Prierias: The Life and Works of Silvestro da Prierio, 1456–1527 by Michael Tavuzzi (review)

498 BOOK REVIEWS winds that are blowing. For any priest feeling left out in that cold, there is some shelter to take in this book. Saint Meinrad School of Theology St. Meinrad, Indiana GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B. Prierias: The Life and Works of Silvestro da Prierio, 1456-1527. By MICHAEL TAVUZZI. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. Pp 190. $39.95. ISBN 0-8223-1976-4 (cloth). Michael Tavuzzi, O.P., has previously published studies on Italian Dominican theologians at the beginning of the sixteenth century which bring to light some forgotten contemporaries of Luther and Erasmus: "An unedited Oratio by Tommaso Rodini Tedeschi, OP (1488-1527)," Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 32 (1994): 43-63 (with edited text); "Valentino da Camerino, OP (1438-1515), Teacher and Critic of Cajetan," Traditio 49 (1994): 287-316; and "Gaspare di Baldassare da Perugia, OP (1465-1531)," The Thomist 60 (1996): 595-615. Tavuzzi has recently presented the work of Prierias from the particular perspective of the interest which Prierias showed in the princeps Thomistarum: "Capreolus in the works of Silvestro da Prierio, OP (14561527 )," in jean Capreolus en son temps, 1380-1444, Memoire Dominicaine, special number 1 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1997), 229-58. Though this article was published prior to this latest work, it is not mentioned here. This new work on Prierias fills a gap and will render a great service to researchers. The analyses are precise but are often put back into the context; the style is sober and concise to the point of being a bit dry; the texts are clearly presented and are largely cited in notes at the end of the volume. The plan is strictly biographical, tracing the brilliant but laborious career of the Dominican theologian, a career much different from that of the extraordinarily gifted Cajetan (92). Tavuzzi divides the life of Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio into four chapters whose titles correspond to roles he filled: "Friar Preacher, 1456-1487"; "RegentMaster, 1487-1502"; "Prior and Vicar General of the Reformed Lombard Congregation, 1503-1515"; "Master of the Sacred Palace, 1515-1527." After examining the contradictory historiography on the circumstances and date of his death, the author concludes: "Nothing is known of the manner of Silvestro's death in mid-1527. Taurisano (Hierarchia ordinis praedicatorum, 1916) suggested that Silvestro probably died during the Sack of Rome. This conjecture is extremely plausible, for it is only the chaotic conditions of Rome during that event which can explain why the death of the BOOK REVIEWS 499 Magister Magistrorum passed unnoticed and without leaving any precise record" (130). A very useful list of Prierias's works published in Latin and Italian between 1496 and 1523 or 1524 is given in an appendix, along with indications of subsequent editions. This list permits the reader to determine the Dominican's best-sellers: Aurea rosa, an exposition on the gospel pericopes for all the Sundays of the year and saints' feasts, published in Bologna in 1503 with eighteen later editions, particularly at Bologna, Lyon, and Venice; and the celebrated Summa summarum, also known as the Summa Silvestrina, similarly published for the first time in Bologna in 1513 with twenty-eight subsequent editions during the sixteenth century, sixteen of which were published in Lyon. The diverse works against Luther also knew a certain success, but Tavuzzi refers us to the work of P. Fabisch and E. Iserloh, who have made an inventory of these editions (Dokumente zur causa Lutheri (1517-1521) [Munster, 1988]). Those who are interested in Dominican history will find this book very useful, especially for its description, its particular perspective on the career of Prierias, and its discussion of the rivalries between the reformed friars and the conventuals. The book also throws light on the theological debates that opposed this theologian to Cajetan, especially with respect to the position the latter adopted on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul put forth by Pomponazzi. This debate is the object of the Conflatum ex angelica doctore S. Thoma (Perugia, 1519) from which Tavuzzi has chosen an illustration as the frontispiece of his own work. But it is the Prierias we encounter in the works on the Church in the sixteenth century whom...