Tomasini, James Philip

, an Italian prelate and biographer, was born at Padua, Nov. 17, 1597, of a noble family, originally of Lucca. He was instructed in Greek, Latin, and logic, by the learned divine and lawyer, Benedetti, of Legnano, and afterwards entered the congregation of the regular canons of St. George, in Alga, where he studied philosophy and theology, and received the degree of doctor in the latter faculty at Padua, in 1619. He would then have made profession, but the rules of the congregation not permitting it, he employed himself in the composition of his various works. At length his merit advanced him to the first situations in his order; and when he went to Rome, as visitor, he was very favourably | received by many persons of eminence, and especially by pope Urban VIII. who would have appointed him to a bishopric in the island of Candy, but at his own request this was exchanged for the see of Citta Nuova, in Istria, to which he was consecrated in 1642. Study and the care of his diocese occupied the whole of his time until his death in 1654, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

He wrote, 1. “Illustrium viror.ucn Elogia iconibus exornata,” Padua, 1630, 4to. Th portraits in this volume (which is by no means uncommon in this country) amounting to forty-five, are well engraven, and taken from pictures in his collection. The lives or eloges are short, but accurate. He published a second volume in 1644, but this is less common. 2. “Titus Livius Patavinus,” ibid. 1630, 4to; a life of Livy, of which a much improved edition was published at Amsterdam in 1670. He published also other single lives, and had intended a biography of all the authors of Padua, but published only a “Prodromus Athenarum Patavinarum,” 1633, 4 to. 3. “Petrarcha redivivus integratn Poetae celeberrimi vitam iconibus aere cselatis exhibens,” ibid. 1635, 4to, and reprinted with additions in 1650. 4. Clarissimae fceminae Cassandra Fidelis Venetae epistolae et orationes posthumae,“&c. ibid. 1636, 12mo. 5.” De Donariis ac Tabellis votivis liber singulari.*,“Utin. 1639, 4to, reprinted and enlarged, at Padua, 1654, 4to, and inserted by Graevius in the 12th volume of his Roman antiquities. 6.” Laurae Ceratae Epistolae, cum notis et vita,“&c. Padua, 1640, 12mo. 7.” Bibliothecae Patavinac Manuscriptae publicae et privatae, quibus diversi scriptores hactenus incogniti recensentur,“ibid. 1639, 4to. 8.” BibJiothecae Venetae Mss. publicae et privatae,“Utin. 16.50, 4to. He wrote some other works on the antiquities of Padua, and closed his labours with his” Gymnasium Pat.ivinum," 1654, 4to, a kind of history of the university of Padua. ¹