James De Vitri

, a celebrated cardinal in the thirteenth century, born at Vitry, a village near Paris, was canon of Ognies, then pastor of Argenteuil, attended the crusades, staid a long time in the Levant, and was made bishop of Acre, otherwise called Ptolemais. Gregory IX. created him cardinal in 1230, and gave him the bishopric of Frescati. He was afterwards legate in France, Brabant, and the Holy Land; in all which offices his zeal and prudence were remarkable. He died April 30, 1244, at Rome. He left many works, the most curious and most sought after among which, is an “Eastern and Western History,” ^in Latin, in “Gesta Dei per Francos,” by Canisius. The third book has been published, with some alterations, in the third volume of P. Martenne’s “Thesaurus Anecdotorum.” ²