Lorenzo Cozza

Friar Minor, cardinal, and theologian, b. at San Lorenzo near Bolsena, 31 March, 1654; d. at Rome, 18 January, 1729

Friar Minor

,

cardinal

, and

theologian

, b. at San Lorenzo near Bolsena, 31 March, 1654; d. at

Rome

, 18 January, 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 9 December, 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 Græcorum schismate" (Rome, 1719-20); "Commentarii historico-dogmatici" (Rome, 1707); and "Terra Sancta vindicata a calumniis", the last still unpublished.

Sources

MARCELLINO DA CIVEZZA, Saggio di Bibliografia Sanfrancescana (Prato, 1879), 129-130, n. 166; GOLUBOVICH, Serie dei Superiori di Terra Santa (Jerusalem, 1898), 98, n. 168; HURTER, Nomenclator, II, 1001; CARDELLA, Memorie storiche dei cardinali della S. Romana Chiesa (Rome, 1792), VIII, 223.