommervogel mentions forty-four different works by this great fellow-professor of Passaglia and Franzelin in the Roman College. His numerous dogmatic works are characteristic of orthodox modern Roman theology. They include Praelectiones theologicae, quas in Collegio Romano S. J. habebat Joannes Perrone. (9 vols., Rome, 1835 sqq.), Praelectiones hierologicae in compendium redactae (4 vols., Rome, 1845), Il Hermesianismo (Rome, 1838), Il Protestantismo e la regola di fede (3 vols., 1853), De divinitate D. N. Jesu Christi (3 vols., Turin, 1870).