Lorenzo Cozza

Friar Minor, cardinal, and theologian, b. at San Lorenzo near Bolsena, 31 March, 1654; d. at Rome, 18 January, 1729. He filled the position of lector at Naples and Viterbo, where he became guardian of theconvent. Cardinal Sacchetti chose Cozza as his confessor and adviser, thus giving rise to a friendship that lasted through life. While in the Orient, whither he had been sent as superior of the Franciscan monastery in Jerusalem, Cozza found leisure to compose several important works, and as legate of the supreme pontiff he reconciled the Maronites and the Patriarch Jacobus Petrus of Antioch, who had long been at variance with the Holy See. In 1715 he returned to Rome, in 1723 was electedminister general, and on 9 December, 1726, was made cardinal by Benedict XIII. The remaining years of his life were passed at Rome in quiet and study in the littleconvent of St. Bartholomew on the Island. His writings include "Historia polemica de Græcorum schismate" (Rome, 1719-20); "Commentarii historico-dogmatici" (Rome, 1707); and "Terra Sancta vindicata a calumniis", the last still unpublished.