Agostino Steuco

(STEUCHUS)

Exegete, born at Gubbio, Umbria, 1496; died at Venice, 1549. At the age of seventeen he entered the order of the Canons Regular of the Lateran at Gubbio, and in 1525 he was made director of the library of Cardinal Grimani at Venice. In 1530 he became prior of the canons of Reggio and shortly after at Gubbio. Early in 1538 he was appointed Bishop of Kisamos in Crete by Paul III, who also made him director of the Vatican Library on 27 Oct. of the same year, but in the latter capacity Steuco did not accomplish much (Pastor, "Geschichte Pauls III," Freiburg, 1909, p. 738). In 1547 Paul III sent him as legate to the Tridentine Council, which had been transferred to Bologna, and he died on his way back to Rome. He was a man of varied talents, well versed in history, philosophy, and theology, and had a fair mastery of Greek and Hebrew. His works, chiefly exegetical, were edited in three volumes by Ambrogio Morando (Paris, 1578; Venice, 1591 and 1601).