Dominis

Dominis, Marco Antonio de (1566-1624), a somewhat noted ecclesiastical trimmer, was born in the Island of Arbe in Dalmatia. He was educated by the Jesuits, and .became a professor of mathematics at Padua, where he wrote a work upon light and drew attention to the decomposition of the rays in the rainbow. He afterwards became Bishop of Segni, and then Archbishop of Spalato, but when a quarrel arose between the Pope and Venice he resigned his office. In 1616 he came to England, where he was well received by James I., who made him Dean of Windsor and Master of the Savoy. The next year he wrote a treatise, De Republicd Eeelesiasticd, in which he urged that the Pope was not supreme, but only primus inter pares. In 1619 he wrote a History of the Council of Trent, and in 1620, when his fellow-countryman Gregory XV. became Pope, he expressed a wish to be reconciled to the Holy See. In 1622 he desired to leave England, much to the disgust of the king, who tried to dissuade him and maintain his conversion. Failing in this, the king ordered him to leave in twenty days. At Brussels De Dominis wrote his Consilium Reditus, in which he recanted his errors, and then went on to Rome, where the Inquisition unkindly doubted his sincerity and put him in prison, where he died.