Roberto Bellarmino was born in 1542 at Montepulciano in Tuscany; his mother was a sister of Pope Marcellus II. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1560 and studied in Rome and Padua. From 1569 he taught at Louvain, where, ordained priest in 1570, he became known as a preacher and as a lecturer who answered Protestant teaching from Scripture and the Fathers.
Called to the Roman College in 1576 to teach controversial theology, he published his great Disputations on the Controversies of the Christian Faith (1586–1593), which became the standard Catholic reply to the Reformers. He worked on the revised Latin Vulgate and wrote two catechisms in Italian, a short one and a fuller Declaration, which were translated into many languages and used for centuries.
Robert Bellarmine in the library (3 works)
- Declaración copiosa de la doctrina cristiana — 1598; edición de 1820 · en español
El catecismo mayor de Belarmino, usado durante siglos en España y en la América hispana. - Robert Bellarmine: The Art of Dying Well — 1619; translation 1847
The Jesuit cardinal's last book: to die well, one must live well. - Robert Bellarmine: The Mind's Ascent to God by a Ladder of Created Things — 1615; translation 1925
Fifteen steps from the world, the human person and the heavens up to the knowledge and love of God.